Want to improve your email open and click rates, but scared you might end up compromising data or personal information? It’s a common fear, but in our world of constant cybersecurity incidents, it should probably get even more attention than it does.
If your organization falls under the HIPAA regulatory framework, you need to have an even greater level of concern about how information security can be compromised amid the constant push to leverage data for more effective marketing and engagement.
While you may think that data security is at odds with the goal of boosting open and click rates, there are ways that you can find a suitable balance between the two.
Boosting Open & Click Rates
Almost every organization wants to ensure its long term success, and those in the health industry are not immune from this tendency. In today’s hyper-competitive marketplace, a large portion of this comes down to being able to stand out from the crowd, particularly through email marketing.
One of the most critical aims of email marketing is to achieve high open and click rates. Performing well in these metrics tends to bring in more business, which is an important part of keeping the lights on.
But how are high open and click rates achieved?
Under normal circumstances, it’s important for the subject lines and messages to be well-written, engaging, and targeting the right groups with the right propositions. The more relevant your subject line is to an individual, the more likely they are to open it. The more appealing or useful its contents, the more likely that the person will take your desired action.
So the burden of success tends to fall on the shoulders of your copywriters. They need to be able to get into the minds of their prospective recipients and create an appeal that matches the recipients’ needs and desires. This is fundamentally how high open and click rates are achieved.
But people are not monolithic, and a message that works for one will be a dismal failure on another. This brings us to segmenting email lists into groups with commonalities, and targeting them appropriately.
Targeting Customers to Boost Open & Click Rates – What About ePHI?
If you are in the health industry or process electronic protected health information (ePHI) on behalf of others, you have to be cautious about how you use your data to target those on your email list. This data may be incredibly helpful for targeting people with the appropriate messages, but it can very easily result in HIPAA violations.
Even something as simple as sending out a newsletter about anorexia to a group of anorexia patients could be considered ePHI, because the recipients’ emails, plus the information about their medical conditions, or the fact that they visited your facility, can tick both of the boxes that determine whether or not information counts as ePHI.
This makes it incredibly easy to end up on the wrong side of HIPAA by accident. Your organization may never intend to send emails that contain ePHI, but a staff member could send something seemingly benign, only for it to result in the serious ramifications of a HIPAA violation.
Because of the ease of making these mistakes and the significant consequences of doing so, it’s best for organizations to use a HIPAA-compliant email marketing service if there is even the slightest chance that ePHI could accidentally be sent in a message.
HIPAA-Compliant Email Marketing Services: High Open & Click Rates Without the Risk
While HIPAA-compliant service providers are critical for reducing your organization’s risks, there aren’t a whole lot of options. Quasi-HIPAA compliant providers may allow you to store ePHI in their databases, but their complicated configurations and incomplete security (i.e., they do not send encrypted emails) could easily lead your organization to violate HIPAA regulations.
LuxSci’s Secure Marketing is one of the only services that allows you to send marketing messages that may contain ePHI, without facing major risks. The security mechanisms and HIPAA compliance built into the Secure Marketing service allow you to use your customer data without having to worry about falling foul of HIPAA.
This means that LuxSci’s service allows you to safely use your data to target recipients with relevant and effective messages. You can send a newsletter on anorexia to those that suffer from the disease, or a reminder to take a bowel cancer screening for those most susceptible.
Our Secure Marketing service helps you target groups with the information they really need, rather than just spamming your entire list with various information and hoping that some small portion of your audience finds it interesting.
Not only does this prevent people from unsubscribing because they are sick of receiving a bunch of irrelevant emails, but it also makes it much easier to achieve high open and click rates and positive, active engagement. This is because you can target smaller groups with messages that are specifically designed to appeal to them.
Secure Marketing can help you get past the poor ROI of mass emails, without having to worry about violating HIPAA. LuxSci’s Secure Marketing customers that follow best practices have been achieving open and click far above the normal expected rates in the industry, which are around 10-20% for opening and 1-2% for clicking.
With such dramatic differences, Secure Marketing can be the missing piece of the puzzle that helps your organization leverage its data without the usual risks. Contact our staff to find out how LuxSci’s Secure Marketing can help improve your business’ open and click rates.
