Get Patients on Your Schedule THIS WEEK with this Simple Email Template [Episode 159]

[00:00:00] Hi, friends. Welcome back. Today's episode is going to be short, but very, very actionable as in getting patients on your schedule this week or clients on your schedule this week. Shockingly enough. I know this is sad. This does not work by osmosis. I know. You actually have to do it. And here's the other thing.

[00:00:22] You have to do it more than once. I know. I know. I wish I had some magic thing for you. Think about anything that I always give you as just like you would tell your patients in your office, right? You're like, this doesn't work just one time, right? You've got to do this stuff consistently. So like I said, today's episode is going to be so actionable and will actually help you get patients on your schedule this week.

[00:00:46] And I also wanted to mention that I'm super pumped that my masterclass is back, so it is now on demand. And it is very, it's like breaking down the steps, the behind the scenes like that we do as an agency. Um, my four-part framework to making Instagram actually work for your practice and really showing you step-by-step how to become the go-to practitioner in your area.

[00:01:16] And I've watched it back again and I'm just really, really proud of the way the class turned out because like I said, it's, it's definitely. You're gonna wanna take a lot of notes. Make sure you have a notebook. You could always like listen to it once more passively if you want. And then maybe like the second time, take some notes.

[00:01:31] But if you just go to molly cahill.com/masterclass, you get immediate access. It's about 40 ish minutes, 41 minutes, I think, and we can link that in the show notes. So yeah, like I said, just molly cahill.com/masterclass. It's available on demand. You can watch it anytime, and I think you will. I don't think I know for a fact that you'll walk away like, oh, okay.

[00:01:55] This is like a lot of really good actionable information. Just like today's episode. Okay, so let's dive in.

[00:02:06] Hey,

[00:02:06] welcome to Holistic Marketing Simplified. This podcast boils down to the fact that we wholeheartedly believe that more humans need to know about holistic health solutions, and you didn't go to school to learn how to be a full-time content creator and show up on Instagram and do all of this marketing stuff all day, every day.

[00:02:25] So let's come hanging out while we chat. All things ease in your marketing and my goal is that you shift your mindset around your marketing from a quote, should to a I get to more dream patients and clients. Yes, please.

[00:02:39] Hi, I'm Dr. Nicole Ohmoto and I'm a holistic marketing hub student and chiropractor in Gilbert, Arizona.

[00:02:45] I listen to the Holistic Marketing Simplified podcast.

[00:02:50] Okay, so a few weeks ago, it was like dead of the winter, I opened up my inbox and see an email from my hair salon and all the email says, is. We have a few reservations 'cause they, our hair salon calls it reservations. We have a few reservations available on our schedule this week and the place where I get my hair done, they also do nails and facials and all that.

[00:03:13] And so then it was like, whether you wanna come in for a haircut, a blowout nails, or a facial, we have an appointment waiting for you or something. Literally, that's all it said. And it was like, you know, call us with their phone number to book or schedule online. That was literally it. It was a very short email.

[00:03:32] And do you know what I did? I picked up the phone and called and made an appointment. It had been on my to-do list for weeks to make my daughter a haircut appointment. I had also promised her, 'cause she's been doing really well in school, that we could get our nails done. And so it was just the nudge I needed to actually take action to book an appointment.

[00:03:53] I love that they have online scheduling. The only reason I didn't do online scheduling is because I needed like multiple services and it gets a little squirrely. So if you have online scheduling, this email becomes even more powerful. But if you don't have it, don't use that in as an excuse not to do it.

[00:04:07] I ended up, when we got there for my hair appointment or mjs hair appointment, I was talking to the owner 'cause she's, who does my hair? I was like, Hey, I used the email that y'all sent out as an example. 'cause I made a reel about this. If you haven't seen it, we'll link that in the show notes. Um, as soon as I got that email, I made it as like a green screen reel showing like, Hey, send this email out to your patient database and you'll get patients on your schedule this week.

[00:04:32] I said, Hey, so y'all did such a good job. I used you as an example in my content. And she goes, and she, she's like, really funny. She's kind of one of those like even more expressive than me, if that's possible. So she like puts her hand on my shoulder and she goes. Her eyes got big. She goes, do you know we got 15 phone calls in the next two hours after we sent out that email.

[00:04:51] And I was like, I don't doubt it, because I sure as heck I was one of 'em. I picked up the phone and called. So, and even if people don't call like right away, right? Like, don't, like send it out and be like, all right, waiting for the phone during, 'cause it might, you know, trickle down like people might, it might take a little while.

[00:05:06] My point is, send a dang email with your appointment openings. And to make it more helpful for you, I have revised, if you already have my email scripts to get patients to follow you. I have revised that email script freebie to have a scheduling email script that you can just literally copy and paste.

[00:05:29] All it says, and this is an email that you would send to your current active, or it doesn't have to be active. It could be your whole current patient database. The subject line just says, appointments open this week, and then the email just says, we have a few openings this week and would love to see you, and then put their first name in there, which I tell you how to do that.

[00:05:48] And then if you have multiple services, you could list that out, whether it's for blank, blank, or blank. We're excited to help. If you don't have multiple services, you can leave that off. And then another option is to list out, actually list out a few appointment times. You don't have to do that if you don't want to, but it could be powerful to be like if, if you truly only have a few openings available, you could list out a few appointment times and then it just says appointments are filling quickly.

[00:06:15] We recommend reserving your spots soon. Book your appointment today using the link if you have online scheduling. Or give us a call. We look forward to welcoming you and help you feel your best. That's it. That is all the email says, but I have it as a script available for you, so all you have to do is go to molly kayhill.com/email.

[00:06:30] Yeah, I think that's right. Yeah, molly kayhill.com/email. We'll link it in the show notes as well. Or if you're listening to this and you wanna just DM me, you can just DM me email one, like the number one altogether, and that'll also trigger the automation for you. But what this does, I guarantee you, so let me, let me backtrack.

[00:06:48] We have a client who sends this email to their patient database every Sunday. We don't do this for them because that would be silly, like that. We'd have to like get their availability from them every week. And then we'd have to, anyway, they just, they just have it as a templated email every Sunday.

[00:07:05] Either they, I don't know if they do it or they do it to, um, have their office manager do it, or front desk or whatever. All they do is rinse and repeat the same exact email, and they send out their availability for the week. Now, if you're someone who stays booked and you don't have availability, usually within the same week.

[00:07:24] You could totally do it for the following week. Um, if you're somebody who has tons of availability and you don't wanna show, oh, I have like 25 open appointments, like I said, you can just pick like four or five times if you want, and just list those and say, if you don't see anything that works for you, call us.

[00:07:39] You know, and we'll, we'll find something that works or something like that. I don't wanna hear excuses on this one. No offense. I love y'all, but I can, I can already hear, well, this won't work for me because, and then you have like some excuse. I'm telling you when you can get away from the, this won't work for me.

[00:07:56] Like this is when you excel, okay? This will work for you. I cannot think of any reason this won't work for you. If you can g legitimately think of a reason, I'm all ears. Send me a dm. Oh, look what I was, other thing I was gonna say is when I posted about this on my Instagram and said that, Hey, you know, we have a client who does this every Sunday, and they noticed that our client literally told us when they, they notice when they don't send this Sunday openings email.

[00:08:20] And it doesn't have to be Sunday, right? It could be Friday, it could be Monday, whatever you wanna do that. Their numbers, their patient numbers are always down for the month when they don't send this email. And so someone commented on my post and was like, I just don't understand how your client has something to say every Sunday.

[00:08:36] First off, I mean, it's a valid question. Totally understand, but they're not thinking of any, this isn't a newsletter. Okay. This is literally just this 1, 2, 3, 5 sentences. Basically, here's our availability. There's no newsletter component, so there's nothing to think of. But even if this was a weekly newsletter, that's, you definitely have something to say every week.

[00:08:59] I mean, I have no problem. I could email you y'all like five times a week probably, but that's not what this is. Okay. And then in, in, just like going even further, like if you don't have a way to email your patients, then you, you need one. Like email is not dead. I'm not gonna go into this in this episode 'cause I wanna keep it short.

[00:09:17] I've talked about email marketing before on the podcast. Um, I've also talked about it with Kate Matheson. On the podcast, which we can link those older episodes in the show notes, but a lot of people's electronic health record system has a way to send emails. Um, I know some people, like if you use Jane, integrates with mail MailChimp.

[00:09:37] If you don't, I personally love flow desks. I think it's one of the easiest, most user friendly email systems to use. That's what a lot of our clients use, that we do emails for. They just send us an updated CSV file of their patients every month and then we just like upload it that way. So you could do it that way.

[00:09:55] There's all different kinds of ways to do this, but my challenge to you is to start this this week, send it a couple weeks in a row and just see what happens. And guess what? You're gonna get some unsubscribes, but you know what else you're gonna get appointments. So we're gonna, we're gonna detach from the feelings hurt of unsubscribes, and we're gonna detach that.

[00:10:17] We're worried about bothering people. They're, they're adults, okay? Pottery Barn ain't worried about bothering you, all right? They're emailing you every day and they're a bajillion dollar company, okay? So this is not you spamming people. This is you literally giving your appointment openings. So my last thought, I had this giant epiphany and then I like did like 30 seconds of dead air for my podcast editor because my brain couldn't remember what it was.

[00:10:40] I'm gonna blame COVID. I had COVID, I just got over it. Um, I'm still not feeling a hundred percent, but I had a fever for like five days and it's, it's still like 99.4. That's not really a fever though, I guess. But anyway, the other way that you can supplement this is to. Just post on your Instagram stories as well with your availability.

[00:10:58] So again, I've talked about this on the podcast before and I've talked about it on my Instagram before, but it's literally not fancy. It's just a very fast story. Don't make this in Canva. Don't make this a thing. Don't ask a million questions to yourself of if you're doing it right. Literally just be like, we have a few last minute.

[00:11:14] Appointment openings this week or next week or whenever you have them. And put the times, if you have the times on your stories, if you don't wanna put the times. And like I said, you don't have to and just give people away to book. So that's another great exercise to do to get people on your schedule fast.

[00:11:28] Because, um, one thing to note about this is sometimes people almost feel like sheep, sheepish, sheepish. I can never say that. Maybe it's just me, like when I know I'm calling a busy office. 'cause I've seen content where. People are like, I've seen reels of offices making fun of patients calling, asking, can you fit me in today?

[00:11:49] And I think that's like the silliest content to ever put out because you're literally discouraging people from calling because they're like, oh, you know what? I bet they can't fit me in today. Maybe you can, maybe you had a cancellation. This just kind of helps break down another one of those barriers of like, Ooh.

[00:12:04] 'cause I, even me when I call sometimes they'd be like, Ooh, any chance you could fit me in today? Like I feel kind of, you know, like sheepish to ask. So, um, this email and then, you know, posting on your stories, your availability is a great way to combat that. And I promise you, if you tried this consistently for a month, I'd be shocked if you come back to me and say you didn't see a slight increase in your numbers.

[00:12:27] So. Molly k hill.com/email is the scripts copy and paste. It'll tell you exactly what to say. And if you have any questions about this, then please DM me on Instagram. I would be so happy to help. I hope you have an amazing day and happy filling the holes in your schedule. Thank you for listening to Holistic Marketing Simplified, and hey, you know how every podcaster at the very end of their episode asks you to rate and review their podcast.

[00:12:54] Well that's because it's super important. These podcasts take a lot of time and heart and effort to produce, to bring you free information. So in order for me to be able to continue doing that, we need more people to find out about the show. So if you could please just take like two minutes out of your very busy day to leave me a rating and share this on your Instagram stories and tag at Molly a Cahill.

[00:13:17] C-A-H-I-L-L-I would greatly, greatly appreciate your support. I know your time is valuable and I can't wait to see you in the next episode.