How Children’s Health segmented its newsletter audiences for greater focus

Health concerns vary widely from family to family, from child to child.

That’s why Children’s Health took on a mammoth project, expanding from one general e-newsletter to 11 offerings.

The team set out to grow its email marketing program by creating 10 new clinical-specific, consumer-facing eNewsletters. The new, more specific newsletters include focuses on cancer and blood disorders; food allergies; diabetes and other endocrine-related matters; and mental health and substance abuse.

The newsletter’s objectives included:

• Increase awareness and reach of its clinical programs and expertise.
• Establish and deepen relationships with existing and potential patient families by providing personalized, relevant content about specific programs or conditions.
• Ensure that all emails are brand-comp­liant and meet best practices by setting up a standardized, system-wide email process.

The effort expanded the email consumer base by 46% in 2019, along with the following successes:

• Increased website traffic driven by email communications. Website sessions from email subscribers increased 69% year over year.
• Increased email engagement rates. With the addition of new digital newsletters, average engagement increased 47% year over year.
• Above-average open rates for consumer-facing email lists, the highest being the Food Allergy Community Times email, with an open rate of 43% (roughly double the health care industry average open rate).