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Patient acquisition is an important part of any healthcare organization's financial strategy. A strong patient acquisition campaign ensures that the organization brings in enough business to cover its expenses and make its operation profitable. However, with so many organizations vying for the attention of potential patients, boosting patient acquisition can be a challenge. As a result, many healthcare organizations are now choosing to use mass texting services for patient acquisition purposes.

About Mass Texting

Mass texting is a marketing technique that allows you to send healthcare SMS messages to multiple individuals simultaneously. These services can also be used to issue automatic replies to individuals who text specific codes or text keywords to your organization. Furthermore, sophisticated healthcare SMS software can be used to send customized messages to subsets of individuals on your contact list.

Why is Mass Texting Effective?

The use of mobile devices for communication continues to grow, with experts predicting that mobile subscriptions will reach 9.3 billion by 2019. Many people have their phones with them or nearby at all times. In fact, the average text message response time is only 90 seconds. Studies have also shown that SMS is the preferred method of communication among many consumers, especially those who have lower incomes. Specifically, households that earn less than $30,000 annually use texting twice as much as households that earn over $75,000. In light of these statistics, it stands to reason that the ability to communicate with potential and current patients via SMS would be advantageous for healthcare organizations.

Benefits of Mass Texting for Hospitals

Mass texting offers a variety of benefits for hospitals and potential patients alike. Some of these benefits include:

• Simplicity. - Text messaging provides potential patients with an easy way to connect and engage with healthcare organizations instantaneously.
  
  
• Convenient for patients. - Potential patients can use SMS messaging to get quick answers to common questions, such as whether the organization accepts their insurance policy, where the office is located, business hours and more. Patients can also use this service to schedule an appointment with a provider or ask for a price quote for a specific service or treatment.
  
  
• Increased engagement. - Healthcare organizations can use mass texting services to increase engagement among current patients. For example, this service can be used to send appointment reminders to patients, provide patients with health tips and let patients know that their lab results are ready. Healthcare organizations can also use this service to conduct surveys and follow up with patients who have been discharged or came to the facility for outpatient treatment.
  
  

Putting SMS to Work in Your Organization

If your healthcare organization is ready to put mass SMS messaging to good use in order to improve patient acquisition, you can begin by finding a high-quality SMS software program. Trumpia's mass texting software offers a variety of features you can use to customize your mass texting program, including:

• Automation - Automation allows you to send a large number of messages with very little effort. For example, you may use this feature to send a mass text to hundreds of potential patients, or you may use it to issue automatic responses to specific SMS inquiries from patients.
  
  
• Smart Targeting - Trumpia's smart targeting feature allows you to send messages to specific groups of people in order to increase engagement and patient satisfaction.
  
  
• Text-to-Landline Service - Text-to-landline service allows customers to text your landline telephones. With this feature, you can use the same landline you already have to receive messages.
  
  
• Engagement Tools - Trumpia's software allows you to engage patients by creating custom SMS surveys, picture messaging and more.
  
  

After you have chosen the right SMS platform, it's time to incorporate mass texting into your existing patient acquisition strategies. Even if you already have an existing outreach program designed to attract new patients, you can add mass texting into the campaign easily. For example, if you have an email program, you can use Trumpia's email-to-SMS capabilities to incorporate mass texting.

To learn more about how Trumpia can help your healthcare organization with mass texting, please contact us today.

For more information on other mobile communication tools you can use for your healthcare organization, download the complimentary Mobile Marketing Success Kit.

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