From the Armchair

A newsletter from scratch

 What if we didn’t have to wait until someone was in a visit to start building a relationship? For most psychiatry patients, there’s a gap between when they book and when they’re seen. A lot can happen in that window. Life happens in that window. They might second-guess themselves. They might get cold feet. The stigma might catch back up.

From the Armchair was my pitch to fix that. Relevant content at a sensitive moment starts to build trust, establish credibility, and keep people in our orbit at their time of need, keeping them grounded while they waited for care to arrive.

IT STARTS WITH INSIGHT

In addition to the anecdotal, we had strong numbers suggesting that this was a crucial drop-off point. And while we already had a newsletter in the works, it wasn’t more than a marketing tool. The content felt stale and generic.

We needed an overhaul. But we didn’t want to start from scratch for such an important moment. I outlined a research plan. I met with 5 current patients about their experiences. We also sent a survey to people who engaged with our past newsletters with an earnest call for feedback.

Where we landed

Using our in-house resources, we quickly spun up a new format that leveraged our insights in a new way to capture attention and maintain relevance among a broad audience who needed to trust us. The result is a newsletter with a high 40s open rate, a sub 1% unsub rate, and a CTR of around 6%. Here’s the first issue.