The digital engagement with HCPs is an interesting mix of strategy, tactics, and creativity. With digital adoption being on the rise after COVID-19, pharmaceutical marketers and brand managers are exploring different strategies, tactics, and out-of-the-box approaches, to have high-impact interaction with HCPs.
But this enthusiasm to tap digital channels is churning out clinical content in abundance, making your interaction with the medical fraternity redundant and impersonalized.
In this write-up, we are discussing an interesting approach to manage this “digital content overload” and deliver customized information at the same time.
The downside of an accelerated digital engagement
Among all the digital channels, “Email” has been the most leveraged, as HCPs have historically responded better to email content (and they continue to). But the tendency of relying heavily on this channel has raised one pertinent concern – Digital oversaturation.
Some pharmaceutical companies have gone into overdrive and aren’t focusing on targeted/personalized emails, which is desensitizing HCPs big time. They are creating redundant touchpoints by sending separate emails for mutually exclusive/dependent pieces of clinical information.
A few glaring disadvantages of this approach –
Doctors are always short on time, and they do miss out on emails every now and then. So even if your previous email performed brilliantly, your subsequent emails may go unopened, even if you use tried and tested subject lines. In other words – The success of your previous interaction will come to dust.
Also, sending too many emails can hurt your domain reputation, making a large number of your emails land in recipients’ spam box.
The solution?
The idea should be to deliver maximum value via a minimum number of emails. So instead of building up your agenda through a series of emails, you can combine all the essential information and create an intensive touchpoint for HCPs – By populating some of your key messages/announcements in one email.
As you will be delivering more content in one go, your choice of the template will matter a lot to achieve optimum readability. So, make sure that your template is crisp, well-adjusted, and mobile responsive.
For better results, you can break down your content into:
i) Generic email body that is common for every HCP.
ii) Customized pieces of information or “Email add-ons” based on HCPs’:
a) Preferences
b) Psychographic segmentation
c) Professional goals.
Smart content development for Email Add-Ons
In one of our previous write-ups, we have talked about creating content materials based on HCPs psychographic segmentation. Read it here. You can use this insight to create Email add-ons.
Smart content development revolves around one question:
How many reusable elements do you have?
In the context of Email add-ons, the question changes to:
To what extent are such add-ons reusable?
Based on the nature and purpose of your content, you may want to create different Email add-ons.
For example –
i) You may want to create an add-on to inform HCPs regarding an upcoming KOL interview or medical E-Conference.
ii) You may want to create an add-on for sharing patient cases with HCPs.
iii) You may want to create an add-on that dissipates information on treatment protocols.
The smart way is to have a custom-coded template for each add-on (having a unique layout and color combination). Once you have such ready-to-use templates, your in-house digital marketing teams can simply populate the content in each add-on. Later you can insert the required add-ons into your generic email body (anywhere between header and footer).
Let’s look at a couple of cases to understand the use of Email add-ons
i) Customizing your follow-up emails and making them more purposeful
“eDetailing + email” is one of the most popular combinations that pharmaceutical companies have adopted to engage HCPs, more so during COVID-19. A remote detailing session is usually succeeded by follow-up or warm-up (invitation) emails.
The purpose of a generic follow-up email is to acknowledge HCPs’ for their participation and get their feedback. Such an email can be easily clubbed with additional/personalized information (email fragments), to reduce touchpoints and make your communication intensive.
If you have segmented your audience based on their preferences and psychological types, then you can figure out which fragment to insert for which set of HCPs. You may categorize HCPs as follows:
i) Those who value clinical trial data and are highly receptive to scientific articles.
ii) Those who are patient-centric, cost-conscious, and are highly receptive to patient profiles/journeys/complaints.’
iii) Those who are community-centric, and are highly receptive to KOL interviews, medical web summits, etc.
Here’s an an example showing a generic follow-up email and personalized add-ons inserted into it (based on the preferences/professional goals/clinical requirements of your targeted HCPs).
The above example shows how you can optimize your Email engagement with HCPs, by tactically placing customized information in your follow-up emails.
This is how you can make each interaction of yours valuable and impactful, without saturating your audience with redundant emails and digital content.
ii) Hinging a “key message” to your daily emails
The above section focused on inserting customized add-ons into a generic email body. But the other way around is to include your key message/announcement in your daily/weekly emails.
For example, your key message can be regarding a virtual medical summit or a clinical workshop that you are planning to conduct. So, you can insert an add-on providing the details of the event along with a link to register. This way you won’t require an exclusive touchpoint for the event, and you can mention it in all your regular/transactional emails (that HCPs consistently open and are familiar with).
Here’s one of our own emails:
This approach can:
i) Eliminate the risk of digital oversaturation.
ii) Eliminate the chances of your “key message” being overlooked by HCPs.
Our in-house teams of digital marketers and medical writers create high-impact and customized email campaigns for our business partners, to expand their brand’s outreach and maximize its adoption among HCPs. If you are interested in knowing about our exclusive digital channels, then kindly reach us at info@docplexus.co.in/9822824281.
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