The pandemic obliged pharma reps to become “digitally present” as opposed to face-to-face. Moreover, it also pushed HCPs to evolve their expectations regarding their interactions with brands as new digital natives in a hyperconnected environment.
This also means that they are in demand and rely more on valuable communications via digital channels, such as email. In fact, product and brand information is consumed through resources received directly in the inbox.
More than selling something, HCPs expect pharma companies to be partners throughout their journey, by delivering relevant data at the right time.
So it’s becoming more and more important that pharma companies have a greater knowledge of the audience’s needs, expectations, behaviors, and preferences.
Not only the recent past figures but also the post-pandemic start, show us the best practices for the new era and the right direction to go in 2022.
Top Guidelines for pharma marketers: Email marketing in 2022
HCP preferences: Channel and device of choice
When looking at the medical professionals’ preferences of channels for business-related information and announcements, 65% identify email as the preferred and expected one for this purpose.
Likewise, pharma marketers comply when it comes to marketing to healthcare professionals (HCP), having email as the number one used for digital interactions:
- Emails – 81%
- Medical News / Clinical publications – 80%
- Direct mail – 51%
- Online physician communities – 32%
- eDetailing– 30%
- Mobile apps – 29%
- Online advertisements – 12%
- Websites/Portals/Landing Pages – 12%
- Social media – 10%
The computer is still the first on the list of HCPs’ devices of choice, but mobile doesn’t come far behind in their preferences nowadays.
Pharma email marketing: Much more than sales!
Physicians’ expectations of business interactions shifted, and even though 61% are receptive to digital healthcare advertising, it must add value and deliver high-quality information to have effective engagement.
Likewise, here are some of the interactions considered by medical professionals as not helpful and that they don’t want to receive:
- Emails/phone calls not solicited
- Sales disguised as “helpful tips”
- Systematic overly email messaging
- Inaccurate or not up-to-date data/information
- Ads embedded without added value for click-through
Top Tip
Indeed being more patient-centered, physicians are looking to provide the best support and guidance to their patients in the care journey by sharing with them educational resources provided by the organizations!
So, pharma companies have to consider and add value to both the HCPs and the patients when creating and making available digital content.
For this reason, taking into consideration the audience preferences, it can be as simple as an explainer video added to the email marketing campaign.
Top email subject lines for HCP
The Orientation Agency compiled the best subject lines based on the HCP engagement of their campaigns. With higher open rates, these results stood out:
- Are your…
- Discuss your…
- Address the needs of…
- Looking for…
- Launch: (then details of the product)
- New and exciting…
- Join us at…
Together with those, with higher click-through rates these are the recommended ones:
- Unlock your…
- New-to-market…
- Looking for…
- Discover more…
- Registration open for…
Fun Fact:
According to a DMD report, in 2020 there was an increase of 300% in the open rate average of emails sent by pharma companies to medical professionals. In fact, in 2015 the average was 9.4% and after April 2020 it went up to 18.9%!
Did you know that video in your email marketing can increase open rates by 19% and boost click-through rates by 65% (CampaignMonitor)?! Start adding valuable video resources to your campaigns with PubVisual today!
Optimization: The Best Time Slot
So optimizing the time slot for sending pharmaceutical emails can improve open rates by 94%, response rates by 131%, and lead rates by 1513%, (Sopro).
In addition survey results from Sendinblue and Sopro confirm that:
- Over 85% of opened marketing emails consisted of messages sent on weekdays;
- Over 90% of marketing emails that received clicks consisted of messages sent on weekdays;
- It’s better to send email campaigns between Tuesday and Thursday;
- Email engagement is higher for emails sent mid-morning or mid-afternoon;
- The worst response rate – 10.5% – are for emails sent on Fridays (16:00);
- The best response rate – 24.2% – is for emails sent on Wednesdays (17:00);
- 10:00 is the perfect time for email recipients to check their inboxes at work;
- At 15:00/16:00 and the end of the day, there’s a new check of the inbox;
Pro-Tip: Segmenting the target audience and having the different time zones in consideration allows pharma marketers to optimize the email marketing campaigns to be spot on with the target audience’s needs and expectations globally!