The physician community is one of the most difficult segments to market to. Between drug commercials, digital ads, and a never-ending barrage of sales reps, doctors are exposed to marketing messages all day long.
Email drip campaigns are not a new idea, but their use has risen substantially since the COVID pandemic.
With many clinics inaccessible for sales reps, digital communication is often the only option for medical companies to engage with doctors.
Unfortunately, many companies focus on the quantity of emails rather than quality, leading to physician fatigue.
A report released earlier this year from Accenture highlights this trend, with 64% of physicians saying they are receiving too much digital content from pharma, and 65% report receiving spam.
Therefore, email campaigns must be carefully planned to ensure they deliver what physicians are looking for….high quality, low quantity!
Here are some more tips to guide your email drip campaign strategies:
Segment your leads
Emails that are more relevant and specific to your audience will undoubtedly get a higher engagement rate. The copy of your emails should be tailored to each audience.
Segment your leads into different categories, such as the status (prospect, hot lead, current customer, former customer, etc), geography, specialty, etc. The more data points, the better you will be able to craft emails that will resonate with your audience.
Don’t sell in every email!
Think of your drip campaigns as digital touch points. Nobody wants to be sold to all the time, and if your audience is only receiving promotional emails, your emails will likely end up in the spam folder sooner or later.
Instead, share information that might be relevant to the practice or patient. Are there upcoming changes in insurance coverage that might affect them? New articles or studies that are tangentially related to your product or service?
Promotional emails are fine, but most professional marketers know to only do promotion 20-25% of your emails.
Use stories
Along those lines, stories are one of the most effective ways to communicate your message. Since humans lived for hundreds of thousands of years without written language, we are hard-wired to remember stories.
Stories resonate. Is there an anecdote about a physician colleague that was able to enhance their practice with your product or service? How about a patient who improved somehow?
Anything that gets your audience to visualize the problem your product or service is solving has the potential to stand out.
Use hook points
Every digital marketer knows that the key to a high open rate is using an effective subject line. For this, skilled marketers use “hook points.”
A “hook point” is a provocative statement that makes the audience want to lean in and learn more.
For example, a boring example might be something like “A great patient engagement tool for your practice” could be transformed using a hook point such as, “83% of your patients wish you had this tool!”
A/B Testing
Finally, you cannot fix what you don’t track. Any email campaign should use different emails and subject lines that you can measure the results.
If done correctly, email campaigns should be a never-ending process of improvement.
Need help getting started?
At Gnosis, we specialize in helping your medical or life science company build an enduring brand. We can design a company newsletter for you that will make you stand apart from the crowd.
Contact us today to receive a customized proposal, 858-925-3119, or email mike@gnosis.team
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