Why do doctors read EMAILS? (2024)

Here is the next article in this series, focusing on email marketing as the success rate is highly dependent on "Consent / Permission"

Before we start with email marketing campaigns among the doctor community, let’s first try to understand why HCPs read emails, what type of emails they read, and how you can reach their Inbox?

The different types of emails that the doctors usually receive other than personal and financials are usually informational, academic, advertisem*nt, organization, university, mission-critical, and patient-related. Also as per research when we send 12 different emails as part of a campaign to a single doctor, he/she might read to two or three emails and might not look at other sets of emails. This is one of the key reasons to plan for a six-month to a year-long email engagement campaign expecting an open rate of just 3% to 4%.

Doctors appreciate and usually open patient advocacy email communication so can share with the relevant patient groups. As per a recent survey around 86% of physicians check their email at least 2-3 times a day, since emails are not demanding or intrusive, and if you need more information, just click on the call-to-action button.

HCPs are three times more likely to open emails from familiar medical reps. So, familiarity and repetition turn out to be the best practices to send marketing information from the pharma company.

Another survey shows that doctors tend to open the first 3 to 4 emails for a given brand and if this doesn't interest them, they stop or mark it as spam. Pharma marketers need to understand the effect of frequency on response rates, so companies can ensure they are not burning out their physicians.

Here are some email marketing ideas the pharma marketers can use for HCP engagement:

1. Personalization - Most often pharma companies execute a universal email blast to all the doctors, while they expect personalization of emails based on interest, this usually leads the emails into spam folders. A pharma company needs to plan the entire email marketing campaign with different email content pieces with call-to-action. The trigger for each email should be the action of the past email.
2. Case study led interaction – The content for entire email marketing campaigns can be based on case studies based on physician interest. Drive them to participate, discuss and debate on the landing page. Doctors can submit case studies and also review other cases. Based on the open and click rates next set of case studies can be shared with them.
3. Email template / Design - Design emails to deliver a marketing message even if they are skimmed or not read – as even skimming emails will get a good number of eyeballs.
4. Patient information – Create shareable email content pieces for patient education. These emails doctors can share or forward to the patients, hence it helps them to engage with patients on regular basis.
5. Product sampling - For new product launches or to re-introduce old drugs into the market, drive product sampling. This can act as a lead generation exercise for the pharma company and interested doctors can fill in their details on the landing page.
6. Request for Medical information - Usually a pharma company will create LBL or any product information booklet based on some new studies. Create a request form on the landing page, so doctors can request specific journals or abstracts from pharma companies, this will help the pharma company to understand more about doctors interests.
7. Partnering with email marketing company - Often brand managers are not successful with email marketing campaigns, as they don't have permission to mail and most mails are hitting spam folders. It is advisable for pharma companies to partner with HCP portals and learning companies, use their platform to achieve your goal of engagement.

“Physicians are saying don’t sell to me, don’t sell me a product. Be a partner in care and help me care for my patients," Matthew Arnold, principal analyst at DRG

Physicians who show true empathy for their patients tend to have better outcomes. Their patients stick to treatment plans, heal faster, and have fewer hospital readmissions. The same principle applies to pharma companies trying to market to physicians. Understand, show empathy, create personalised communication and ensure you are not biased.

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