DMD Intelligence

If your data provider claims to know everything about your website visitors, you should be concerned.

It’s really hard to do authentication well. You can’t fully authenticate healthcare professionals (HCPs) based on first and last name only, or even based on a name and one email address – though that’s all the information many websites require for registration. Instead, a thorough authentication process requires first-party sourcing, domain matching, cross-checking against the American Medical Association Masterfile, and ongoing quality assurance.

Hospitals are successfully using email newsletters to elevate their standing in the community. Whether by demonstrating local leadership in specific treatment areas, highlighting expertise in healthcare content and education, or generating awareness of their centers of excellence, hospital newsletters convey valuable information to the public. But that’s just the tip of the hospital email iceberg.

Are your pharma email campaigns as effective as they should be? If you’re not getting the open rates you need, an inaccurate physician email database is the most likely culprit. But if you’re already using an authenticated database and physicians still aren’t engaging, it’s time to take a closer look at the data you use to design and target your email messages.

If you’re attending Alliance 2017 this week in San Francisco, you may have trouble choosing which of the 85 sessions to attend. But don’t let busy days keep you from sampling some of the city’s most popular restaurants and tourist sites. We’ve highlighted a few that are within walking distance of the conference hotel.

We know you want to get more registrants for your CME events. Identifying and reaching more interested physicians, based not only on specialty, but on geography and case mix, is the foundation of a successful marketing campaign. We also know you have time and budget constraints. You need your CME outreach to get results the first time, every time.  

After deploying 30,000 email marketing campaigns, we’re convinced targeted email is the most effective way to communicate with physicians. And that makes it a powerful tool for increasing CME registrations on the same budget.

Any respectable comic book fan knows Betty and Veronica: the smart, dependable girl-next-door and her sexier, unpredictable BFF.  Everyone likes Betty, but it’s sure hard to ignore Veronica (especially for Archie). Email marketing and social media aren’t so different.

Every CME email campaign begins with an “open.” Unless the physicians you’re trying to reach actually open your emails, you can’t convey the value of your event, elicit a response, or achieve your ultimate goal of increasing registrations.

Media buyers have always tried to make smart decisions about where they place ads and how much they pay for that space. Until now, though, there’s hasn’t been much real data to inform those decisions. Publishers can tell you how many page views you’re buying, but they haven’t been able to verify who is viewing those pages.

Knowing exactly how your target audience of healthcare professionals uses your website has become the holy grail of digital marketing. Over the years, pharma marketers have tried to piece together a complete understanding based on partial data. You probably relied on aggregate data from cookies or HCP profiles developed from mandatory, but unpopular, registration forms. You may also have reviewed the recall-based surveys some data providers conduct to gain insight into how physicians use various healthcare websites.

The 2016 Salesforce State of Marketing report surveyed nearly 4,000 marketers to identify current trends in digital marketing. Among other things, the research revealed that high-performing marketing teams are putting new emphasis on connecting with customers through a variety of channels as they move through the buyer’s journey. Top marketers are also focused on creating an integrated customer experience across marketing, sales, and service. For most marketing teams, implementing these strategies requires a unified vision of each customer.

CME planners and educators share a common challenge: reaching and registering the right physicians for their events, while working with limited budgets and tight timelines. Whether you’re planning a series of regional conferences or a small dinner meeting for local physicians, your goal is to fill every seat with the right specialists. Yet finding and engaging every physician who might be interested is difficult. A high-quality email database and a well-designed email campaign can deliver the results you need.

In a recent article, MM&M explored new research on how physicians use different media channels to meet their information needs. Specific preferences vary by specialty, and many physicians still rely heavily on traditional sources such as medical journals, medical conventions, and professional websites. When they have fewer than 10 minutes, though, all HCPs turn to the internet for answers.