DMD Intelligence

People often dread tests because they don't want to fail. Failure means you'll have to take the test again, after you've spent even more time studying or working on your health.

Email testing is different.

The likelihood of failure is higher when you don't test. You won't get as many opens or clicks, and you definitely won't learn anything about your audience and how they view you, your content, and your organization.

Continuous testing and learning is needed for ongoing success in email marketing. Whether you’re using a simpler A/B approach, where two versions of copy or design (version A and version B) are compared to one another, or a multivariate testing strategy which compares a higher number of variables and reveals more information about how these variables interact with one another, the critical point is that you should always be testing.

The ultimate goal of any email marketer is for deployments to have high deliverability, open, and click-through rates, leading to improved audience engagement. None of that can happen if your email ends up being routed to physicians’ spam folders.

It’s important to understand the different types of spam traps—as well as the damage they incur—in order to avoid ending up on a blacklist or blocklist.

Heraclitus’s wisdom regarding change as the only constant was updated in modern times by Stephen Covey, known mainly for his highly circulated book, “The 7 Habits of Highly Effective People.” Covey expanded the constants in life to change, choices, and principles.

All three apply to email’s role in healthcare marketing—and the argument can be made that email itself is a constant.

Successful email deployments involve both art and science. The creative side encompasses content, graphics, and enticing call to actions. The scientific contribution rests heavily on the data contained in your physician email list.

Unfortunately, like in the medical and technology arenas, database science can be flawed. For example, many list vendors use methods such as scraping the web for physician email addresses or manufacturing addresses based on a health system’s presumed naming conventions (e.g. d.tompkins@healthsystem.com).

Valentine's Day is a day when we tell our loved ones how much they mean to us. We're reminded of how important those people are and why we cherish them in our lives.

For many, these expressions of love and appreciation often go unsaid on a day-to-day basis. It shouldn't take a once-a-year holiday to be the reason we reach out to those who fulfill our lives. Similarly, a once yearly or once monthly newsletter is far too infrequent of a way to reach out to your healthcare providers and  let them know how important they are.

If you’re not consistently using email in your hospital marketing strategy or only employ it in a limited capacity, you are missing out on considerable opportunities to make strong, meaningful connections with your physician base.

Email campaign success involves a strategy that begins long before you hit the “send” button. A number of components factor into the deployment process. Without them, you risk damaging current and future campaigns.

It doesn’t matter if you’re targeting physicians or patients, the practices—and challenges—remain the same.

Read rate is one of the most important key performance indicators (KPIs) for email. It’s also one of the most often overlooked. For successful campaigns, it’s important to understand—and then utilize—the read rate of your email deployments.

In healthcare marketing, you’re always looking ahead. Learning from past strategies, whether successful or not, is crucial for ensuring the effectiveness of future programs. This is exactly what a panel of 19 marketing experts had in mind when they contributed to an infographic predicting what they believe to be the top concerns for brands in 2019.

Not surprisingly, the concept of customer experience (CX) rose to the top. Healthcare marketers are increasingly tuned in to the fact that the “end user,” be that a physician within your health system or a potential patient in your community, wants to be treated like a human—not an inbox. To up the ante, your target audience members also don’t want to be seen as a stranger; they need to believe you value their time and interests and will provide personalized content that fulfills that desire.

The key in achieving this level of human-to-human personalization—and resulting trust—lies in the quality and depth of your data.