DMD Intelligence

DMD’s Lab Report: The Art & Science of Healthcare Email explores insights, trends, and obstacles affecting healthcare email. From strategy to creative, deployment to reporting, we aim to address the most pressing issues healthcare marketers face.

In the first issue of DMD’s Lab Report, we addressed the mounting inbox deliverability challenges within the Gmail platform. February’s installment focuses on HCP engagement and takes an in-depth look at read rate—one of the most telling engagement KPIs in email marketing. Here are some key takeaways.

Read vs. Skimmed vs. Glanced

By definition, read rate measures the amount of time an email recipient spends in an email. Eight seconds or more looking at an email registers as “read.” An email is considered “skimmed” if the recipient spends two or more seconds in the email, but less than eight seconds. “Glanced” reflects any email that receives less than two seconds of one’s attention.

Last year around this time we presented on data privacy trends, regulations, and predictions for 2020. Some of those predictions didn’t materialize for various reasons; COVID-19 included. State and federal legislators had a lot on their plates, so less urgent policies were put on hold.

However, we did see a trickle-down effect from California’s proactive stance on data privacy. An increasing number of organizations—including those in healthcare—are stepping up to meet consumers’ data privacy demands. These companies are not waiting for legislative action. Rather, they’ve anticipated the inevitable and understand the benefits of establishing trust with their target audiences.

Our recent webinar, “Data Privacy 2021: The Journey Continues,” reflected this growing trend in data privacy legislation. Here are some key highlights of the presentation, which focused on state- and federal-level legislation, how data privacy impacts healthcare marketers, and what to expect in the coming months.