Email marketers have long recognized that segmenting email databases to find the right target audience leads to better campaign performance. According to Marketing Sherpa's Email Marketing Benchmark Report, 32 percent of marketing execs ranked segmenting their email database as a top objective for the coming year. In addition, 52 percent said there was a significant need for improvement in segmenting their email databases.
Email Targeting and Segmentation
Why is segmentation so important in email marketing? Defining a precise target audience means that unique content can be created to address the audience’s very specific needs. If a recipient has received useful, relevant offers and content from you in the past, your reputation improves, leading to more opens, more click-throughs, and improved campaign performance. The proof is in the data. According to the Lyris Annual Email Optimizer Report, audience segmentation resulted in the following:
• 39 percent increase in open rates
• 28 percent decrease in opt-out and unsubscribe rates
• 24 percent increase in revenue
• 18 percent increase in transactions
How do improved segmentation and precise micro-targeting work when marketing to healthcare professionals (HCPs)? The reality is that in pharma, there is no one "perfect" customer for your products; there are several specific types of HCPs with very different needs and at very different places in their relationship with your brand. The challenge is to identify the subject line, content, and offers that address their unique needs.
Strategic email marketing needs to move beyond one version of product information content. Marketers must take a more tactical approach, using segmentation and precise targeting to leverage specific areas of interest by segment and drive competitive differentiation.
Physician Email Databases
That's where authenticated email addresses and market insight come into play. Bringing the precise target audience into focus requires filtering by several HCP variables and cross-referencing target markets. Verified email databases can be narrowed and refined by variables such as:
• Prescriber practice profile
• Case mix as defined by ICD-9 codes
• Group practice affiliation of physicians and across professions to include NPs/PAs.
• Hospital and hospital network affiliation
• Participation in insurance plans
• CPT procedure code data
Email databases that provide detailed, physician-provided information allow you to reach the exact target audience that will generate results for your campaign. Consider our insight in our recent case study:
A client needed to identify a target market for a branded anaphylactic shock treatment email campaign. In the course of our consultation and research, we discovered that 19 states required public schools to carry a comparable product. Identifying school nurses in those 19 states and adding them to the campaign's target audience extended the campaign’s reach, while still focusing only on a highly relevant audience.
We've distilled the data, wisdom, and insights acquired through more than 15,000 successful HCP email campaigns into our free e-book, The DMD Email Campaign Development Guidebook. This e-book gives you the tools to design a highly effective email campaign for your most relevant audience to help reach your marketing goals.
