We all know what you do when life gives you lemons. The extent to how tasty the resulting lemonade is depends on what other ingredients you have at your disposal. Straight lemon juice is sour-tasting at best, not to mention the number it does on the stomach. But, if you have water, sugar, and ice, it becomes far more palatable. Consider how delicious a concoction you could create if you had additional components, like fresh lavender, berries, or bubbly to make a spritzer.
Simple data only allows for the most basic of campaigns, which often leave physicians with a bad taste. Full-bodied data provides the type of additional details that can really make email campaigns enticing—and leave your physician audience asking for more.
Avoiding a Bad Data Infection
In previous blogs, I’ve discussed the importance of a solid email foundation—which is rooted in the quality of your physician email list. Outdated or questionably sourced data is the kind that can destroy an entire campaign, just as a moldy lemon can infect other lemons in the bag.
Questionably sourced data is the kind that can destroy an entire campaign.
On the other hand, a list that has been first-party sourced, contains 100 percent opted-in (and verified) physician email addresses, and is updated daily not only solidifies your foundation, but prevents such destruction.
3 Ways to Optimize Good Data
The breadth of your data “ingredients” determines how well your communications are received. Details such as medical specialty, geographical location, referral patterns, and case mix allow you to refine your deployment so it has the most impact. Ultimately, these data points contribute to the effectiveness of key pieces of your campaign.
1) Subject Lines and Preheaders: A high-quality physician email list guarantees no less than 99.5 percent deliverability to physician inboxes. Still, that’s only part of the battle. The subject line—and oft-forgotten preheader—are two other vital elements for getting physicians to actually open your emails. With the intricate physician profiles quality data affords, you can segment your audience and personalize subject lines and preheaders to convey physician-level relevance.
Intricate details allow you to refine your deployment for the most impact.
2) Calls-to-Actions (CTAs): The goal of email communications is to inform and invite. Again, this is where targeting and customization can encourage a response, while ignoring that potential can have the opposite effect. For example, a CTA proposing registration for a local CME event is wasted if that event is being held across the country from where the physician recipient resides. It’s highly unlikely a physician would travel thousands of miles, but you’ve also intimated a neglect for physician preferences, which incites that sour taste.
3) Continued Engagement: When you respect physician preferences and provide them with meaningful content, they’re more likely to continue to engage. The resulting phenomenon of “inbox conditioning” works in two ways. One, physicians’ ISPs start to recognize you as a trusted sender. Two, physicians begin to expect the information you’re relaying is not only worth a look, but truly valuable.
How Fruitful Do You Want To Be?
The cheap lemonade stand isn’t worth the risk of a bad batch. Don’t limit yourself to data that gets you by. Instead, invest in a physician list that keeps “customers” coming back repeatedly.
