Successful E-Mail Marketing Methods: Eight Best Practices to Optimize Physician E-mail Marketing Results Terry Nugent VP, Marketing E-Marketing If there is a magic bullet in contemporary medical/pharmaceutical marketing, it is e-mail. E-mail is the right medium to deliver the right message to the right audience at the right time for the right price for a variety of marketing applications, including e-detailing, which gets through to “no see”physicians, and online surveys, which generate sufficient response within hours of being broadcast. To ensure the success of their e-marketing campaigns, pharmaceutical companies should consider adopting the following eight best practices as part of their strategy. Best Practice No. 1. Choose the right broadcast provider, a reputable firm that: • Complies with Direct Marketing Association (DMA) online marketing guidelines and the federal CAN-SPAM Act; • Uses e-mail addresses voluntarily provided by physicians and updates them regularly; • Targets by industry-standard criteria, including specialty, type of practice, and prescribing profile; and • Uses state-of-the-art broadcast solutions to maximize readership and response. Best Practice No. 2. Allow enough time — the more, the better. Plan entire campaigns, including contingencies for various levels of results from initial efforts, and allow for the necessary coordination with the information technology staff. Best Practice No. 3. Establish objectives. Options include response rates, target number of responses, or sales metrics. Best Practice No. 4. Select the audience. Based on the objectives, pinpoint perfect prospects to ensure the message is relevant. Best Practice No. 5. Develop the offer. A single, simple, relevant, compelling prospect proposition is a prerequisite to success. Test alternatives. Best Practice No. 6. Decide on frequency. Direct marketing experts suggest that up to seven waves may yield a positive return on investment (ROI). Test to find optimal frequency and maximize cost-effectiveness. Best Practice No. 7. Optimize creative. Keep these points in mind when preparing the creative execution: • Avoid words and characters that trigger filters. • Use “from” names that are meaningful and relevant to the recipient, i.e., company, brand, or person name. • Use brief (fewer than 40 characters), meaningful subject lines, for example your organization or brand name. Succinctly state the offer in the subject line. Be specific and consistent with the message. Again, test alternatives. • In the message body, personalize the salutation and content as appropriate, for example, “Doctor Jones, as a gastroenterologist …” Be clear, concise, clean, uncluttered, and stress benefits. Use short paragraphs or bullets; include hyperlinks to amplifications; bold key words; and underline hyperlinks only. Follow the “three-second rule” — strive to grab the recipient’s attention within three seconds of reviewing the document. Be sure that the important messaging is in the first one to two inches of the total e-mail content — “above the fold” — visible without scrolling. Use graphics judiciously. Provide redundant “call to action” hyperlinks at the beginning and end to maximize the click-through rate (CTR). • Use a real person as signatory. • Include a hyperlink to your privacy policy, and tell recipients why they are receiving the e-mail. • Include online and offline contact options — e-mail, phone, and fax. Ensure that responses will be properly handled. • Include a physical mailing address to comply with the CAN-SPAM law. • Proof carefully online and via hard copy, paying particular attention to contact information, such as phone numbers. Additionally, be sure to test every link. • Use well-constructed HTML and text layouts. Avoid reverse type — white text on dark backgrounds. Be consistent with corporate branding, color scheme, and creative elements of other marketing efforts, especially on landing pages. Place the logo in the top left quadrant. • Strive for technical simplicity. Be sure messages load quickly. Minimize images. Begin with a hyperlink to a hosted HTML version of the message for users of e-mail clients that do not adequately render HTML messages (such as Outlook 2003, which blocks images by default). Avoid file attachments, such as videos. • Use landing pages focused on the offer to facilitate response. Best Practice No. 8. Track and analyze results. Track all test results. Use findings to optimize subsequent efforts. By employing these eight best practices, pharmaceutical marketers can maximize their chances of achieving success with the use of e-mail as a communications medium. If there is a magic bullet in contemporary medical marketing, it’s e-mail. Medical Marketing Service Inc. (MMS), Wood Dale, Ill., is a supplier of e-mail broadcast services, lists, and databases to pharmaceutical and medical-device marketers. For more information, visit mmslists.com. July 2005 VIEW on E-Solutions

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