Did you know that email is one of the top three preferred channels of communication for physicians? At the same time, 85% of HCPs take action after watching a medical professional video. It’s clear that video and email are a match made in heaven to get physicians to open pharma emails and actually take action. Here are some ways to successfully combine email and video for pharma.
Can you get video playback directly in the email?
The majority of email clients will allow you to get videos to play directly in the email itself. Some of these include Outlook, Thunderbird, Hotmail, and all Apple devices, such as iPhones and iPads.
On the other hand, clients such as Gmail and Yahoo and the majority of Android devices won’t allow playback directly in the email. However, that’s really easy to solve, using the step below.
Link your pharma videos using an image
If you can’t let HCPs play videos in the email, you can do the next best thing, and direct them towards the video on your website. You can use this by putting an image that mimics the video in the email body, and the physicians will intuitively click on it to start playing. You can set up the landing page so that the video automatically starts playing once the page is opened.
Alternatively, you can also use a gif instead of a static image to entice physicians to click through. However, bear in mind that some clients such as Outlook do not support gif images.
Keep it short and sweet with video in email marketing
We’ve repeatedly written that physicians have their hands filled with patients and paperwork on a daily basis. As such, they don’t have hours to wade through emails each morning before work.
In fact, email as a format should be kept very brief. According to research, the ideal length of an email that captures attention should be between 50 and 125 words – less than a minute of reading.
The logic also extends to videos in emails – they should be short and to the point. At BlueNovius, most of our PubExplainer videos are 90 seconds long. Naturally, the more targeted the email and the more interested the physician is in your product, the longer the video can be.
Always use calls to action
A call to action (CTA) is simply that, a short message inviting the physician to take some action after viewing your video in the email. This can be anything from viewing another video, subscribing to your newsletter, requesting a reprint, or asking for a sales rep to contact them – the list is only limited by your marketing creativity.
Pharma marketers who invest time and money into great email campaigns and creating medical videos (which don’t have to be expensive at all) are missing out if they’re not using any calls to action. Here are some examples of CTAs:
– Request a reprint here
– Want to find out more? Subscribe to our newsletter!
– Like this video? Share it on LinkedIn by clicking here
Depending on the platform you use to host your videos, you can put the CTAs at any point in the video, be it the beginning, the middle, or the very end. In fact, some video hosting services even let you put an email capture form in the middle of the video. That way, the physician will only be able to finish watching if they leave their email address.
Track the success of your videos
Using video as a tool to improve your campaigns is an ongoing effort. Therefore, you should measure what you are doing and see how physicians are responding to it. That way you can refine and improve the process.
Using your email service provider, you can see the difference videos make to your open- and click-through rates. What’s more, you can track exactly who clicked on your video. You will be able to see which physician is interested in your latest scientific publication and product and which video they clicked on.
Furthermore, video platforms allow you to track video metrics as well. You can see how much of the video the physician has watched and at which points they were most engaged in.
By using a combination of email, website, and video metrics, you can set up a dashboard and get the most relevant KPIs which you can use to measure and improve how you use video in emails.
Things you should avoid
In your email marketing efforts, there are some blunders to avoid. First, there are phrases such as click here and test – your email provider won’t like seeing these too much.
Second, don’t try to use too many exclamation points, upper case letters, or emojis. Always remember your target audience and that physicians use this email address for work-related matters.
When it comes to your video, there are some general guidelines. Avoid bright, flashing colors, both in the video and the embed screen.
Finally, as most emails that contain video have to be written in HTML, make sure to use text as well as HTML code. Otherwise, the physician’s email client might recognize your message as spam.
Do you need some help with using video in emails?
Do you want to get guidance on using video in email marketing from pharma marketing experts? At BlueNovius, we’ve helped over 50 pharma companies globally improve their email marketing results using video. Reach out to us today to find out what we can do for you as well!
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