Email Preference Management: Putting customers in control of their inboxes

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When it comes to email, it turns out that Health Care Practitioners (HCPs) are just like the rest of us: they want the information they want, and they don’t want stuff that isn’t useful. The problem for life science companies who communicate with HCPs is that every HCP has their own unique preferences. An email about an upcoming professional education program might be a must-read for one, while the same email might lead their colleague to look for the “unsubscribe” option.

The Unintended Consequences of “Unsubscribe”

While the ability to unsubscribe is required by law for all commercial email, clicking on that option entails risks for both the HCP and the organization sending the email – let’s use a mid-size pharmaceutical company as our example.

For the HCP, clicking unsubscribe prevents the company from sending additional emails from that account. But while the HCP will no longer get emails about programs that don’t interest them, they will also not receive emails about other topics that might be valuable to them.

Multiple Email Subscriptions Make “Unsubscribe” Trickier

That disconnect is an issue for the pharmaceutical company as well, which obviously wants to share important information with the HCP.

And here’s where it gets even trickier: life sciences companies will often use multiple accounts to send emails to HCPs via different platforms. Take the pharmaceutical company from our example: sales representatives send emails to their customers using Veeva CRM, while the marketing team sends emails to these same HCPs through Salesforce Marketing Cloud. In some cases, one of the company’s branded websites might include a sign-up for its own email list.

When an HCP clicks “unsubscribe” on an email – let’s say on communication sent through Veeva – that action only applies to the Veeva list. This means that the HCP will continue to receive emails from the company’s other lists, such as Salesforce Marketing Cloud. This could easily lead to the customer being confused or annoyed to still be receiving communications that they thought they’d opted out of, not to mention that according to the CAN-SPAM Act, you are required to honor the opt-out across the organization, irrespective of the system from which the email was sent.

The Solution: Email Preference Management

Addressing the unintended consequences of “unsubscribe” goes back to the basics, namely giving HCPs the ability to choose what emails they want (and don’t want) to receive. Conexus has solved this challenge with Consent Hub, a solution that enables HCPs to choose their email preferences once, and have those preferences applied across the full range of a life science company’s email platforms.

Conexus Consent Hub enables life science companies to deploy a single interface for email preference management. Depending on the company’s preference, HCPs can access this interface as part of the email sign-up process and/or when they choose to unsubscribe from a particular list. Through a simple, customizable form, HCPs can indicate what types of email they’d like to receive. By applying these preferences across all the company’s email accounts and platforms, Consent Hub ensures that the customers’ wishes are respected no matter the source of the email.

Sample Consent Hub Form

The result: HCPs get the information they want and avoid the emails that aren’t relevant to them. Life science companies better serve their customers by respecting each HCP’s preferences across multiple email platforms. And these companies get another level of insight into each customer’s interests based on their selections in Consent Hub.

In summary, email preference management is a win for everyone. We’d be happy to tell you more about it – just shoot us an email!

About Conexus

For small- to mid-sized life sciences companies that need to reach and market to healthcare providers, Conexus offers the rare combination of deep life sciences experience with end-to-end support expertise, including a range of marketing support services. These services include patient and HCP videos, copywriting, email templates, Veeva-friendly Core Visual Aids, and more. Clients turn to Conexus for projects large and small when they need fast turnaround, or when their agency is too busy (or too expensive) for a specific project. When it comes to providing marketing support services with value and quality, Conexus serves as “The Team Behind Your Team.”

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