In the final stages of maximizing marketing spend, it comes down to operational excellence. Previously, we’ve identified how to overcome the constraints of traditional email development, where you can reduce waste along the way, and how to implement strategy. Now it’s time to ensure you’re executing more consistently and reliably than your competition. How do you measure the results?
Let’s walk through three steps to achieve operational excellence:
1. Set attainable goals
How can you utilize existing content and existing data to provide relevant messaging to your audience? You should identify quick wins, near-term goals, and long-term goals. A quick win might be deploying a win-back message, utilizing existing content with a new subject line. Near-term goals typically involve pieces that already exist but take some coordination and time for execution. Long-term goals might require incremental resources or solutions to achieve. It’s important to understand what is achievable right now versus long-term. As you kick off a new year, you should focus on setting goals that are achievable in the 2019 time-frame. Can you increase engagement by mid-year by narrowing your targeted audience to capture who is truly engaged by your messaging? What type of relevant content do you have from 2018 that you can utilize to supplement messaging for 2019?
2. Experimentation followed by agile action
Take what you learned in step one and apply it. If you can subject line test using existing segmentation, you can experiment now. As you observe results, your segmentation will allow you to take action from your learnings. You should already have your planned cadence for promotion in 2019, so now you can move forward with creating a strategy brief around each deployment. As soon as campaigns are executed, you should evaluate performance and take agile action accordingly for future deployments.
3. Added value
This is the key to increasing engagement with both consumers and HCPs. How do you add value? Start internally and ensure you are working collectively as a team with the same goals. It’s important to utilize account management, data management, analytics, strategy, and execution to achieve success in marketing. Together your expertise will create an unstoppable marketing plan.
There you have it! The models discussed in this blog series are applicable no matter what stage your marketing is in. As you continue to grow in our marketing plans, you should re-evaluate our performance and methodology to ensure we’re progressing into the next marketing phase when you are capable of that. Now it’s time to optimize your spend and fully utilize channels to support your marketing strategy.
Kent Groves and Olympia Mantsios discuss identifying audiences and message engagement in the early stages to optimizes spend, reach, and business impact, while incorporating target engagement and value to the brand in their latest blog post. You’re equipped with the basic principles, and significant strides are ahead for your pharma marketing in 2019.
