The Effective Use of Email to Communicate with HCP's

It’s a tough job recruiting healthcare professionals to medical market research. They’re busy, you’re a low priority, and the clock’s always ticking. So how to capture your HCP's attention, get them engaged, and build a rapport? It’s important first, to find the right mode of communication and second, to ensure that your messages get read.

Email remains the preferred mode of contact for most HCPs, and it’s a great medium for starting a conversation and building rapport. On the downside, the average HCP’s inbox is full of competing claims on his or her time. So how can you write emails in such a way to ensure they get seen, get opened, and get read, consistently?

Building an Email Relationship With HCPs

Demonstrating that you know and understand your recipient's working environment is key to effective communication. We all react more generously when addressed respectfully, appropriately, and with due consideration. It's also a precursor to the development of trust, which means that we’re more likely to respond positively to subsequent communications.

1. Keep it Concise

Here are 5 things we’ve found that help in building an email relationship with HCPs:

• Be upfront and clear about what you want
• Strip out anything that’s unnecessary
• Keep paragraphs short and concise
• Use emboldened titles and bullet points
• MAKE IT EASY TO RESPOND POSITIVELY TO YOUR REQUEST

Remember, busy people like to be able to complete tasks easily. So offering a simple way to respond to your request is likely to achieve a quick, positive response.

2. Remove All Distractions

When your brain is already overcrowded, the last thing you need is a busy email full of colours, animations and fancy fonts. Think carefully about your formatting when contacting healthcare professionals. You want an easy-to-read font, set at a standard size. And avoid complicated signatures. Any contact information should be clear and unfussy.

3. Compose Your Subject Line Carefully

This is the key to getting your email opened, so it’s worth spending a bit of time on it. A question always engages the reader’s mind, as does the use of direct address. Take care, though, that your subject line doesn’t look ‘tricksy’ or clever, as this tends to be off-putting. The best subject lines are direct, honest, and to-the-point.

4. Demonstrate Your Understanding of Confidentiality

The General Data Protection Regulation requires that all personal identification is kept private. Demonstrate your understanding of this by never sharing an HCP’s email address with anyone else in an email chain. Set yourself a series of personal privacy checks before clicking ‘send’. It’s all too easy to forward an email on and inadvertently share email addresses. One slip like this and trust could be broken. Make privacy a priority.

5. Don’t Share Personal Information by Email

Emails are like postcards. Maybe they won’t be read by anyone but you and your HCP, but assume there’s every likelihood that they will. With that in mind, avoid sharing any personal information about medical conditions or their patients’ healthcare. If you share any attachments, password protect them so that only the designated recipient can read it.

LDA Research Are Specialists in Effective Communication

LDA Research was set up over 10 years ago with the aim of providing the highest quality medical market research. We’ve enjoyed tremendous success in providing qualitative research for the medical devices and pharmaceutical sector. Our team is known for its highly professional approach,  and its tenaciousness when it come to recruiting busy healthcare professionals both in the UK and across the world.