AMP Emails in Pharma – How and Where to Use

Have you ever thought about how great it would be if we could insert interactive elements into a regular static booklet? Carousels, buttons, videos, gifs, animations… Imagine how it could diversify our promotional materials and which new horizons it can open for the pharmaceutical industry.

Yes, we know it is currently impossible, but the future is near at hand…

After all, a few years ago they thought the same thing about emails. Today an interacting email format known as Accelerated Mobile Page (AMP) is storming all business industries and already got to the life sciences.

Let’s discuss the potential of AMP in pharma, how to translate it into practice, what are complexities and pitfalls and define is it eventually worth it.

The interactivity matters. Trends of the new decade

Questions akin to interactive booklet come into user’s heads because it is expected that interactive technologies will soon enough be able to practically peel our banana. 60% of customers say COVID-19 has changed their relationship with technology. Another 67% of customers say their expectations for good experiences are higher than ever. That sets the new standard of customer experience for marketers.

High interactivity of marketing materials is what we all marketers are working towards. A remarkable percent, 95% of users say they prefer to receive interactive content.

Thus, a channel like social media took center stage in customer engagement strategies as it is much easier to catch customers in Instagram stories they visit several times a day. Interactive quizzes and polls are now the third most popular story format. Another clear case is Buzzfeed that has conquered most of its audience, providing above all an interactive, engaging content.

In the same way, video is your biggest opportunity in 2021. It conquers the market in the new decade as now we are looking for information on Youtube almost as often as on Google. Viewers say they retain 95% of a message when obtained via video.

All the generated statistics is only intended that interactive content works and it should be deployed.

In fact, such tools are an integral part of many industries’ business strategies. 79% of marketers say they plan to increase the use of interactive content in the next 12 months.

Will these channels be relevant in the pharmaceutical industry?

Of course, you can splash them to diversify and effectively use the email, which for many years has occupied the reigning position in communication with the HCPs.

What is AMP? How to use it in emails?

AMP technology allows you to create dynamic content in the email body. This technology allows sending interactive content to HCPs, where right into the email body they can: fill out surveys, order samples, respond to invitations, view carousels, and perform many other actions. AMP email may include:

• Carousels and accordions
• Surveys
• Catalogues and leaflets
• The possibility to give feedback

Another benefit is that allows to speed up the loading of web pages on mobile devices. This is important because just as we are, physicians read emails primarily on their smartphones (60%). The mobile-friendliness of AMP emails plays a significant role in their marketability.

AMP eliminates the need to open another web page to perform any actions. You can click on an element and the content appears right on the same page. You are not leaving the web page you’re on and email works like an autonomous web page. All actions may be performed right in the email body.

Dynamic content is also set new world for deeper personalization across all channels with the reusability of this content. 77% of marketers agree that interactive content has “reusable” value, resulting in repeat visitors and multiple exposures.

How to use AMP in pharma

Surely, the main value of AMP emails for pharma is in the development of newsletters campaigns considering their interactive nature. It allows you to feature various types of content on your website within the email, reducing the need to recreate it.

It may turn your static email into a dynamic history and movable story.

Earlier to order samples HCPs had to go directly to sample sites and leave their information. Receiving this type of correspondence HCPs can fill out surveys, order samples, or co-pay cards right in the email body.

AMP email is also greatly complementing other communication channels as it allows the creation of rep-triggered email campaigns containing eDetailing and self-detailing presentations to study materials on their own. In the email body, HCP may also schedule a call with a medical rep as well as evaluate the quality of the session.

Can we add surveys to email? Of course, a pharma company can send surveys of any length right within the email.

Does AMP email support video? The answer is yes. You can send promotional videos or video materials from your pharma webpage and add them to your mail.

But perhaps the most common use of AMP emails is to invite doctors to participate in various conferences and events. AMP eases the process of registration for HCPs and eliminates the unnecessary bouncing between pages.

AMP: challenges and pitfalls

AMP was first officially launched by Google in 2019 and has become a real boom in digital email marketing. However, the problem is that Google remains the only platform to support AMP format, which limits other interactive elements that currently exist within an email and brings some technical blockers into the game.

Besides that, AMP content has a Google URL and is located on Google servers which may pose a serious challenge for your site’s traffic.

Another problem with AMP is that it doesn’t provide quality analytics. You don’t receive enough data to improve your visitor’s experience because you get just basic metrics like visitors and engagement.

But probably the biggest challenge is that AMP is the format that is tough to develop. This email has its own unique well-documented media tags, unique content, and layout. It requires a lot of additional coding and specialists. It requires additional learning of the AMP coding specification to the extra study of HTML and CSS to create effects and functionality. AMP code in email platforms other than Gmail is nearly double, leading to load issues. Accordingly, the development of AMP emails requires a whole chain of professional email marketing experts who will be aware of all intricacies of this format.

See examples of AMP emails in eWizard

The interactive capability of AMP is too great to be bypassed. Considering all challenges, we had passed “testing” period and mastered all the subtleties of this format. Now our team of dedicated email marketing professionals have a solid experience in the development of AMP email for pharma on the base of eWizard platform. In the future, we plan to extend this functionality to diversify the experiences for HCPs and patient engagement.

Dynamic content inside eWizard native templates offers a variety of ways to create interactive emails and improve:

• exposure and click-through rate
• customer experience’
• your messages into an interactive and dynamic story
• insert interactivity keeping your brand’s consistency

Want to hear about our expertise in the development of dynamic email content and AMP email? Contact us to learn about the content authoring solution enabling the creation of omnichannel, personalized, and now dynamic emails.

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