Challenge

An affiliate of a major European pharmaceutical company wanted to create approved emails in-house to speed up the content process and reduce production costs.

Previously, the emails were created by agencies but this was felt to be slow – requiring a lot of agency communication to make even simple changes to the content.

The affiliate wanted to work more efficiently and in an agile way – responding to market needs and proactively trying new ideas and approaches.

• Streamline approved email content production
• Speed time-to-market and reduce costs

"Approved email open rates of 65% were achieved using content created in Activator, double what would normally be expected in pharma"

Solution

To gain more control, the affiliate used Anthill Activator which had recently been introduced by the company across all markets. Activator is a digital content management platform that’s integrated with Veeva Vault. It maintains the security and safety of Vault content while making it easier to manage content and create and adapt materials.

For approved email, Activator enabled the affiliate to build content internally and access templates and elements developed in HQ. It also enabled benchmarking against other affiliates and the ability to adapt materials from other countries – increasing the amount of content available for their approved email engagement without increasing costs.

The ‘sandbox’ environment in Activator was found to be particularly useful as it enabled simple and easy testing of templates and content – providing the quality assurance vital for approved email. Because the affiliate was new to both the Activator solution and to developing content in-house, they wanted to start simply with a pilot for a single brand – gradually expanding to more brands and advanced content formats.

• Use Activator to create and test approved emails in house
• Gradually expand to more brands and content formats

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Results

Within a few months, 67% of approved email was being created in-house using Activator. This lowered costs and speeded up content creation by enabling more efficient workstreams and removing the need to schedule production with agencies. The affiliate was also able to take advantage of centrally-produced content and adapt material from other countries – providing an easy way to increase the amount of content without raising costs.

In terms of the actual HCP engagement, the emails created using Activator were shown to have an impressive open rate of 65% – nearly double what would normally be expected in the industry (35%).

Following a successful pilot, the affiliate is expanding the project to all brands – developing more approved email templates and content using Activator. The intention is then to apply Activator to other channels like eDetailing and website creation.

• 67% of approved email created in-house within a few months
• Impressive HCP open rate of 65%
• More efficient, lower-cost process
• Access to global templates and materials, plus other affiliates' content for adaptation