10 Tips for writing pharma emails that HCPs actually want to read

By Dan Buckland, expert of CELforPharma's The Pharma Customer Engagement Course

62% of healthcare professionals experience promotional content fatigue from pharma.^(*)

Most pharma emails follow the same pattern: a product claim, three bullet points, and a "Learn More" button. Most HCPs delete them without reading. The problem is not the channel. Email remains one of the most effective ways to reach and engage HCPs. The problem is the approach.

Here is what to do differently.
 

✉️  Getting the mindset right

1. Start with their problem, not your product

The single most common mistake in pharma email is leading with what the brand wants to say rather than what the HCP is trying to solve. Before writing a single word, ask: what question is this HCP carrying into their day? Your subject line and opening sentence should speak directly to that.
 

2. Give 75% value, ask for 25%

A useful rule of thumb: three quarters of your email content should serve the HCP's needs, not your commercial goals. If the balance tips further towards promotion, you are sending an ad, not a communication. 
 

3. Follow the Empathy → Value → CTA structure

Every email should do three things, in this order:

• Empathy: show you understand the HCP's challenge

• Value: offer something genuinely useful

• CTA: then, and only then, ask for something in return

If you want someone to act, you have to earn the right to that recommendation first. 
 

📩  Writing and formatting the email

4. Keep subject lines short and specific

Your subject line should be clear, concise, and directly relevant to what the HCP will find inside. It needs to represent value or intrigue. If it's more than 5 words, then it will get clipped in the viewing panel. If it's generic, it will be ignored. Practice this and review your open rates. If possible, do A/B testing and you will be able to optimise. 
 

5. Make 1-to-1 emails feel human

Automated emails are efficient, but they can feel cold. Any email that appears to come from a named rep or account manager must read like it was actually written by a person. Avoid corporate language, passive voice, and templated phrases. If it sounds like it came from a marketing department, it probably should not have a person's name on it.
 

6. Add alt text to all images

Many HCPs read email in environments where images are blocked by default. If your email relies on an image to convey its key message and that image does not display, the message is lost. Alt text ensures the communication still works regardless of how the email is rendered.
 

🔁  Building engagement over time

7. Create a welcome sequence for new subscribers

The moment someone subscribes or gives consent is the highest point of engagement you will ever have with them. Most pharma brands waste it by sending nothing, or a generic confirmation. A short, well-designed welcome sequence (two or three emails that introduce who you are and what you stand for) sets the tone for everything that follows. I recommend you continue this journey as long as possible, with approximately 1 out of 4 emails a direct sell. The others should be focused on useful resources and pure value. 
 

8. Use segmentation to personalise the journey

Not every HCP has the same challenge. If you ask a simple question at the point of sign-up you can send different content to different groups. For example: "What is the biggest challenge you face in managing this patient type?" 

This is the foundation of meaningful personalisation, and it does not require a complex CRM to get started.
 

9. Think of the email as a step in a journey, not a standalone message

A single email rarely changes behaviour. What changes behaviour is a sequence of connected messages that take the HCP from awareness of a problem, through consideration of a solution, to a point of action. Design your emails as steps in a journey, with each one building on the last and answering the question the HCP is most likely asking at that stage.
 

10. Before sending, ask yourself: would I open this?

Before any email goes out, someone in the team should read it as if they were a busy specialist receiving it on a Tuesday morning between clinic appointments. If the honest answer is "probably not," it needs to go back for revision.
 

^(*) Digitally Savvy HCP survey, Indegene. Available at: https://www.indegene.com/what-we-think/reports/digitally-savvy-hcp