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Managing your marketing lists effectively

Modernising digital communications and making the most of customer data

Medicine & Hygiene

Background

A leading player in French-speaking Switzerland in the field of medical and health information, the Médecine & Hygiène group publishes numerous titles aimed at both healthcare professionals and the general public.

Among its flagship brands is the Revue Médicale Suisse (RMS), a leading scientific weekly in the field of continuing professional development for doctors in French-speaking Switzerland. Every week, more than 5,500 subscribers receive the journal along with a newsletter inviting them to access the content online.

As a long-standing CRM partner of Médecine & Hygiène, dotBase was approached to support the modernisation of the group’s marketing tools and optimise the use of its database.

The challenge

The marketing team had numerous projects aimed at promoting its publications and boosting audience engagement.

However, several technical limitations were hampering its operational efficiency:

  • An email marketing tool not integrated with the CRM
  • Contacts spread across several independent lists, with numerous duplicates
  • Poor data quality and information that was difficult to utilise
  • Limited management of subscription preferences
  • A lack of visibility into recipients’ actual engagement
  • Difficulty in tailoring communications to recipients’ interests
  • Time-consuming manual processes for preparing campaigns and newsletters

This situation limited the team’s ability to personalise its communications, measure their performance and develop new marketing initiatives.

The objectives

Following a workshop to analyse the current situation and define requirements, two priorities were identified:

Improving the reliability and enriching the information on contacts

The aim was to have a single, high-quality and usable database in order to:

  • Eliminate duplicates
  • Identify obsolete or incomplete data
  • Effectively segment audiences
  • Prepare a future strategy for personalising communications

Optimising newsletter management

For the *Revue Médicale Suisse* in particular, the challenge was to:

  • Automate campaign preparation processes
  • Improve deliverability
  • Accurately measure subscriber engagement
  • Reduce the time spent on administrative tasks

The solution implemented

To address these challenges, dotBase has rolled out a marketing automation platform integrated with the existing CRM system.
Creating a connected ecosystem
  • Integration of the Act-On platform with SugarCRM
  • Automatic data synchronisation between the two systems
  • Implementation of website behaviour tracking
  • Centralisation of marketing and customer relationship data
Overhaul of CRM data quality

Significant work has been carried out to streamline the data in order to:

  • Harmonise the data model
  • Remove fields that have become unnecessary or obsolete
  • Structure strategic information
  • Ensure data consistency across the various tools
Structuring marketing automation

The teams were then supported in setting up:

  • Dynamic audience segments
  • A centralised library of marketing content
  • Reusable campaign templates
  • Tracking and reporting dashboards
  • Automated data feeds to the CRM

The results

Simplified campaign management

Médecine & Hygiène now benefits from:

  • A single, centralised contact database
  • Constant synchronisation with the CRM
  • Automatic removal of duplicates
  • Automated management of invalid addresses and bounce rates
  • A preference centre allowing subscribers to choose the communications they wish to receive
  • A single platform for all marketing campaigns

The team can also quickly create forms, landing pages and campaigns to support new editorial or event-based initiatives.

A better understanding of the audience

The new tools provide comprehensive visibility into:

  • The performance of each campaign
  • Open and click-through rates
  • The most viewed content
  • Engagement levels by audience
  • Deliverability issues by email domain

This overview now enables teams to manage their marketing activities based on reliable and measurable data.

 

Measurable performance

For example, a recent campaign reached nearly 7,000 recipients, with:

  • a 37 per cent open rate
  • 245 clicks generated
  • a click-through rate of 3.5 per cent
  • 9.4 per cent click-to-open rate

These metrics provide teams with an accurate picture of their subscribers’ engagement and form a solid basis for the ongoing optimisation of campaigns.

 

What’s next?

The next step is to enhance customer insight by linking interests to individual contacts, so as to deliver increasingly relevant and personalised communications.

The aim is to deliver the right content to the right person at the right time, whilst boosting audience engagement and the value of the group’s publications.

Customer testimonial

“Thanks to dotBase’s support, we now have a modern marketing platform that is integrated with our CRM and provides us with a clear picture of our audience. We can now focus our efforts on creating value rather than on administrative tasks.”

Michael Balavoine, Director of Medicine & Hygiene

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