Client: Genzyme?
Agency: 89 Degrees?
Objective: To raise ?awareness of the ?biotechnology company’s email opt-in form and reduce sign-up friction.?
For years, Genzyme Corp. has operated a two-track email program to maintain contact with consumers ?interested in its Synvisc-One treatment for osteoarthritis of the knee. However, its email opt-in form failed to deliver, says Christine Waite, director of Synvisc-One patient ?marketing at Genzyme. ?
“We had a lot of organic traffic and traffic from advertising to the website, but we weren’t getting any email sign-ups,” she says. “Our email sign-up wasn’t enticing.”?
STRATEGY: Genzyme’s problem was two-fold. Consumers struggled to find its opt-in form, yet even when they did locate it, the lengthy document undermined consumers’ enthusiasm to enroll.?
“We were asking for people’s names and addresses, and asking our profile questions. It was a bit of a long process for somebody who is already there at your website and just wants to sign up to get more information,” Waite says.?
Genzyme set out to streamline its opt-in process with a new form that simply asked for consumers’ email addresses and whether or not they were currently using Synvisc-One. Consumers not in treatment now receive a series of four educational “Fast Facts” emails across four days, with a fifth delivered three weeks later asking if they made an appointment with a doctor yet. Meanwhile, those who are using Synvisc-One were invited to join a six-month “Treatment Check-In” email series, messaging consumers according to their treatment stage. Both groups receive a monthly “Know Your Knees” newsletter that features information from an ?orthopedic surgeon.?
Genzyme wanted to ensure consumers saw the more efficient sign-up form. To that end, it worked with its database agency of record, 89 Degrees, to develop an email opt-in widget that would appear throughout the site. ?
“We looked at the more popular pages according to our Google Analytics reports to understand the more common [site pages] people are visiting,” explains Waite. She adds that Genzyme decided to vary the widget’s placement from page to page to avoid “having too much of a templated approach.”?
RESULTS: Since implementing the simpler form, Genzyme’s sign-up rate jumped from roughly 500 consumers over the course of three months to more than 1,000 over a comparable period, according to Waite. ?
With its beefed-up list, Waite says, Genzyme is readying a new email for those consumers in the “Fast Facts” track three months after they opt in, to ask whether they have received treatment. “We have a callout within the ‘Know Your Knees’ email, but a solo email will help to capture more people,” Waite says.
