MULTICHANNEL MARKETING FOR PHARMA

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1 02 AN INTRODUCTION TO MULTICHANNEL MARKETING FOR PHARMA Inspiring audiences. Motivating change. Thinking beyond. COUCH medical communications 1

2 Introduction Consumers these days have far more control over what they consume in the way of marketing than they did in the past. It s now easy for them to tune out messages that don t come in their preferred format or on their favourite channels. 2 COUCH medical communications

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4 Multichannel marketing for pharma In addition, the pharmaceutical industry is experiencing a number of unique challenges at a time when the economy makes marketing a vital aspect for growth, including: Healthcare professionals (HCPs) are taking the initiative to source the information they need when and where they want to get it. Access to physicians is becoming more limited and the importance of finding other ways to deliver messages is growing. Marketing and sales budgets are under pressure to perform. The strong trends in marketing signals a major shift from the traditional push methods to a pull method of promotion. Customers want different types of communications from their pharmaceutical company, which adapts with their changing preferences. Patients are using the internet in greater numbers to search for health-related information. This influences their treatment decisions and triggers a demand for specific products that come via medical professionals. The reality is, customers aren t getting the information they need and want, if they were it wouldn t be necessary for them to explore these methods of research. These challenges, combined with the varied nature of digital media, means that no single channel is consumed by or likely to reach all your customers. This points to a clear opportunity to implement multichannel marketing (MCM) strategies that optimise the use of a number of available channels to reach the different markets, depending on the methods your target audience prefers. The realisation has taken hold that MCM is the way of the future for pharma. How, then, does the industry effectively implement integrated strategies that make use of several channels simultaneously? This white paper addresses this question. 4 COUCH medical communications

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6 Multichannel marketing for pharma Planning Transitioning successfully to MCM takes careful planning. By compiling a clear, well-devised strategy, you will be able to identify key channels used by HCPs, maximise your brand strategy and market segmentation and deliver a personalised experience for each customer. Here are the steps to follow to plan an effective MCM campaign Start by identifying your primary objectives for the MCM strategy and determine how they align with your overall business strategy. Research your audience and segment them based on the channels they access most frequently, so you know who to target and what you want to achieve by engaging with each segment Investigate the channels and select those that will comprise your MCM strategy. How will you establish your presence on the various platforms, and how long will it take? Determine your capabilities for implementing a MCM strategy, and identify the resources you need. Do you have employees with the right skills to compile and deliver your messages? Evaluate the tools you will need to create the communications that you want to send. What budget will you need to allocate to enable message distribution across a number of channels? Decide how you will assess the success of your efforts for future adaptation of the strategy. Consider who will manage a co-ordinated execution of the MCM strategy, ensuring that best practices are followed. 6 COUCH medical communications

7 MCM relies heavily on knowledge-based, data-driven solutions, and to make that work you ll need to develop a comprehensive database. This requires information such as basic data (name, address, specialty and type of practice) as well as the status of the customer in relation to your company. You can add transactional data and channel preferences, and possibly allocate a score based on the customer s level of importance to you. The database should also enable the addition of data on a regular basis, which is gleaned from analysis of the customer s behaviour. For example, marketing is a major aspect of MCM, and by analysing which of your recipients actually view the s they receive, you can determine what their industry interests are and model your communications accordingly. By identifying healthcare providers with a history of prescribing specific drugs you can target them with particular promotions. Recording the success of your actions, however, provides information on whether your assumptions were accurate in the first place and if not, gives you the chance to revise them. Set up a framework for testing and evaluating your MCM activities, with the necessary reporting procedures. By compiling a clear, well-devised strategy, you will be able to identify key channels used by HCPs. COUCH medical communications 7

8 Multichannel marketing for pharma Implementation While planning is important, it s the implementation of your MCM strategy that determines the success of your efforts. To get this right, you ll need to apply marketing fundamentals and business best practices to the integrated-channel solutions at your disposal. In this section, we will break down the critical success factors for effective implementation of a MCM campaign. 1. Take a walk in your customers shoes + What do they need to know? To focus on giving your customer the information they need to make informed decisions, you ll need to put yourself in their position. + How do they find this? Determine what they want to know, what s the best way to consume the information and what additional material they are likely to search for to supplement it. + When do they need to know this? By providing the right information at the right time and in the right format, you ll increase your customer s level of engagement with your brand and build a stronger future relationship. 2. Set clear objectives + Be realistic Set objectives based on realistic measurements, with clear deliverables for each. By doing so, you ll create the foundation for a strong MCM strategy that includes market segmentation, messaging, methods and resources. You ll also have a framework against which to evaluate your progress + Create concrete goals Determine not only what you want to do but create concrete goals. For example, if you want to improve engagement, by what percentage over what period of time? What s your starting point in terms of market penetration? Create a benchmark from which you can work to plot your progress. + Show evidence To really identify whether the MCM marketing achieves your purposes, you ll need to be able to produce statistical evidence, which is impossible to do if you don t know your starting point or your goal. By providing the right information at the right time and in the right format, you ll increase your customer s level of engagement. 8 COUCH medical communications

9 3. Get management buy-in + Under promise and over deliver Manage expectations and commitment through investment in education, training and internal communication and avoid over-promising and under-delivering. + Get a seal of approval Any new method of operation including MCM has a greater chance of success if it enjoys high level endorsement. 4. Focus on the message not the medium + Focus on the message Identify the media to use for each message individually, then ascertain whether the message needs adapting in any way. For example: Twitter posts are a maximum of 140 characters long, which indicates that if you post the same message there as you do to Facebook or in your detailing to clients you re likely to lose something in translation. + Tweak your message Any new method of operation including MCM has a greater chance of success if it enjoys high level endorsement. + The message is king Nothing will tell your clients faster that you don t know what you re doing than a poorly-executed MCM campaign. And the medium is just the method of dissemination; it s still the message itself that counts for the most points. Focus on giving your customer the information they need to make informed decisions. COUCH medical communications 9

10 Multichannel marketing for pharma Measurement and evaluation The most important aspect of MCM is measuring, recording and analysing the results and then acting on the intelligence gleaned from the analysis. Without adequate measurements, you re likely to be throwing good money after bad. Knowing what and when to change or scale up and in which areas is vital to the long term success of the campaign. It s counter-intuitive to simply measure sales. For one thing, few MCM campaigns can be directly relatable to sales unless they contain special offers or unique purchase codes. Given that sales typically accounts for less than 4% of recipients, you re not going to have enough usable intel if that s all you re measuring. Tracking the following aspects will give you a lot more to work with: + Levels of access One of the primary reasons for the rise of MCM is increasing difficulty of gaining access to doctors and other healthcare stakeholders. This highlights the need to find alternative methods to engage with them, research shows that commonly doctors who refuse to see salespeople are fairly open to connecting through channels that suit them. The more available channels you use to do so, the better your chances are of gaining access and consequently achieving more valuable engagement. The access levels need to be monitored and measured constantly, though, to avoid the stagnation of channels that can occur unexpectedly. + Quality of interactions The rise of the internet has become synonymous with poor quality communication, ranging from chatroom English to keyword-stuffed content. This makes quality an important aspect in encouraging users to engage with the information you offer. Without quality interaction you re unlikely to change the behaviour of your customers or get them to consume the messages you distribute. Since the concept of quality can be subjective at best, it s necessary to measure customer response through satisfaction surveys, online questionnaires and length of stay. This will help you to determine whether your users consider your material qualitative enough to satisfy their needs. One of the primary reasons for the rise of MCM is increasing difficulty of gaining access to doctors. 10 COUCH medical communications

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12 Multichannel marketing for pharma + Feedback loops The whole essence of good MCM is the integration across the various channels. No matter how many channels you use individually, unless you activate the message across the channels you might miss out on engaging your customer in the way you want. By delivering a combined message across several platforms, however, the sum of the whole is more than the parts. Here s an example: A direct mail campaign sent to doctors is duplicated via marketing; the communication includes a special offer for customers who respond within a certain time period using a special code included on both mailings. + Cross channel activation Closing the loop through feedback is one of the most vital aspects of MCM campaigns. Most qualitative evaluation is done through feedback, but it s the correlation between the qualitative and the quantitative information derived from your analytics and statistics that delivers the real intelligence and support the findings of each other. Measuring your customers responses and assessing their accuracy based on statistical evidence will give you the information you need to flex your approach, your message or the way in which you deliver information. The response requires them to access certain content on your website and gives them the option to participate in a webinar outlining certain new medical information. Online peer-to-peer networking during and after the webinar encourages the use of your discussion forum and ultimately your social media profiles. Measurement and evaluation of the success of these efforts is necessary to enable you to know what s working and what isn t, and to tweak your MCM strategy accordingly. By delivering a combined message across several platforms, however, the sum of the whole is more than the parts. 12 COUCH medical communications

13 Beyond the traditional pharma lens Health psychology in action Adapting for better results The old saying is true: It s not what happens that matters, but what you do about it. Adapting your MCM strategy according to the behaviour of your customers is the only way to improve your results in the long term. The information users want and the way in which they want to get it can change quickly, especially with the rapid advances taking place regularly in technology. This makes it important to constantly monitor your campaigns and make adjustments based on the findings. + Managing expectation Part of the requirement for success is management buy-in, and we don t mean just for phase one of your campaign. To get the ongoing executive-level support you want and need to make MCM deliver real results, you need to manage expectations about getting it right the first time. Make sure your executive team realises that the starting point is just that a beginning and that you intend to adapt and scale your pilot approach over time based on your analysis of the results. + Learning from campaigns Before you can adapt your campaign, identify what you are changing both from and to. Don t discard the entire process and start over, because chances are you still won t get it right. Instead, as long as your campaign delivered some value you can continue running with it and adapt one aspect at a time. Check out geographical locations and therapeutic areas by examining former initiatives or sourcing feedback from various directions. Scrutinise the channels that are delivering successful results and analyse what you are doing differently on the others. Weigh the use of the good channels and don t fix anything that isn t broken, just to see if you can make it work better. Focus your adaptation activities on the channels that are NOT delivering results, and try to adapt the message to improve its performance. + Customised approach Customise your approach according to each channel s audience and requirements by adapting the information. This takes a bit more effort, but you ll avoid the over-long tweets that end up cutting off the URL and losing out on all the potential traffic! + Invest in resources Invest in the skills you need to manage the MCM campaigns. Don t expect your summer intern do be able to run it, just because they have some knowledge of Facebook! You d be surprised how many companies do this. Either arrange the necessary training for your staff or outsource the process to a skilled service provider. COUCH medical communications 13

14 Multichannel marketing for pharma Concluding thoughts As the health care industry transitions from a fee-for-service model to one based on qualitative measures of reimbursement, pharma needs to realign itself for an outcomesbased world. This means the way forward requires a stronger spotlight on data and analytics, as companies jockey for competitive advantages. Sales teams need to find ways to help HCPs navigate the changes, even while getting in to see them becomes increasingly difficult. Some ways that they can do this are: Focusing on content, messaging and services that keep them relevant in the market, help customers navigate the virtual world and deliver the information they want and need. Developing coordinated marketing strategies that target a range of customers based on understanding how they use technology, to deliver the right messages at the right time to the right device. Ensure functionality across all devices and channels. Keeping pace with technology. This includes developing support programs containing robust metrics and client services not just soft marketing efforts. Embracing data and all that it has to offer in Customer Relationship Management practices. Become cyber-citizens with strong online presences that create credibility and indicate up-to-date knowledge and expertise. Achieving this will require pharma companies to become online publishers, offer relevant apps, websites and social media for customer engagement. Mobile remains huge and should be included in any MCM strategy. The time for waiting is over. Now is the time for doing, now is the time to evolve. 14 COUCH medical communications

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16 We are COUCH a full service medical communications agency. As an esteemed partner to pharmaceutical, healthcare and lifestyle industries, we aim to help make a real difference to patients lives by inspiring audiences, inspiring change and thinking beyond. l f i i COUCH Medical Communications 4th Floor, Churchgate House 56 Oxford Street Manchester M1 6EU UK +44 (0) hello@wearecouch.com COUCH 2017.