Five Things I Hope We Don’t Hear at ePharma

It’s conference time in the Big Apple, where the ePharma gathering is bringing marketers together this week to explore digital innovations in healthcare. I love attending industry events to discover what’s working (and what’s not) across pharma and then returning with case studies to energize our clients and teams. Of course, even a great conference has its weaknesses. You know what I mean: those couple of speakers who, perhaps smug and delirious from staring all night at their copious Twitter mentions, get up on the stage and assert some of the most obvious truths about digital marketing.

Perhaps, then, this humble list I’ve compiled will reach our presenters in the nick of time, steering them away from glittering platitudes and toward the fair light of helpful insight:

1. “Social media starts with listening.” Of course it does! The social Web is a powerful source of rich insights for marketers willing to mine for them. This is not a new idea for the pharma industry, which has been tapping companies such as Nielsen, ListenLogic, and my own company, HealthEd, to capture and analyze online conversations. What we need to hear: If social media starts with listening, what does it end with? How do brands identify pearls of wisdom from hundreds or thousands of social conversations and translate them into a framework for influencing customer behavior?
2. “Digital must be integrated into your overall plan.” In theory, this makes a lot of sense. Audiences move seamlessly from watching TV to sending a text message, and from there to browsing the Web. Tactical programs should do the same. Yet many brands hire separate agencies for offline and digital. Increasingly, specialty shops offering only mobile or search are joining rosters. What we need to hear: How can agency partners handling separate channels collaborate with clients to build truly integrated communications?
3. “The future is mobile.” Actually, the present is mobile. Healthcare organizations have made swift use of the “third screen” to support both marketing initiatives and patient education. Consider Text4Baby, a Johnson & Johnson–sponsored effort to improve prenatal care; Text in the City, which empowers inner-city teens to ask questions about sexual health; and the partnership between Roche’s Accu-Chek and Glucose Buddy, a popular diabetes management app. These programs are happening right now. What we need to hear: With mobile platforms and standards still in flux, what are the best opportunities for pharma to leverage this channel today?
4. "E-marketing is about building relationships.” From a marketer’s point of view, it certainly should be. Digital relationship marketing programs are typically more cost-effective than the snail-mail variety, and their outcomes are immediately trackable. Still, a relationship is a two-way street, and a recent study by Accenture suggests that pharma consumers have yet to be wooed: Only 11% of patients taking medication and conducting online research said they regularly visited a pharma Web site. What we need to hear: How can pharma go beyond brand Web sites and pulsed e-mails to build commited relationships in which both patients and marketers play a role?
5. “We’re waiting for DDMAC guidance before tackling social media.” Speakers who utter this sentence may not have to wait long at all because Thomas Abrams, director of DDMAC, will be up on the dais at 11:15 am tomorrow. Of course, it’s unlikely Abrams will surprise the audience with that much-anticipated guidance document ... so if using social tools supports your communication objectives, perhaps there’s no time like the present. After all, pharma now has several years’ worth of social media case studies to model, along with a few FDA Warning Letters marking rough boundaries for digital tactics. What we need to hear: If a brand wants to go social, what are some best practices for mitigating risk? Are there scenarios in which that risk is largely outweighed by the potential return—not just in profits but also in better patient outcomes?

See you there tomorrow!

Jeff Greene
Director, Digital Strategy
HealthEd

Comments

[Jonathan Richman]

Good post, Jeff. I'm with you on all of these with one caveat. Regarding #2 ("Digital must be integrated into your overall plan."), I too wish I heard this less, but saw it more. I think we're in agreement on this one, but I just wanted to be sure.

First, I am in support of hiring different agencies to do different things (disclosure: I work for a full-service digital agency). Hiring an agency that suddenly has declared itself as "digital" to do your digital work is generally a losing proposition. Today, it takes specialized expertise to be able to develop applications to work on multiple devices as just one example. Typically, new "converted" (as I like to call them) agencies can't do this sort of work.

That's fine. Let them do what they do best and let an expert do the other stuff. A quick read sounded like you were advocating not hiring multiple agencies, but rather one that can do it all. Upon closer inspection, that's not what your saying, but rather demanding that all of these agencies work together more effectively. I totally agree with this. It's something that I don't see in pharma at all.

I get to work with a lot of other non-pharma companies like P&G where agency cooperation is required. In fact, they have a model where multiple agencies actually report to a single agency lead (and not directly to the brand team). This lead is responsible for ensuring all the agencies are working together in the same direction. The end client then only has to worry about one agency when something goes wrong. It's not without its challenges, but the advantages outweigh the downsides.

Having multiple agencies and an integrated approach is still new in the very siloed structure of most pharma companies, but they need to switch this up right away. How about hiring an agency lead or coordinator (from an agency) to manage all of it like the P&G model?

[Matthew Kramer]

Great Post!

I think you may benefit from switching to an alternative format of marketing.

What do you think about trying something novel by developing credible resources though the production & publication of peer-reviewed video articles?

The goal here is pull marketing via education. Traffic direct from PubMed.

Example: http://www.jove.com/details.php?id=2428

[John Lynn]

I'd be interested in learning more about Pharma's online advertising tactics. Do they focus on doctor or consumers? Seems like the online mediums are the perfect places to really target the type of person that's seeing the ads. Not to mention metrics on how effective those ads have been.

[Jeff Greene]

Jon I think you talked yourself into getting my point! I'm familiar with 1 or 2 manufacturers who manage agencies just like you suggest: 1 agency is designated the lead and coordinates all of the others. I think that's going to be a challenge for at least a while, since brands are facing the fact that their "online" agencies are gaining more and more momentum. Didn't hear much discussion around this at ePharma but I think it would be a great topic for a panel at an upcoming event.

John Lynn: I'd be glad to share my perspective with you on pharma's online advertising tactics. Drop me a note!