Customer-centric approach in pharma: Why pharma marketers must adopt it immediately
Within the pandemic landscape, the Healthcare topic gained strength and went center stage in the concerns of the general population. The way medical and life-science information is consumed and products are chosen shifted completely.
With more data available and overall healthcare awareness, patients became more concerned and knowledgeable, with a stronger role in the decision-making process of their journeys.
Pharma needs to widen the horizon and be influencers on both layers of HCP and end-users. Creating and making available educational resources helps trust and authority building, becoming a go-to source when it comes to reliable and relevant data to help in the decision-making process.
The customer-centric approach is essential when nearly 85% of patients believe that they can take responsibility for their health with the online resources available (Pharmacy Times). Pharma needs to be present along the journey as partners deliver valuable, bite-sized, easy-to-digest, and time-saving resources.
A more B2C model needs to be in place for a successful engagement between pharma and the target audiences. This will delete the gap in the communication strategy with a seamless experience delivered at the right moment! Let us look deeper…
Disruption: A massive shift…
With Covid-19, new kinds of audiences were introduced to pharma marketers:
- The Digital Native HCP: the engagement with both pharma companies and patients went remote and digital-based, with higher concern for patient-care resources.
- The More Concerned Patient: patients evolved into well-informed consumers, seeking valuable knowledge through educational digestible, and easy-to-comprehend resources.
- The Digital Native HCP: the engagement with both pharma companies and patients went remote and digital-based, with higher concern for patient-care resources.
- The More Concerned Patient: patients evolved into well-informed consumers, seeking valuable knowledge through educational digestible, and easy-to-comprehend resources.
1) The digital native HCP
When Covid-19 entered the scene, business interactions and engagement went remote and digital. One might think that with the in-person meetings and visit limitations, the time of effective engagement from HCP diminished… Wrong!
Companies need to tailor the message and add value through in-demand resources and part of the target audience’s preferences. This makes interactions more meaningful and strategic with a whole new set of possibilities for pharma marketers to explore.
2) More concerned patients
The combination of a bigger concern with higher consumption and demand of medical content brought to life a more knowledgeable type of patient that wants to be more in control of his own healthcare decisions.
Having the online data available as a first resource with an average of three online resources used before taking a decision related to a provider (Healthcare Success), the pharmaceutical products consumers need more educational resources and expect them to be made available by both physicians and pharma companies.
Takeaway: One main key factor is: customer knowledge improvement! The second is evolving with the shift occurring in the relationships between medical professionals and patients. Here the marketing goal must be a seamless experience throughout a more organized care journey in a multichannel atmosphere. The focus goes on both prevention and patient expertise on the matter at hand. A targeted marketing omnichannel strategy that goes beyond product or brand domain.
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Pharma: Expectations from HCP and patients
To get a steady flow of engagement from the new generations of HCP and patients, pharma companies have to enable strategies for both. By continuously taking into consideration the behaviors and preferences of the audiences within an agile and reactive marketing model.
This can be achieved by combining elements such as
- Refined patients’ knowledge;
- Awareness of the current role of physicians;
- Acknowledgment of the needs/expectations for educational resources within the care journey.
To achieve and deliver the holistic health outcome that patients are looking for, pharma needs to get the HCP onboard with meaningful, easy-to-digest, bite-sized, and time-saving digital resources, accessible at the time and consumed in the device of choice.
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Takeaway: Business interactions shifted in Pharma, enabling more channels and omnichannel brand awareness not possible before. Both HCP and patients want more empowerment granted by valuable content resources from pharma companies, being easier than ever to be present in each step of their journeys.
Video: An important piece in your marketing strategy!
The boom in video consumption cannot be overlooked when thinking about valuable content from a consumer’s point of view. With almost 100% of businesses believing that informational videos help increase understanding of new products (Wyzowl) having a direct influence on the decision-making process, pharma marketers can’t dismiss the importance of video is an efficient content marketing strategy nowadays.
The explainer videos go hand in hand with both medical professionals and patients’ needs. With video animation, medical data can be turned into a bite-sized and understandable resource. Not only that, but it can also deliver a smooth experience tailored to the exact stage of the journey they are at.
Video content is also multichannel, multi-device and easily shared with online and offline availability, defined and decided by the consumer. Higher viewer engagement is possible by making this type of content available on multiple channels. For example, available on a landing page, in a portal, or shared in email marketing campaigns.
What do the statistics say?
Still wondering why is video content a good choice? These statistics might help clarify that video marketing lowers costs and is beneficial to pharma marketing:
- 89% of video marketers say video gives them a good ROI (Return On Investment);
- 83% of video marketers say video helps them with lead generation;
- 87% of video marketers say video has increased traffic to their website;
- 80% of video marketers say video has directly helped increase sales;
- 84% of people chose a product/service by watching a brand’s video.
When it comes to length against the engagement time, videos with up to two minutes have a steady engagement from viewers. This means that a 90 seconds medical animation, for example, guarantees the viewer’s engagement almost 100%.
Adding value to email marketing campaigns with video content, makes the pharmaceutical products visible to the prescribers at the exact moment of both customer’s journey and product life-cycle, through the preferred communication channel and media type.
Key facts:
- “Video” in the email subject can increase open rates by 6% (Email Open Rates);
- Video can increase open rates – 19% – and click rates – 65% – while reducing unsubscribe rates – 26% (Campaign Monitor);
- Click-through rates of the 1st campaign email can increase by 96% with a video included (Campaign Monitor);
TakeAway: Video content added to pharma marketing campaigns is a must-have in the present time and has proven to impact positively on lead generation, sales, and ROI. Video email marketing in pharma enables marketers to provide a fit-to-size experience to each member of the target audience segment at a precise time. Prospects, leads, and customers will continue down the funnel if nurtured with valuable content through their preferred channel and media type.
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Conclusion
To be able to succeed within the current landscape, pharma marketing teams have to fully embrace the customer-centric model. With this in mind, they need to consider the target audiences’ behaviors and expectations taken into consideration.
Data consumption increased with a higher demand for educational resources that are consumed in an almost holistic manner. Materials that are easy to digest, understandable, bite-sized, and attractive, allow seamless multi-channel, multi-device experiences for both medical professionals and patients.
Video watching boomed within the consumer’s media type preferences globally, becoming an important piece for any successful content marketing strategy. Medical animations are more viewed and on-demand than ever, enabling pharma marketers with an important resource to increase engagement, authority, and influence among the target audiences.
Educational video content can be shared at the exact moment of the journey. The statistics show that it helps with lead generation and customer nurturing without high costs. At the same time, this benefits engagement, sales, and overall business ROI.
