With the pandemic situation, a sense of urgency arose. As face-to-face interactions started to have limitations, all industries felt its impact. Even if pharma communication resisted adopting a new approach model, after Covid-19 came into the scene there was no choice but to evolve and accommodate the remote and digital disruption!
Because of the limited number of pharma rep visits, medical professionals became less and less accessible in person. However, with the new digital communication channels seen as the new normal, physicians who were once unreachable are now available and expect these interactions to happen with pharma companies.
3 major changes and challenges for marketers and reps
Medical and scientific data resources became more important to both healthcare professionals (HCP) and a more concerned type of patient. Let us take a deeper look at 3 major changes and challenges for pharma marketers and reps in this new era.
1# Landscape: Digital and remote engagement
COVID-19 resulted in a dramatic reduction of face-to-face meetings between HCP and pharma reps, being 70% lower than before (McKinsey, COVID-19 Survey).
The pandemic brought to light the fact that pharma’s traditional model of interaction with healthcare professionals (HCP) was outdated. In-person engagement and one type of interaction that fits all needs to evolve to remote settings and digital communication channels.
Almost 70% of HCP were digital natives in 2021 (Veeva) and their personal life experiences with mobile, social, and digital technologies shifted the expectations regarding pharma and business interactions. Physicians rushed to embrace digital channels and telemedicine to engage with both patients and reps.
With 87% of medical professionals choosing virtual or a mix of virtual and in-person interaction with pharma reps in the Post-Covid era (Accenture), marketing resources and content needs to be reshaped in a scenario where animations and interactive materials are consumed and demanded more than ever.
With the customer experience and healthcare concern at center stage, medical and life-science data availability and consumption changed with people wanting to know more and evolving into concerned and knowledgeable patients that expect more educational resources and look for physicians’ guidance throughout the care journey.
In the new hyper-connected normal, each interaction with the time-constrained medical professionals has to be meaningful and add value.
2# Approach model: Customer-centric
Marketing today in Healthcare means combining branding, digital marketing, and traditional advertising. In this sense, healthcare decision-making shifted from the old word-of-mouth and physician referrals to digital and online research for content.
Customer knowledge must improve to deliver a tailored experience with HCP expectations, behaviors and needs accounted for. Medical professionals are also patient-oriented consumers in a new remote environment. Here, the educational content is available and shareable at the exact moment.
Tailoring the marketing approach is going beyond product or brand domain with multichannel and multi-device resources. Knowing that doctors and patients research online to choose when it comes to pharmaceutical products. With that in mind, companies also need to have the consumer on top of mind in a more B2C model.
Both physicians and patients don’t want thousands of pages of scientific papers to decipher or outdated medical data reprints. Overall, they want and are in demand of understandable, digestible, engaging, and accessible educational materials.
The importance of educating HCP in the digital spectrum
Up-to-date, accurate, educational, and bite-sized digital data is what will define a successful and continuous engagement strategy with HCP. As the common population trends toward higher consumption of explainer videos in decision-making processes, the healthcare industry must go along with the tide.
Did you know that 17% of non-video marketers don’t use video for marketing as they don’t know where to start? We can help you with that, know more about PubVisual.
Non-Personal Promotion (NPP) campaigns allow products and messages to get to prescribers. For example, if an approved email contains added value content such as a medical animation, the physician’s interest, and further engagement with time on their schedule for a follow-up remote meeting is guaranteed.
Pharma content marketing gains while empowering HCP with digestible and time-saving resources consumed at the time and device of choice. This way, marketers and reps can continuously nurture each physician according to the stage in the customer journey and product life-cycle. In this sense, they increase engagement rates and campaign efficiency.
3# Omnichannel marketing & medical animations
Pharma marketers need to embrace an Omnichannel Marketing approach. This includes detailed content for HCP and direct content for end-users to increase the needed share-of-voice in the decision-making process.
Promoting brand awareness in the target audience’s preferred channels and media types with tailored content enables pharma companies to deliver a personalized and seamless experience according to their physicians’ and patients’ current expectations and needs. Uncomplicated and bite-sized medical data can be consumed anywhere and shared at any moment throughout the different channels guaranteeing trust-building and engagement.
Both marketers and pharma reps watched the boom of video watching throughout the last years. However, it grew particularly bigger within the pandemic scenario. In 2020, online video watching increased by 96% (Hubspot). And more important of all, consumers want more! With 9 out of 10 wanting to see more video content from businesses (InVideo).
It was predicted that this year, an average person will watch online videos for 100 minutes per day. With 100 minutes of video watching per day (ZenithMedia) and 82% of internet traffic coming from its online consumption (Cisco), the video became a must-have for all businesses marketing strategies and Healthcare isn’t an exception.
When looking at the type of video offer preferences, explainer animations were the ones with the highest increase in consumption and demand.
94% of people have watched this type of video to learn more about a product and 84% chose a product or service due to that (Wyzowl). And 87% of marketers confirmed that using video in their marketing strategy benefited Return On Investment in 2021 (Wyzowl).
Did you know that the viewers retain 95% of the message in a video against 10% when reading a text?!… Start adding medical animations to your content marketing strategy today with PubVisual.
Conclusion
Pharma marketing has to evolve along with the changes in healthcare communication. This includes facing the challenges of creating and adding relevant medical content. It needs to be in accordance with the needs of both medical professionals and patients.
Each interaction must be meaningful and valuable in the hyper-connected and time-constrained healthcare environment. To engage with success, pharma’s content resources must consider the digital native and patient-centric HCP. Not only them but also the well-informed and concerned patients.
What the target audience is searching for is a seamless experience. When it comes to scientific and medical data that impact healthcare options, care journey, and decision-making and are in demand for more accessible educational resources.
Pharma companies cannot dismiss the boom in video consumption with consumers wanting more content from businesses. With this in mind, marketers and reps have all to benefit from adding medical animations to their marketing strategy.
Explainer videos are notorious and are a great resource that’s relevant, shareable, and accessible at any time throughout devices. With these materials, pharma nurtures and empowers physicians and patients throughout their journey, with medical content shared at the right time.
More on pharma communication and the new paradigm…
LinkedIn: The New Top Pharma Marketing Tool
