Most industries are adopting multichannel marketing (MCM), but the pharma sector lags behind compared to other industries. It is often said that the pharmaceutical industry can’t match the kind of advanced Multi-Channel Pharma Marketing seen in sectors such as the retail and travel industries because of the high level of regulation and how it can limit communication.
While there is some truth in this reality, other highly regulated sectors such as telecoms, insurance, and the consumer drinks industry have still shown that it is possible to use creative approaches in MCM to produce engaging and customer-centric communications.
Be customer-centric: Start by segmenting your customers to understand their information needs and appropriate engagement routes to personalize your campaign to reach the ‘segment of one’, making every customer feel the message is relevant for them. A good customer experience that also imparts the key marketing messages is likely to be successful.
2. Learn from prior campaigns: Understand what has worked for products in similar therapeutic areas and geographies, either by routinizing earlier internal initiatives or drawing on external support and experience.
3. Tailor information to the channel: Simply taking a detail aid and transferring it to other channels will not work. Make sure you adapt how information is presented for each channel so that it can be effectively consumed. This may require more work at the start but will pay off over time.
4. Focus on skills: Understand the skills required for delivering messages via multiple, diverse channels. Without the right attributes and training, do not expect sales reps to efficiently deliver messages via online channels, so either invest in training or acquire skilled resource from outside.
Establishing appropriate monitoring systems to assess the success of your Multi-Channel Pharma Marketing campaign on a dynamic basis is just as, if not more, important as planning the right initial approach. However, unless the right metrics are being assessed vital information might be lost that can provide early warning of failing activities that can undermine commercial success. So, be open-minded to what can be measured through newer channels. Such tracking systems have to take account of how well the campaign is working from the perspective of the customer – your ‘segment of one’. If your customers are not responsive to your approaches and are not being driven to seek further engagement with your brand then the right information is not being delivered on their terms.
