Digitalizing marketing to physician : what pharma needs to know
European Pharmaceutical Review explores how the pharmaceutical industry could develop its digital marketing and sales strategies to better align with physician expectations and needs.
Laptop with bubbles containing words like ‘SEO’, ’emails’, ‘social networking’, ‘video’, with ‘digital marketing’ written above
Recent research into how European physicians and pharma sales teams are interacting in the digital space has revealed that pharma could better utilize web-based platforms.
European Pharmaceutical Review’s Hannah Balfour discussed with Laurence Olding, the Research Director at global research company Bryter, how pharma can improve its use of digital strategies, such as communication applications, to market products to healthcare providers (HCPs).
Bryter’s survey and resulting study investigated how physicians and pharma sales teams interact using digital techniques. Olding revealed: “The aim was to understand how enterprises could use digital methods to supplement and build on traditional methods of engagement with their healthcare professional customers.”
The report highlighted that, while digital methods are utilized, companies are currently failing to tailor their approach to the needs of each client. The report concluded that as much as 48 percent of the 1,500 physicians surveyed in the US and Europe receive communication through a single channel; ie, they only interact with sales representatives (reps). Furthermore, as little as eight percent in the US and six percent in Europe experience a combined face-to-face and digital approach.
Pharmaceutical companies typically direct their marketing efforts toward physicians and, as of late, directly to patients (consumers). The marketing efforts directed at physicians comprise personal selling through sales representatives (detailing); sampling (provision of drugs at no cost); physician meetings and events; and advertisements in medical journals. Since 1997, a change in the legal environment that allowed direct-to-consumer advertising (DTCA) has resulted in a 350% increase in expenditures for such advertising between 1996 and 2001. However, the biggest chunk of marketing expenditure is directed toward detailing. Historically, detailing has been the pharmaceutical industry’s primary promotional instrument. Our aim in this Article is to provide an integrative review of the academic research on the effect and role of Digitalizing marketing to physician. We highlight the main findings that arise from the medical, legal, economics, and marketing literature. Finally, we propose an explanation of the pervasiveness of detailing over a drug’s life. We conclude by proposing how an increase in the efficiency and effectiveness of this expenditure can benefit firms, physicians, and patients.
