Healthy Skepticism Library item: 16591

Warning: This library includes all items relevant to health product marketing that we are aware of regardless of quality. Often we do not agree with all or part of the contents.

Publication type: Media Release

Matching pharmaceutical marketing objectives to digital strategies
Eyeforpharma.com 2009 Sep 28
http://www.pharmiweb.com/pressreleases/pressrel.asp?ROW_ID=8061

Full text:

Online marketing efforts are taking on a broader and more important role as more and more people frequent social networking Web sites, like Facebook . “We need to embrace new, innovative ways of reaching our customers by trying to go to where ‘they’ are, rather than making them come to us. And social media is certainly an impactful vehicle to accomplish this,” says Cynthia North, Customer Marketing Director at Bayer Healthcare.

However, although digital communication channels offer pharmaceutical companies unique opportunities to engage with customers, Jonathan Richman, Director of Business Development at Bridge Worldwide and author of popular industry blog, Dose of Digital, says strategies must match the comfort level or “digital sophistication” of the audience. You have to understand what your customers are already doing online and extrapolate from there to what they might be willing to do online.

Pharma companies, he says, also must be educated about what the different options available are and which approaches will deliver on the goals they have for their marketing programs.

“Some companies seem to be against using social media tools, but that may be because they don’t have a great understanding of how the different tools actually work,” Richman says. “But whatever digital tactic you choose, it’s important to match the objectives in your business plan with the strategies these tools can actually deliver. And that may not be well understood or done in some companies.”

North says her company is engaging with patients by partnering with patient advocacy groups that have already assembled a community of people affected by a particular disease. Bayer is working with the National Multiple Sclerosis Society (NMSS) and Microsoft® to understand the role technology might play in helping people living with MS. The partners have developed an online tool that helps people living with MS identify and take advantage of different types of accessible technology. By helping to educate and connect them with these resources, they hope it helps them stay more connected. The partners also developed an online cognitive game designed specifically for people living with MS. It was launched this summer with great success.

“These types of partnerships really bring value to people living with MS and the patient advocacy groups supporting them,” North says. “ At the end of the day, we’re doing something amazing for the patient community and our company.”

An increasing amount of what pharma’s doing direct to patient today is online – and that’s a huge difference from five years ago, she says. “It’s important to listen to and learn from our patient population so that we can give them the products and services they want,” North says.
North will be speaking and Richman will be chairing a panel session at eyeforpharma’s 4th annual eCommunication and Online Marketing Summit 2009 in Philadelphia, November 3-4. Richman says he’s looking forward to the chance to learn from the global mix of people that eyeforpharma’s events attract, while North says she knows the event will showcase best-in-class approaches to complex issues for digital marketers such as HIPAA restrictions and adverse event reporting.

To learn more about the conference and to register to attend, please visit www.eyeforpharma.com/ecomm

Read more: http://www.pharmiweb.com/pressreleases/pressrel.asp?ROW_ID=8061#ixzz0TQytyXTc