Key Takeaways
- Pharmaceutical companies are shifting from traditional sales rep-led models to personalized omnichannel strategies to better engage with health care professionals (HCPs).
- Omnichannel strategies aim to deliver seamless and consistent experiences across multiple channels, using data and predictive analytics to meet HCPs' preferences and expectations.
- Integration of digital tools and media channels is crucial, requiring pharma companies to overcome challenges related to regulatory compliance.
- Successful examples include data integration efforts, showcasing how companies are leveraging technology to enhance HCP interactions.
The days of sales representatives arriving at HCP offices with breakfast pastries and box lunches—along with prescription drug information and samples—aren't long gone in the pharmaceutical world. However, the sales rep-led model is fading as the primary channel companies use to reach HCPs. Taking its place? Personalized omnichannel strategies using troves of different data and predictive analytics to reach HCPs when, where, and how they want to be reached.
The new omnichannel journey is meant to be a seamless and consistent personalized experience, unlike the siloed multichannel marketing touchpoints HCPs have been navigating mostly on their own. Pharma omnichannel strategy today more closely resembles consumer goods' product pathways to purchase and is gaining more steam in part because people, including physicians and other HCPs, expect the same digital experience in health care that they get when buying groceries, shoes, or cars.
However, the switch is not as easy as downloading new software, especially in the pharma industry, where patient privacy and regulatory compliance are concerns. So, how can pharmaceutical marketers use data, analytics, digital tools, and media channels to create an omnichannel journey for HCPs? Let's dive in.
Understanding HCP customer behavior for an effective omnichannel strategy
One of the first steps in building an omnichannel strategy is getting to know your existing and potential HCP customers. Where do they interact with the brands, through what media channels, at what times, and what kind of messages do they respond to?
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For example, an oncologist typically still interacts with dedicated sales rep specialists in the office, but also receives rep-recommended digital tools and education, especially in the case of newer immuno-oncology drugs. She may also read medical journals during off hours and follow industry medical associations like the National Cancer Institute and the American Society of Clinical Oncology online, via email, and even in person at medical conferences to stay on top of the latest news and trends.
Meanwhile, a nurse practitioner in a family practice may behave much more like a consumer. He watches TV and sees online video advertising, uses search engines to look up health information, and interacts with fellow HCPs on social media—including professional-only social channels like Doximity. The nurse practitioner is also likely to get frequent visits from sales reps in their offices or hospital settings.
Yet both HCPs want the same kind of simple and seamless interactions with pharma companies as they get with everyday consumer product and service companies.
Crafting personalized omnichannel experiences for HCPs
The key for pharmaceutical marketers is using data to craft the ideal experience (or as close to ideal as possible) for each person. And because that journey will cross multiple channels—social media, TV ads, print materials, sales reps, and medical journals—it's important to eliminate marketing channel silos that typically exist in current multi-channel marketing strategies. Pharma companies moving into omnichannel strategies need to build the internal infrastructure to integrate channels and / or tap experienced partners for help.
One example of internal integration for omnichannel support is Pfizer's PfizerPro platform for HCPs in the US. To create the customized resource, Pfizer migrated and standardized more than 65 websites and microsites onto the platform to create a single destination for information about clinical trials, vaccine availability, and tasks like ordering samples and co-pay cards. Accessed via both the website and mobile app, PfizerPro has up-to-date prescribing information on Pfizer products, plus a library of webinars, case studies, videos, and articles, as well as resource materials for HCPs and to show patients.
Another example is pharma company Lundbeck, which faced an infrastructure challenge last year when it decided to take an omnichannel marketing approach, according to a case study by its data management company, dbt Labs. Lundbeck wanted to give marketing, sales, and CRM teams data from multiple marketing sources so each employee could respond accordingly.
In one of its examples, if a customer HCP didn't open an email, Lundbeck wanted to send a personal follow-up email or call or schedule an in-person meeting. The pharma company ended up partnering with dbt to create a new data infrastructure that centralizes data sources—including moving from 50 different data science teams to just one—but also decentralizes access to the intelligence for the employees to use.
Utilizing big data
Building out the organization and omnichannel infrastructure foundation is an important start and opens the door to creating real-time interactions timed to the specific touchpoints and effective creative messages that individual HCPs want.
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But that requires data. And the omnichannel marketing challenge is not only collecting data but also applying the correct analytics and software to create personalized HCP customer profiles—either as similar groups or individuals.
The good news is that that kind of big data is available. The less-good news? As the name “big data” implies, there's an overabundance of it.
Pharma HCP data typically comes from many different sources. It can be collected directly as first-party data from HCPs who opt in to receive information, as second-party data from a trusted known partner via an agreement to exchange their first-party data, or as third-party data collected and packaged by an outside vendor. IQVIA, for example, is a trusted and commonly used third-party data provider that collects de-identified patient information, including prescription, sales, pharmacy, and treatment details.
Almost as important as the data is behind-the-scenes technology, like automation, artificial intelligence, and predictive analytics, that works to integrate and synchronize specific HCP information for marketing and sales teams to use.
The final step
The final step? Delivering the omnichannel marketing experience to HCPs. One way to look at it is building an organized, personalized, and valuable end-to-end journey.
Think about the earlier-mentioned oncologist. She may have expressed interest in an upcoming pharma-hosted webinar during a sales visit. Her interest (recorded by the rep) triggers an email reminder that includes a JAMA article about the topic, while targeted social media posts from the pharma highlight the medical value leading up to the event. More broadly, connected TV ads target like-minded HCPs and, theoretically, this specific oncologist, with a media buy based on oncologists' demographics, interests, and TV-watching behaviors. Every outreach by the oncologist triggers a different appropriate response from the pharma company.
That's just one small example, and as I wrote earlier, there is no magical software or technology that will make the leap to more complicated omnichannel engagement quick or simple.
However, there are experienced agencies and consultants who can help work through the process from the first customer intelligence deep dives through the planning, infrastructure, data, and technology adoption to the eventual delivered experience.
It's a complex evolution, and still a work-in-progress for many pharma companies. But developing an omnichannel marketing strategy—and creating personalized omnichannel HCP journeys—is a must for modern-day pharma marketing success.
