Our thoughts on the latest in pharma marketing plus highlights from all our events. 2012
PharmiWeb Digital Breakfast shares insights on digital brand marketing opportunities for pharma
13 Mar 2012
Pharma executives from across Europe have attended the PharmiWeb Solutions Digital Breakfast to hear from cross-industry experts on how to navigate digital marketing successfully.
PharmiWeb Solutions, specialists in delivering and managing digital solutions for the pharmaceutical industry, hosted the first in a planned series of digital events that aim to provoke discussion and learning around digital marketing. This Digital Breakfast focused on practical and strategic advice on how pharma can use digital marketing to gain competitive advantage.
Speakers include Anand Sharma (Growth Angle, ex-Reckitt Benckiser), Rupert Wills (Adobe), Duncan Arbour (Blue Latitude), Rahul Powar (founder, Apsmart), Mike Shaw (comScore) and PharmiWeb’s CEO, Paul Hartigan.
Watch highlights from the PharmiWeb Digital Breakfast !
on Twitter@PharmiWeb, and keep up to date with future Digital Breakfast events using the hashtag #pwsdigibfast.
The impressive speaker line-up covered a range of topical issues:Can big pharma move at digital speed?
PharmiWeb’s Paul Hartigan looked at how digital channels allow pharma to identify networks of influence beyond healthcare professionals and participate in the right conversations to influence opinion.
Why customer insights are crucial in crafting effective digital strategy
Anand Sharma described why companies must act on insights to optimise the brand experience at every touchpoint, developing a strategy that centres on ‘owned’ media, then integrating ‘earned’ and ‘paid’ media.
Top 10 need-to-knows about social media and where it’s headed
Mike Shaw demonstrated how a deep understanding of online behaviour data and its interpretation can help pharma reach and engage its customers more effectively.
Customer intelligence, innovation and product design
Rahul Powar shared a case study on the power of digital channels to tune in to market needs and appetites in real-time, leveraging insights to quickly develop a solution that resonates with customers.
Measuring effectiveness and ROI
Rupert Wills discussed how brands can build brand loyalty and customer interaction, with reference to Adobe’s Enterprise suite of products.
The strengths and limitations of turning to social media for pharma customer insight
Duncan Arbour explained that while social media insights are key in crafting strategy, pharma must ensure their social media monitoring brings more than just ‘points of view’ and that they set meaningful KPIs to measure engagement.
To see the full presentations from all speakers, please click here
What's the Big iPad-ea? 15 Feb 2012
We're seeing increasing demand for pharma marketing solutions to be based on the iPad, and it's not hard to see why. The pace at which the industry
continues its move away from paper-based detail aids seems to be increasing. But what's interesting is that remote 'self-service' edetailing does not seem
to be growing at the same rate. The predicted disintermediation of the traditional field sales model hasn't happened. Rather, the rep is still very much alive
and kicking. And loaded up with devices too. For a time, it seemed like the TabletPC would be the platform of choice for face-to-face digital presentations, but
reps always complained to us about weight, battery life, and boot-up times. We had the impression that as a result the average pharma rep was never really sold
on technology. Then along came the iPad and everything changed.
Technology strategy author Geoffrey Moore described the 'whoosh' sound heard in the early days of the internet when business people came to realise how important the technology was and how the internet was not about to disappear, but would really become vital for their business. We think you can hear a similar 'whoosh' created by the iPad in pharma. Why? Well, the device itself is a real winner – easy to use, beautifully made, interactive, and the way it displays content – if appropriately designed – looks fantastic. Coincidentally, it also addresses all of those reps' concerns – it's light, the battery lasts for ages, and it boots in the blink of an eye. Added to which, the fact that it easily copes with office email, and does video calling, means that it's the ideal device for the rep on the road.
And feedback from physicians is very positive too. They like the interactive nature of iPad-based details, and the added value content that can be included (like video) makes for a more interesting and informative encounter from their point of view.
Beyond all these 'presentation-layer' benefits, there's more to this than a shiny new toy. With the right software, design and integration, the iPad can form the basis of a true Closed Loop Marketing (CLM) solution. For us, CLM means capturing data from the interaction between the rep and the physician, and using this to iterate future engagements (whether face-to-face, online, or in print) to create a more relevant and meaningful conversation. There's a lot of technical stuff around CRM integration, but we'll save that for another article.