The aim of this presentation is to help Digital Marketing managers to implement an efficient e-marketing strategy in the particular and constrained environment of the pharmaceutical industry. This presentation can also be a good opportunity for Operational Marketing professionals jammed with the traditional 4p to realise that implementing a 360° marketing strategy is not only aligning Web and Marketing (or vice versa).
I took the opportunity of the success of my previous release to enhance and complete some slides in this V2.0. You will discover how a Biopharmaceutical company (Celgene) has taken a good start after my advises in 2010 and how they have implemented an e-marketing strategy with the evolution of their Internet portals and their connections to medical portals.
It seems to me that you can significantly improve your knowledge of e-marketing tactics with free tools in order to audit and monitor your consumer’s behaviours in the digital space by reading my other presentation: Digital Marketing Management.
2. Introduction
“Social networking is one of the hottest new marketing topics both within and beyond
pharma over the next few years, the biggest external impact will be seen on pharma's
interactions with patients, followed closely by the influence on the industry's online
relationship with doctors.
Social media also is poised to drive significant change internally in pharmaceutical organizations
as they strive for productivity and efficiency gains.”
Len Starnes, head of global digital sales and marketing for Schering-Plough
"Healthcare has underutilized e-mail compared to most other industries, actually the number of
people opting in to receive this kind of communication has doubled over the past couple of
years. On the physician side, most companies are not emailing physicians and it's probably one
of the biggest missed opportunities we see.
Most physicians are completely willing to get emails from pharma companies, but pharma hasn't
recognized that yet and simply isn't doing it.”
Mark Bard, president of Manhattan Research (Healthcare Market Research Firm).
2
3. Executive Summary
Most corporate executives are convinced by now that the scale and pervasiveness of
today’s technological change require a fundamental review of business strategy.
Technologies through the Internet are creating opportunities to rethink business models,
processes and relationships of unprecedented levels with customers and prescribers.
e.g. On-line marketing activities of hospitals include components such as discussion groups,
research, communications with doctors and patients, newsletters, referrals, intranet, disease
management, health education, physician directory, recruiting, e-mail, and website.
While all these are essential, 95.7% of marketers who report using on-line marketing
strategies have websites as their primary basis for marketing.
Interestingly, most healthcare organizations use websites primarily for promotion and
recruiting purposes.
Some are adding more creative functions such as interactivity between doctors and patients,
and sites that link physicians to clinical data repositories.
Even though there are many cost effective ways to incorporate some of these options, most
are rather expensive but they also point to the very essence of e-marketing in any business.
3
5. e-
Definition of e-Marketing
What does Internet marketing refer to?
Internet marketing, also referred to as digital-marketing, web-
marketing, online-marketing or e-Marketing, is the marketing of
products or services over the Internet.
e-marketing includes marketing done via e-mail and wireless media.
e-marketing refers also to management of digital customer data and
electronic customer relationship management (e-CRM) systems are also
often grouped together under internet marketing.
e-marketing also refers to the placement of media along many
different stages of the customer engagement cycle through search
engine marketing (SEM), search engine optimization (SEO)
e-marketing finally includes marketing done via banner ads on specific
websites, and Web 2.0 strategies.
5
6. e-
Definition of Pharmaceutical e-Marketing
Pharmaceutical e-Marketing
It is in reality not a single concept and could be divided into three categories:
End user (including doctors and hospitals): This is actually something
which is mostly based on providing reports, scientific data, etc. to the
specialists in order to start the promotion of a new drug. A type of the e-
Marketing strategy used nowadays is new media
Bulk drugs: This sector is not visible to the end users and mostly
involves established drugs like antibiotics, antipyretic, etc. The
competition is getting tougher but is mostly left outside the scope of the
e-Marketing. Type of the e-Marketing used – anything from a catalogue
on the web to the chemical portals.
API (Active Pharmaceutical Ingredients): New and probably the most
exciting area of pharma e-Marketing. APIs are pure B2B as they are
distributed between the pharma companies only. There are very few
specialists in this area but due to tremendous progress made in this field
in countries like India and China the industry is about to gain serious
momentum. Type of the e-Marketing used – highly individual, depends on
the skills of the specialist involved.
6
8. Causes of increasing use of e-Marketing
e-
As the Internet gains more significance in different aspects of our lives,
the world of healthcare bounds to have its share of the Internet use
gradually.
As more healthcare facilities erect gates between physicians and pharma
sales representatives, industry has turned to other promotional methods
and is increasing use of e-Marketing
Electronic detailing and online events let doctors check out drug
information when and where they choose, rather than having to meet
with a live representative during office hours
e-marketing can be carefully controlled; an electronic sales pitch can't
choose to go off-label
Faced with an increasingly difficult operating environment, pharmaceutical
companies are seeking ways to establish close and sustainable
relationships with customers.
8
9. Some immediate and visible Effects
Overall drug industry spending on e-marketing was up 7 percent for the first 11
months of last year to $477 million*
Pfizer Inc. had spent $27 million on e-marketing efforts through the first 11 months of
the year, compared with $14 million for the same period a year previously*
Merck & Co. still leads the field by a wide margin, on a pace to spend about $68
million on an annual basis*
Pfizer cut back on traditionally higher-costing promotions for such medications as
cholesterol-fighter Lipitor ($2 million, down $200,000) and pain treatment Lyrica ($2.8
million, down $1 million).
Source: Trade publication Medical Media & Marketing
9
12. e-Marketing Opportunities
Internet is now a significant source of health information and connectivity between
providers, prescribers and payers
We attend at the transformation of traditional 4Ps Operational Marketing to e-
Marketing
The interest in e-health as a channel for the marketing of health-related products and
services increases every day.
New social networking tools and social networking communities have made it easier
to reach and bring together individuals who are interested in a specific disease or
medical treatment
From social networking tools and advanced physician portals to streaming video and
closed loop strategies, the opportunities to open new communication channels with
patients, physicians and KOL are limited only by a marketer's imagination and
determination.
12
13. e-Marketing Opportunities
Social networking
It encompasses a range of network sites that allow users to interact and share data.
This computer-mediated communication has become very popular with social sites
like MySpace, Facebook and Bebo, media sites like Flickr and YouTube or Dailymotion
Top 50 most mentioned words in conversations surrounding “PHARMACEUTICAL”
13
17. e-Marketing Opportunities
Social networking
Pharmaceutical companies have begun to use social network analysis to uncover Key
Opinion Leaders or thought leaders
It does not introduce respondent biasness, which is commonly found in primary
research
It can identify and map out the entire scientific community for a disease state
It has greater compliance with state and federal regulations; because physician
prescribing patterns are not used to create the social network
17
19. e-Marketing Opportunities
Medical portals
More and more patients demand to know and expect up-to-date information on their
condition and treatment, as well as alternative treatment options.
The access to information via the Internet means that information on a US website
can be read by a European patient and may include information on a branded
medicine. As we are in an age of global communication, the time is right to
reconsider the regulatory environment for DTCC in Europe
Attractive avenues for e-pharmaceutical marketing in Europe include the application
of e-health in disease management, to promote compliance and in patient advocacy
to increase pressure for the regulatory approval of innovative therapies.
The foundation of sustainable success in the application of e-health for
pharmaceutical marketing lies the combination of strategic alliances and
technological innovation
19
20. e-Marketing Opportunities
Advanced physician portals
By bridging the gap between physicians and the home care agency, physician portals
are quickly becoming an easy-to-use and cost effective solution to send document
electronically. This concept benefits both parties in a number of ways.
Agencies benefit because it reduces overhead and provides a way to manage
documentation sent to the physician.
Physicians benefit because they can streamline the process for signing orders, create
a more efficient office, and capture the information needed to bill for Care Plan
Oversight.
There are two primary types of portals on the market today
Software-dependent physician portals are specific to a home care agency's
software. These portals lack flexibility at the physician level and can only work with
one agency at a time.
Independent physician portals are not specific to home health software. These
portals provide flexibility to physicians and have the ability to work with multiple
agencies at a time.
As a leader in the Home Care and Hospice industries, HEALTHCAREfirst has
developed and launched firstCPO, its own independent physician portal earlier this
year.
20
21. e-Marketing Opportunities
Streaming Video
Streaming video allows computer users to begin viewing video clips stored on servers
without downloading the entire file.After a short period to initialize and buffer the
file, it begins to “stream,” or play, in real time.
Pharmaceutical companies could consider Streaming Video opportunity within three
main domains:
1. Scientific information on specific disease
2. Information on advantages and effects of specific treatments
3. Hybrid meeting
Hybrid meetings are events that contain both live and virtual components combined.
They are also great opportunities and are one of the hottest trends in meeting
planning.
Live Webcasts using streaming video of the conference would allow event sponsors
and hosting organizations to widen their meeting exposure to include those who
follow the conference online
21
23. e-Marketing Opportunities
Medical portals
A critical review of evolution of e-health in Europe, focusing on the strategic
implications of the differences (and similarities) between the European and US e-
health environments can assist us in better discerning emerging trends and distinct
commercial opportunities at the interface between the pharmaceutical industry and
e-health.
The European e-health space differs substantially from that of the US,
National health insurance, social factors, consumer and provider characteristics and
regulatory barriers force us to rethink the prevailing health portal and connectivity
approach to e-health.
Restrictions on direct-to-consumer advertising of prescription drugs: regulatory
authorities in Europe, as well as the European Commission, are reacting with
conservative caution to the DTCC debate
Limited opportunities for private sector connectivity solutions seem to limit the
successful application of e-health as a pharmaceutical marketing tool in Europe.
23
25. e-Marketing Opportunities
Search Engine Optimization (SEO)
SEO is something unique to the Internet environment:
47% of Web users said that the most common way they find products or information
is through search engines.
The top 10 results to a search query get 78% more traffic than subsequent listings,
many firms use SEO to be sure their site is high on the list.
1. Register with the top and niche search engines for their industry. Although
search engine robots are constantly looking for new Web pages, registration
accelerates the process.
2. Use key words that describe their sites in hidden HTML tags located by search
engines (Meta tags).
3. Craft the text and titles on their pages to reflect these topic areas, including
different spellings of key words that users might type into the search engine.
Many search engines charge a slotting fee for top positions, 13% said they pay for
the links or clicks-through
To stay high on the listing of search results, SEO strategies change almost daily.
25
26. e-Marketing Opportunities
E-Detailing
European market is still in an early stage of development and adoption. In fact, only
15% of European physicians have participated in an electronic detailing program
today, a number that has remained statistically stagnant year over year.
That said, the electronic detailing market in Europe does have a few companies
acting as active players – with Pfizer and GlaxoSmithKline (GSK) driving the majority
of market share today.
Although the sales force initially looked at e-detailing with skepticism, wondering if
online promotion would render the traditional sales call obsolete, most reps are
actually seeing the opposite effect:
1. e-detail actually increases the overall time spent with the rep. The office visit
takes on a new life in the context of a growing array of clinical information
sources – online and offline.
2. physicians participating in e-detailing are more likely to report they spend
more time with a rep as a result of an e-detail, as opposed to taking away time
from the rep as a result.
Ahead-of-the-curve companies across Europe are capitalising on e-detailing as a low-
cost opportunity to increase physician engagement and improve the overall sales call
quality.
26
28. e-Marketing Strategies
Implementing a Web 2.0 e-Marketing Strategy
Examine stakeholder and customer
behaviour within the digital space
Improve relationship marketing by
moving beyond individual channels
Engage with mobile, social media
and optimized web coverage
28
29. Discover
Discover Consumer behaviour within the digital space
The aim of the audit is to capture the unique drivers of the brand around its
functional, rational, emotional and social attributes to determine what matters most to
current and potential consumers.
29
30. e-Marketing Strategies
Rational Approach Emotional Approach
High Involvement
Sport Car
Life Insurance
Jewellery
Family Car
Auto Insurance
Contact Lenses
Perfume
Washing Machine
Sunglasses
Informative Affective
Engine Oil
ToothPaste
Swatch Watch
Sun Lotion
Low Involvement
New Year
Greetings Card
Shampoo
Pizza
Ketchup Disposal Razor
Beers
Sodas
Routine Hedonism
30
31. e-Marketing Strategies
Effects of Web 2.0 on Consumer’s decision making process
Understanding the sources of customer value and the motives of consumers to
use these applications are the first steps to this direction.
Web 2.0 applications are becoming increasingly popular due to the advantages
they offer to users (transparency, referrals, contacts with other users, etc) and
their effect on customer power.
Interaction with peers triggers new customer needs and alter buying attitudes.
Customer preferences and decisions are increasingly based on inputs provided
by parties beyond the control of online marketers:
1. peer reviews,
2. referrals,
3. blogs, tagging,
4. social networks,
5. online forums,
6. user-generated content
31
32. e-Marketing Strategies
Effects of Web 2.0 on Consumer’s decision making process
As a result, the internet, and particularly the Web 2.0 as a new marketplace
component, further complicates the time-honoured ‘textbook’ buying behaviour
process described in the Inputs, Processing, Response model
where the elements A and B represent the traditional influencers of the consumer
behaviour: these are the conventional marketing influences (A) and the
uncontrollable personal influencers (B).
Notes:
A and B: Factors affecting the
buying decision-making process in
traditional shopping environments.
A, B and C: Factors affecting the
buying decision-making process in
an internet (Web 1.0)-mediated
environment.
A, B, C and D: Factors affecting
the buying decision-making
process in an internet (Web 2.0)-
mediated environment
32
33. Create
Develop insight-rich brand and communication strategies. Business-building, culturally-
relevant and media-agnostic ideas are the hallmarks of our work, recognizing that in
today’s world, consumers play a vital role in the dialogue.
With piercing truths and illuminating insights, Brand Enlightenment fuels the creative
brief, providing the spark in our expression of the brand.
33
34. Engage
Transmedia Storytelling
The right messages are crafted to the right audience at the right time. Like a vintner
blending the perfect Cabernet Sauvignon, this requires artistic creativity in both
messaging and media engagement.
34
35. e-Marketing Strategies
Consumer Involvement Model
Foote-Cone-Belding Model (“think, feel, do”)
Model suggests that consumers:
• Become aware of and learn about a new product (think): steps are
awareness and knowledge,
• Develop a positive or negative attitude about it (feel): steps are liking and
preference,
• Move to purchasing it (do).
High-involvement product decisions (high financial, emotional, or social risk):
• Consumers spend time gathering information and considering alternatives
prior to buying such products.
Low-involvement decisions: consumers just hear about a product, give it a try, and
then decide if they like it.
To build brands and inform customers:
• A firm operates at the cognitive & attitude levels of the hierarchy of effects,
• Uses information publishing, Web advertising, e-mail campaigns, and other
promotional techniques.
35
40. e-Marketing Strategies
Closed Loop Strategies
Another hot topic in pharma e-marketing is closed loop marketing. The main
objective is to avoid to leave customer communication gap open.
Segmentation is giving way to "particle" marketing, which is dealing with individuals
rather than segments.
Traditional Pharma Marketing and Segmentation
New Particle Pharma Marketing based on Social Networks
To gather and continuously refine segmentation approach and ways to contact
individual customers- It is closed loop.
40
41. e-Marketing Strategies
Closed Loop Strategies
Consumers are becoming more aware:
According to a recent Forrester report, "one in five consumers are using Social
computing as the single means of obtaining knowledge about their health conditions.”
Particle Marketing is the only way to fill the consumer communication gap, it is closed
loop - where you end up with as many segments as individuals
Segmentation Building customer Integration Monitor
communities Pull Strategy, Videos
Web Site, blogs, chat
Accurately define target Chat rooms, Blogs, on specific disease, on
frequenting
audience provide accurate and treatments, on scientific
reliable information, progresses, Viral
Streaming Video campaign
41
42. e-Marketing Propositions
The evolution of communications requires a new approach to reputation
measurement
Social
Media Web Government
Buzz 2.0
Podcasting
Operations Media Folksonomy Relations
Relations Wireless
Grassroots Blogs
Promotions outreach
Tagging RSS
YouTube
Press
releases IR Wikipedia
Pitching Online outreach
reporters Search
Management Engines
and Strategy Third party
Finance
outreach
Public Affairs Metaverses
Flick
Branding r
Special Viral
Events Content marketing
Employee
Optimization
Communications
MySpace Facebook
Syndication
Brand Advergaming Social
Networking
Management Consumer-
generated Content
Citizen
Journalism
Recruitment,
Retention
Customer Loyalty
42
44. e-Marketing Propositions
Who are you targeting !
Which social media sites do they spend time on?
How do they participate, if at all?
Consideration
Behaviours
Preferences
Methods of publishing or sharing
44
45. e-Marketing Propositions
What are your goals?
Connect with customers
Gain customer insight
Educate
Build though leadership
Gain more coverage
Promote product or services
Augment SEO program
45
46. e-Marketing Propositions
What is your strategy?
Content:
Mix of research results and user generated content
Interaction:
Consumers expect it,
KOL or your experts can provide answers to customers or
visitors’ questions
Sharing:
Must be easy and user friendly
46
47. e-Marketing Propositions
What will be your tatics?
What technology wil you implement?
Blog(s)
Social Network
Wiki
Forums
Reviews
Microblogging
Video, podcast
Virtual worlds
47
48. e-Marketing Propositions
What will you measure and report?
Social Media is less about ROI and more about influence
What metrics are the best indications of success according to your
audience, objectives, strategy and tactics?
It is all about the data, behavioural data, transaction data and social
data
48
49. e-Marketing Propositions
Social Networking: Close the loop !
Basic information that will help to clearly explain Product Lifecycle allows the
firm to improve trust, transparency…
49
50. e-Marketing Propositions
Social Networking: Close the loop !
Communication and articles about specific desease allows the experts or the
Key Opinion Leaders to close the loop for the firm.
50
51. e-Marketing Propositions
Social Networking: Close the loop !
Questions/Answers about specific desease allows the scientists of the company
to close the loop.
51
52. e-Marketing Propositions
Social Networking: Close the loop !
Videos about specific desease allows also the scientists or the KOL of the
company to close the loop.
The interest is clearly
identified here
52
53. e-Marketing Propositions
Social Networking: Close the loop !
Forum concerning specific desease allows patients or practitioners to exchange
experiences, advices, information.
53
55. Potential solutions
1. SMO: Social Media Optimisation solutions:
Several companies are now providing specialized tools and platform for social media
marketing. Tools can be used for a variety of different things such as:
Social Media Monitoring
1. Social Aggregation
2. Social Book Marking and Tagging
3. Social Analytics and Reporting
4. Automation
5. Social Media
6. Blog Marketing
7. Validation
Some popular tools include:
1. Sysomos - Social media monitoring and analytics provider
2. Hubspot - Inbound social media market
3. Klout - Monitoring and analytics
4. Twtbuck- Social network advertising
55
56. Potential solutions
2. SEO: Search Engine Optimisation:
SEO is something unique to the Internet environment, 47% of Web users said that the
most common way they find products or information is through search engines.
The top 10 results to a search query get 78% more traffic than subsequent listings, many
firms use SEO to be sure their site is high on the list.
1. Register with the top and niche search engines for their industry. Although search engine robots
are constantly looking for new Web pages, registration accelerates the process.
2. Use key words that describe their sites in hidden HTML tags located by search engines (Meta
tags).
3. Craft the text and titles on their pages to reflect these topic areas, including different spellings of
key words that users might type into the search engine.
Many search engines charge a slotting fee for top positions, 13% said they pay for the links
or clicks-through
To stay high on the listing of search results, SEO strategies change almost daily.
56
57. Potential solutions
2. SEO: Search Engine Optimisation:
Method Percent
Changing meta-tags 61%
Changing page titles 44%
Reciprocal linking 32%
Purchasing multiple domain names 28%
Multiple home pages (doorways) 21%
Hiding keywords in background 18%
Paid links/ pay per click 13%
None of the above 13%
57
58. Potential solutions
3. Link Building Tools
Link building is one of the most important and most time consuming aspects of
search engine optimization. There are a few free tools which will help you check your
current links and help build your linking campaigns.
Most link building software programs create automated search queries which are
against the TOS for most major search engines.
Top Free Link Building Tools
1. Xenu Link Slueth - Free download checks your site for broken links and can help you build a
sitemap.
2. Linktree - Topical hub finder which allows you to compare the backlinks of multiple
competitors. Pages which are linking into many different competitor websites may be a great place
to acquire links from.
3. Prog - Tool searches Google and provides PageRank of each search result. Sorting backlinks
while viewing 100 results per page makes it easy to see who your competitors most important
links are and whether or not they are renting links.
58
59. Potential solutions
4. Back end tools (including Web analytic tools and HTML validators):
Web analytic tools can help you to understand what is happening to your website
and measure your website's success. They range from simple traffic counters to
tools that work with log files and to more sophisticated tools that are based on page
tagging (putting JavaScript or an image on a page to track actions). These tools can
deliver conversion-related information.
1. Log file analyzing tool: WebTrends by NetiQ
2. Tag-based analytic programs WebSideStory's Hitbox
3. Transaction-based tool: TeaLeaf RealiTea. Validators check the invisible parts of
websites, highlighting potential problems and many usability issues ensure your
website meets W3C code standards.
59
60. Potential solutions
5. Social Media:
Now that customers have unlimited options when it comes to how and where they
communicate with your brand, it is more important than ever to be able to understand the
meaning behind every data source, from your corporate website to external sources like
social media.
Customers are now in control of how they communicate with or about your business on
Twitter, Facebook, and YouTube; on mobile devices; and via email, activity on your
website, and conversations with your call centre.
.
60
62. Potential solutions
6. Streaming Video
Streaming video allows computer users to begin viewing video clips stored on servers
without downloading the entire file. After a short period to initialize and buffer the file, it
begins to “stream,” or play, in real time.
Pharmaceutical companies could consider Streaming Video opportunity within three
main domains:
1. Scientific information on specific protections or molecules
2. Information on advantages and effects of specific protections
3. Hybrid meeting
Hybrid meetings are events that contain both live and virtual components combined.
They are also great opportunities and are one of the hottest trends in meeting
planning.
Live Webcasts using streaming video of the conference would allow event sponsors
and hosting organizations to widen their meeting exposure to include those who follow
the conference online
62
69. Web 2.0 categories
Categories of Web 2.0, we propose a basic classification based on application types
divided into five main categories:
1. Blogs: Short for Web logs: online journals, the most known and fastest-growing category
of Web 2.0 applications. Blogs are often combined with Podcasts, that is, digital audio or
video that can be streamed or downloaded to portable devices. Examples:
http://gizmodo.com, http://www.boingboing.net, http://www.huffingtonpost.com
2. Social networks: applications allowing users to build personal websites accessible to
other users for exchange of personal content and communication. Examples:
http://www.myspace.com, http://www.facebook.com, www.hyves.nl,
http://www.ning.com/
3. (Content) Communities: Websites organising and sharing particular types of content.
Examples are applications of Video sharing: http://video.google.com, www.youtube.com,
http://etsylove.ning.com, Photos sharing: http://www.flickr.com, Social Bookmarking
www.digg.com, http://del.icio.us and publicly edited Encyclopedias www.wikipedia.org,
http://en.citizendium.org/wiki/Main_Page
4. Forums/bulleting boards: sites for exchanging ideas and information usually around
special interests Examples: www.epinions.com, www.personaldemocracy.com,
http://www.python.org.
5. Content aggregators: applications allowing users to fully customise the web content they
wish to access. These sites make use of a technique known as Real Simple Syndication
or Rich Site Summary (RSS). Examples http://uk.my.yahoo.com/,
http://www.google.com/ig, http://www.netvibes.com/
69