As a healthcare business, when medical representatives shift to digital engagement in healthcare it can feel overwhelming. Deciding which emerging technologies are worth investing in and getting your team on board with change is often the hardest part. Look, adapting to the digital era requires a shift towards a flexible and risk-taking mindset.
The need for medical representatives to shift to digital engagement specifically and multichannel generally is increasing, driven by the continuing shift of physician and consumer activity to digital, more restrictions on sales rep access, and the increasing number of large, diversified group practices where efficient and continuous engagement cannot be accomplished without digital tools.
Over the last several years, industry players have launched a variety of multichannel experiments. Medical representatives that want to ‘crack the code’ on digital, however, should look at what is needed to develop a more flexible, scalable, and cost-effective digital operating model. While there will be different starting points based on investments to date, pharmaceutical companies should consider the following three priorities.
Take targeting and segmentation to the next level using customer insights to increase volume.
Develop innovative digital solutions based upon new customer behaviors (both physicians’ and patients’) across the engagement continuum.
Commit to robust measures that can yield both short- and longer-term impact.
When you think of ‘on-demand,’ you think of consumers who want things at their own convenience, on their own time, and wherever they happen to be. The healthcare industry is entering the era of digital innovation, as patients seek on-demand healthcare because of their busy schedules. Mobile is especially important when considering content marketing.
People have simply become far more mobile in the past decade. Mobility is the name of the game, and recent statistics show that more than 50% of all web browsing in the world occurs on mobile devices as of 2018 (to be exact, 52%).
One of the first rules of content marketing is that you must identify where your targeted consumers gather and reach them on those platforms, i.e. mobile. That’s not surprising given that 77 percent of U.S. residents own a smartphone. On top of that, the number of mobile phone users in the world is expected to pass the five billion mark by 2019.
Content partnerships – Provide access to most valued content to doctors without discriminating between prescribers / Non-prescribers. Content access through digital platforms can help not just engaging the target doctors but also generate a lot of meaningful data (e.g. What doctors love to read) for strategic marketing decisions. If the company doesn’t discriminate between prescriber / Non-prescribers while giving access to content through the digital platforms, your reps will be able to interact with Non-prescribers as enablers of content initiatives of the company if the content is indeed relevant to targeted doctors. Also, because you are not discriminating, the sponsored access is ethically not a bribe for prescribing sponsor’s brand.
Data-driven healthcare – Big data collection is not the same as data-driven healthcare. While the increase and availability of data will fuel a whole new era of fact-based innovation in healthcare, automation is required to streamline processes and clarify decision-making in a way that improves both clinical outcomes and operational agility. However, the Harvard Business Review reports: “For many companies, a strong, data-driven culture remains elusive, and data are rarely the universal basis for decision making.”
Content partnerships – A content partnership is a term describing a joint venture between brands, broadcasters, publishers and producers to create original audio visual programming across any media platform. Stakeholders in the project co-finance and share the exploitation rights to that content and its intellectual property.
CME / learning initiatives – After all in a country like India where there is hardly any investment towards professional career development for doctors, it seems quite ethical to provide access to learning / online learning modules through digital platforms like Docmode and Osmosis. Doctors will wait for your rep’s visit to assist them in various steps in program completion.
Just imagine the opportunities for interaction a rep will get while positioning himself as an enabler of content and/or technology supporting medical practice. If rep can get a minimum of 5 minutes during a doctor call, how much value addition to the brand promotion he/she can do. The role of medical rep needs to of an enabler of information and knowledge for doctors.
