Email marketing to doctors and 5 ways to make it more efficient 

Healthcare email marketing campaigns are a popular marketing direction across industries. But if you’re about to write off an email channel for pharma marketing, reconsider. It’s been noticed that email channel in pharma leads among the other means of communication. It surpasses traditional mail, meetings with pharma reps, and even apps! And the doctors preference for this channel is only growing. But why is ​​emailing doctors a good idea and how to write an email to a doctor that will actually be effective? Let’s put the email channel in the limelight this time. Here are 5 reasons why pharma email marketing campaigns are the most effective way to boost engagement, as well as some tips for email marketing to physicians and medical professionals. 

1. Email gives the upper hand in communication to HCPs’ 

Keep it 5, keep it relevant

Well, email channel hits a couple of sweet spots for doctors. First things first: it hands them back the initiative of communication. Doctors don’t have a free moment, and seeing another rep telling them the same old story is just not in their plans anymore. At the same time, 86% of physicians find time to check their email at least 2-3 times a day. Pharmaceutical email remains one of the main channels and communication, but why? The reason why doctors value it is obvious: it’s not demanding or too intrusive, it does not set any expectations; it’s just out there, ready to be read and clicked on at any time. And even with the rise of other communication tools (social media, messengers), email marketing to doctors still wins, because it has no “seen” status and only is waiting for them to act upon. 

Pharma companies that are not sure if they should send a direct email to doctors should remember one thing. The email allows you to send as much content as you want and see which of it sparks the most authentic engagement since you never know what exactly will interest this or that doctor. The importance of email cannot be underestimated, since often it is key to driving engagement and improving interaction with customers. Moreover, email marketing offers the flexibility to deliver diverse content and measure its performance.  

The latest ZS Associate’s physicians’ survey across specialties suggests that most physicians choose to engage with a certain set of brands much more often than with other brands, even after controlling for factors like the channel and the number of exposures. So, don’t oversaturate your email, since your audience will be able to keep up with only roughly 5 brands. Following the 5-brand rule when planning for sectoral personalization will help you to be more mindful of what messages are being delivered to which physicians. 

2. Email first means mobile-first

Divide and conquer (across specialties)

Expanding on this derivative point, we all know what needs to be done – adaptive email design. According to statistics, good experience impacts loyalty of 73% of customers. Companies are taking active steps to ensure a perfect mobile experience, and it’s happening for a reason: more than half of all emails are first opened on a mobile device. Leaving out the general public, 60% of physicians are reading email primarily on their smartphones. The mobile email experience is usually supported by equally mobile-friendly landing pages – those take no time to load and are developed specifically for some events. 

So use this variability as an opportunity to move away from the tendency to put all HCP-directed messages into one basket. Patterns in how physicians read their emails vary greatly, especially across specialties. Oncologists are a pharma marketers’ favorite, as they open pharma emails way more frequently than, say, urologists and PCPs. PCPs on the other hand will fail you in demonstrating high levels of digital engagement, although they tend to receive far more emails than most other specialties. Dishing out such volumes of messages don’t correspond with the doctor’s accessibility and readiness to engage with content. 

The task for pharma marketers is to figure out how to reach the specialty physicians at the lower end of the engagement spectrum with more targeted emails. Pay attention to different credentials, specialties, and practice locations, since they often reveal different digital media usage patterns and behaviors. Such attention is of benefit to both sides of the communication since when HCP email preferences are taken into account, doctor email marketing experiences higher response rates. 

3. Email works best in a tandem 

Merge with other channels

Email marketing holds immense potential as a centerpiece of multichannel strategies for pharmaceutical marketers. Email campaigns can be highly efficient and impactful by leveraging the benefits of targeted communication, omnichannel support, integration with other channels, and engagement analytics. Email marketing to physicians empowers other channels instead of suppressing or overshadowing them. 

Here’s why and how it goes. In the era of spam and an attention-based economy, it’s unsurprising that nobody got time for emails from unknown senders. It comes as no surprise that people, in general, will rather open an email from someone they are already familiar with. This especially concerns physicians, since they are 3 times as likely to open an email from a familiar sender, rather than some 3rd party. So, familiarity and repetition turn out to be the best tactics here, 60% of physicians receive marketing information 2-3 times before taking action. 

Enter rep-triggered email campaigns, which combine the best of both channels, ensuring just that – familiarity and repetition. In this case, email works alongside other channels (eDetailing, remote detailing) enabled by subtle personalization of direct contact between sales reps and HCPs. It’s a safe bet to send a promotional email in the same timeframe as a rep visit, the HCP is more likely to open it. The data suggest that the approach may work inversely as well – emails have a greater impact if followed by a rep meeting. 

4. Email delivers the clearest ROI and KPIs 

Track performance and adjust the strategy 

There’s a reason marketers love emails not less than HCPs do – the email channel paints a clear picture. Instead of guessing who you might reach with an ad, with email, you’ll know exactly who and when opened your messages and what actions they took. This information can also help you identify prospects to focus on follow-up efforts. Click-through rates, open rates, bounce rates – you name a KPI, email channel got you covered. And that’s why marketers keep investing in email channels and automation of their processes. 

Moreover, email is the channel where it’s the easiest to monitor performance and calculate marketing return on investment. It’s the most efficient channel to adjust and tailor – simply because you have reliable feedback almost instantly. Over the course of a few mailings, marketers begin to see what information resonates most with recipients. Tracking these patterns helps them design more effective messages. With a clear view of doctors’ behaviors and their preference for certain channels, marketers can decide on cutting off promotions that aren’t going to be useful for the receivers. Instead, they readjust the course of their direct mail campaign and send fewer but more targeted and satisfying emails, as a result. 

5. Doctor email marketing caters to both HCPs’ and patients’ demands 

Templatize, modularize, personalize

There’s a whole bulk of demand still not covered by the pharmaceutical companies, but that can be covered by the email channel. You’ve seen that emails are popular equally for pharma marketers and their HCP audience. But email (along with the apps) also represents a real chance to turn pharma patient-centric and align that pharma – HCP – patient dialogue. Patients expect pharmaceutical companies to reach them via digital and social means with 70% wanting to be reached by email. Along with this, about 79% of physicians use patient education materials provided by pharma and advocacy groups, and 56% expect to receive these from Pharma. If this is not a clear call for patient-centricity, we don’t know what is. 

In order to sustain such a huge demand, a great bulk of emails have to be produced. And those doctors emails should not end up as potential spam material, but be personalized, integrated, backed up by KPIs, preferably connected to other channels, appropriately branded, and filled up with relevant content. The caveat is, that kind of email takes lots of time to be produced. Like, 4 hours per one, in the pharma industry and its endless rounds of approval. 

Well, not anymore. There’s a completely new, integrated approach to make that email even more efficient. The industry is moving toward including modular templates that are built on the principles of atomic design and supported by pattern libraries will help to keep style and usability consistent and optimal. And we’ve got a tool that delivers just that. And it does not only do that but also answers the question that bothers many marketers: how to address multiple doctors in an email that’s both engaging and personalized? With eWizard, which is a doctor email marketing software among the other things, marketers engaged in email campaigns can: 

  • Save tons of time and budget resources on your mailing campaign by endlessly reusing pre-approved master templates, such as email template to sell to physicians or an email approval template; 
  • Create a new unique email in no time by placing ready-made content modules (footer, text with image, graph etc.); 
  • Publish your email to Veeva Vault automatically, review, approve, then export and distribute to Salesforce Marketing Cloud. 

Email really has a lot of potential to become a foothold of your multichannel strategy. But it’s only if you give it a deliberate, thought-through chance. Here’s a short demo guide to the world of personalized email created in 15 minutes. 

If you are an ambitious marketer who strives towards a multichannel campaign based on personalized, state-of-the-art, deliberate emails, do not hesitate to contact our team of Email Marketing Experts for more details on how to email doctors or subscribe to our newsletter to find more email marketing tips and other useful guides. 

How to Create a User-Friendly Design for a Medical Website?

You never get a second chance to make a first impression” is a buzz phrase in the business world. One of the main things to do as a smart manager is to try to draw attention to your company. The best-designed medical websites are going to help to attract clients and ensure that people know exactly what your company is all about.  

So, how do life science companies attract more visitors to their website? In this article, we will discuss some sleek tricks that have been tried and proved by successful website makers, which can give your platform the attention it merits. 

The Best Medical Website Design 2023

Becoming a Black Sheep

Although it has been said that web developers, designers, content managers, etc. are always in the shadows, in fact, these people present core messages of your company to the world. 

What makes a doctor’s website better?

Consistency is the key to the success of the entire project. Every stage of creating the best life science website design is meticulous work every developer from the web studio team is responsible for. Creating a website includes not only design development and programming, but also a detailed analysis of the project, dialogue with the customer, and the search for solutions to achieve the goals of the project. 

However, even precise adherence to all stages of development does not guarantee that your website will stand out from the others. A distinctive style can pick you out of a crowd of competitors, but designers have to give it all to ensure that it grabs users’ attention. There is no single solution to craft the best hcp pharma website; but there are different life science web design tricks and techniques that you can use to increase your chances of being noticed on the Internet. 

Keep it Simple 

Did you ever go to a website that shouted: “Made by a day-fly designer”? Likely.

We mean tons of redundant graphics, images, animations, and a rather strange choice of a color palette. Overloaded design not to be the answer if you want to provide the constant flow of visitors (and a general positive impression) to your website. Complex design is hard to read and understand. Keep gimmicks to a minimum. The best pharma website design should be clean, simple, and straightforward. Simplicity will keep visitors on your site for a long time. Web page design for life science should not be too complicated: websites that are overloaded with content will have a long load time. That will cause a bounce rate to increase. We’ve found proof with statistics that will confirm you. 

Surprise, Surprise 

When we see something unpredictable, the pleasure centers in our brain are turning on. We subconsciously choose something new and non-trivial because it captures our attention much faster than something we already know and possibly even like. This can be applied both to the design and content of the website. 

When it comes to the content of the pharmaceutical website landing page, the headlines should be catchy and arresting since they go through the graphics and take on the role of guide for the users on your designs. 

It is worth paying attention to these lines if you want to grab a visitor’s attention with your visuals. 

These may be headers with the element of surprise; otherwise, your content will blend in with the internet noise. 

Headlines containing questions are an excellent idea to strike a spark out of visitors. This is due to the fact they notice a gap in their knowledge and subconsciously strive to fill it. Another way to whet readers’ appetite is to give a small portion of the information at the beginning. This one will play into your hands because it will build up the reader’s information hunger and make them want to know more to feel better. 

Usage of superlatives (biggest, best, greatest) and negatives (worst) works flawlessly on landing pages headlines. Moreover, statistics also attract the attention of readers. 

It is hard to say if these tricks will 100% ensure a constant flow of visitors, but according to surveys, more than half 51% respondents prefer the intrigue-based approach to headlines with the usage of superlatives. 

Promote Wisely 

Is there any chance that there can be too much promotional push on the pharma website? Yep. Nothing annoys the web site visitor more than an overabundance of advertising popping up out of the woodwork. Moreover, it can sometimes deflect attention away from where the true customer engagement happens. 82% of people report that they have closed a web site because of the abundance of advertising.So how many ads/calls to action should be contained on a webpage? 

Investigate the interest of your target visitor. The first step to establishing the right balance in this equation is to start monitoring the effectiveness of the advertising campaign, as well as constantly testing it for continuous improvement. This means that you will advertise to a much more appropriate audience. Caring for visitors of your site should be your postulate, and this is what will help you find the best website design for medical and life science services. 

Leave Some Space 

Whitespaces is a tool to make a website readable, easy to perceive, and easy to like. Let us clarify that this is the untouched space between text, graphics, images, columns and other components. The best example to illustrate the unsuccessful use of Whitespaces is the websites with an abundance of ads instead of blank spaces. We say it is unsuccessful since it looks and distracts attention from the main content. Whitespaces is another trick to make a smooth transition between the content and the background of the website.

It is extremely important for designers to create a stylish look for a website and to be clear with their layouts. Whitespaces is the helper in highlighting or drawing attention to some elements of design. In other words, this is the very tool that gives simplicity and elegance to a website. 

Don’t be Plastic 

People are starving for interactivity. According to the survey conducted by Harris Poll, 36% of millennials ages 18 to 34, who use “visual expressions” such as emojis, GIFs and stickers say that those images better communicate their thoughts and feelings than words do. This is another successful trick which is widely used on the best life science websites to add some life and dynamic to your design. It is very convenient since these days GIFs are available for use on each social media platform. Besides, GIFs are a popular trend that will give extra attention to your pharma website. You may use animated logos in the website’s header, animated icons, and graphic elements to mobilize the website look. 

Be Music to the Eyes 

If we had to single out the main trick of the above, it would be a successful use of visualization. The visual concept is the first thing a site visitor pays attention to. Well-chosen colors and smooth color transitions are probably the best tricks to grab the attention of the visitor.  

Moreover, elegant contrasts in terms of color, shapes, and lines will help to stand out from the rest effortlessly. 

It is equally important to observe the visual hierarchy to avoid visual chaos and make your pharmaceutical website design visually catchy. Hierarchy describes order in which the human eye will perceive the elements on a website. Use it to emphasize what the visitor should see first and clearly manifest your ideas. 

Be Mobile-Friendly  

Nowadays, people are more than ever addicted to their mobile devices. We turn to our phones when we are bored, tired, in sickness and in health until “death do us part”. In 2018, 58% of site visits were from mobile devices. However, in 2019, the time average adult spends on smartphones increased by 9 minutes. Multichannel mobile traffic has increased by 68%. Additionally, multichannel mobile revenue has increased by 49%. That’s why we recommend developing a mobile-friendly website in the first place. By mobile-friendly website, we mean one that can recognize whenever it is viewed from a smartphone or tablet and change its layout accordingly.

If your website is not adapted for the mobile view, has inconvenient navigation or unreadable text, in the end, it will play a trick on the number of visitors to your healthcare website. A website design for life science companies should be available and easy to use across all platforms. Otherwise, you will simply lose some users even before they look at what you have to offer. 

New visitors go on a medical website to learn something new, so it is important to think of your site as a dialog between you and the customer. Content is the main ingredient of a good website, however, according to the psychology of human attention, the visitor is instantly guided by the first impression. This implies that design is the first thing a website visitor will judge it by. Moreover, this impression will largely depend on whether the visitor continues to study your website further; or closes it to being confused by the poorly selected color-scheme or extremely puzzlingnavigation. 

We hope that our tricks will strike a blow for you. If you are looking for a life science website design company that would help you with creating your website, our team of website experts is always happy to share with you our experience in creating a spectacular pharmaceutical website; and to provide even more tricks on how to turn it into an exciting story. 

Top 7 visual design trends in 2020 for life sciences content

Technologies are getting closer… 

Most things are getting simpler… 

The screens of smartphones are getting bigger… 

The font types are switching to a more minimalistic look yet more visible… 

Today we care less about how much data is placed on screens but instead how readable this data is.  

 Mobile technologies are running into play so rapidly and widely. People start thinking through the lens of their smartphones, using apps almost for all purposes. No matter whether they need to buy clothes at an online shop, order a pizza, or check their blood pressure; many a person has a smartwatch to track their heart rate, check how fit they are, how much calories were burnt, etc.  

What about the design and its trends? Which ones are going to dominate 2020? 

A lot about the way life sciences content is designed is being changed. The secret to knowing what trends will come into play is through looking at technologies and seeing their development. Design is something that goes hand in hand with the world of innovations. Virtual and Augmented reality is changing the way we see and understand the concept and sense of graphic design in general. It means that designers can start creating limitless experiences in the virtual world. All that’s left is to do research, gather that knowledge, and design content accordingly.  

What are the most prominent design trends for the life sciences content of 2020? Let’s stay ahead of the curve! 

 Impressive branded animations 

 These should become the #1 priority for pharma and life sciences content designers to fresh up customers’ perception and make a brand memorable.  

Animations are proven to increase conversion rates by 20%. They turned out to be the perfect choice for pharma marketers to boost their content strategies. If a company creates its own animated videos, a brand message would be addressed more firmly.  

 Shapes and Compositions: open, soft and flow 

 In the upcoming year, hard angles and rigid geometric shapes are going to be replaced by more abstract, flowing, and broader lines and forms. 

 Flowing, warm figures and lines along with wide open compositions can help create unique and natural design look and feel. At the same time, such openness makes people concentrate more on the content itself. Flow and minimalistic compositions do not distract from the message your design aims to deliver. 

 Heavier Typography – Simpler Fonts 

 Here’s a tendency; something we are turning to of the previous years. Fonts are getting bolder (or extra bolder) and would be broadly used in life sciences content design. Well, they might look a bit heavy.  

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However, such weighty fonts make the message more precise and accelerate its impact across channels (especially in contrast with deep gradient background). 

 When it comes to font size and type, what should we focus on now? Right, screens. Smartphone screens are smaller than the ones of PCs (to which we’ve gotten acquainted). While designing, we need to keep in mind how the content would be read on a screen. Colors, size, font type… In 2020 and beyond these will matter more than in earlier years.   

 Unique illustrations – Floating elements 

 The year 2020 is going to be more about minimalism, simplicity, and abstract imagery.  

When it comes to website content design, more natural and realistic illustrations would be the right choice. Accurate, positive pictures with no exaggeration, just more simplistic, and real. 

 Backgrounds gradients 

 Backgrounds will be placed on the spot in 2020. Gradients are something that helps customers keep glued to your content, something that catches an eye and leaves more impression, delivering a message faster.  

 Gradients can add more profound complexity and serve as a background to the whole composition.  

 Warmer color palettes 

 Life sciences content designers are switching towards warmer color palettes, and less vibrant. Muted or metallic colors will dominate, especially in typography, lettering, and image design. When it comes to color choice in graphic design, the past becomes the future. 

New Generation of three-dimensional images 

 We are at the dawn of a new 3D era. The development of AR and VR technologies made a huge impact on graphic design. In 2020 we will see more in-depth 3D visualizations.  

 VR headsets, VR Goggles, Glasses for 3D Video, etc. are changing the way people interact with the pharmaceutical and life sciences brands. Short 3D imagery is adding real texture and conveying a unique atmosphere. 

 Best healthcare website design 

 Below are the best practices of healthcare and pharmaceutical website design to follow. What makes life sciences and pharma websites so good? Let’s see: 

  • Robust website search features 

 With quality website design, you can enhance the performance of your website, generate more leads, and get higher revenue.  

Compelling website search features need to contain in-depth information for specific groups of HCPs or patients, depending on their needs, requirements, and content expectations. 

  • Easy navigation 

 The healthcare content should be designed in a way fully packed with all necessary data but not in a chaotic and overcrowded manner. The design approach should be the one that allows easy navigation through various blocks of information.  

Keep the design as transparent as possible to make an excellent user experience. 

  • Data accessibility 

 Highlight key information. Always. It should be visible to visitors. Make them get what they want quickly. The healthcare data should never feel cluttered.  

  • High-quality imagery 

 Visual content plays a pivotal role in customer engagement. High-quality imagery that is pleasing to the eye attracts visitors to healthcare websites, especially when they are used throughout the design. 

Too often, visual data is perceived better than text-based content. According to statistics, 65% are visual learners, 90% of the information that comes to the brain is visible, and interactive presentations are 43% more credible.   

  • Compelling website videos 

 As the research shows, a video on a landing page increases conversions by 86%. Videos are the best way to tell a story and communicate your brand, making it more memorable.  

It’s how you can make your pharma brand storytelling more trustworthy and keep your audience engaged.  

  • More health-related content 

 Healthcare professionals and patients might need to be presented with precise details. The same goes for the design style – it should be uplifting and complex.   

  • Patient reviews and feedbacks 

 Let your healthcare website tell true stories with real people in real circumstances. 

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Viseven experts will share the essential tips towards creating the perfect design for your eDetailing, email templates, and localization, as well as unveil more about mobile applications best practices in healthcare. Here you can explore the unique benefits of top content authoring solution. Let 2020 be the year of digital success. 

 Let’s get started 

A look from inside eyeforpharma 9th Annual Marketing and Customer Innovation Europe, 2019

LONDON, October 2019 – Of enough weight in pharma and life sciences world to deserve the status of Reuters event, eyeforpharma is huge. In reality, to get the full value of the gigantic exchange of insights from leading enterprises, one can only be advised to travel and attend the event in person. As part of the pharma digital innovation community, we at Viseven team have taken it as our tradition to cover at least the most breathtaking presentations here – and this year’s event is not an exception. However difficult it has been to decide what to select to fit into this brief overview.

The driving force behind it all was expressed in one powerful slide, in a presentation delivered by Maria Raad, VP Customer and Digital Strategy at Janssen (and we’ll return to her excellent speech in a few moments):

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Oh yes, there is change in the way pharma is expected to interact with the stakeholders. Much change. The entire event was, in a way, centered around how to cope with it, and what successful cases can already be shown.

Ensuring customer experience that is really valuable

Gone are the times when CX was measured in terms of how digitally advanced it was. Now, with other industries providing exceptional customer centricity, healthcare and pharma are seriously challenged with expectations. Just spectacular digital tech is no longer sufficient – patients and HCPs alike want to see the real value tech can provide.

This is where the notion of added value gains important – and Anders Dyhr Toft of Novo Nordisk talked exactly about that. Amid the global diabetes pandemic, the company introduced added value in the form of digital health solutions.

These allow to expand focus beyond the prescription decision-making process by taking into account the real customer journey. The app-centric thinking has shifted to customer-centric. The importance of thinking in these terms was also highlighted by Philippe Barrilon, Takeda, in his presentation on CX measurement. In a stunning real-world insights collection, he presented the fact that once the HCP’s satisfaction with the journey becomes definitive, there’s a 2.7x increase in the likelihood to prescribe. The smart manager needs to consider the actual touchpoints along that journey and think of personalization – something that Christian Scheuer of LEO Pharma also stressed.

“Align the existing touchpoints before innovating” was one of the ideas in the presentation. In practice, this was achieved by providing reps with BI dashboards that show every touchpoint for any specific HCP – thus providing the flexibility and personalization to adapt to the real, non-linear journey.

The power of collaborations, once again

Collaborations in wide, cross-functional teams – as well as pharma-stakeholder collaborations – are a recognized necessity if only we want to bring the industry to true customer centricity. One notable aspect of this approach was solution co-creation with the customers. For example, the strategy devised by Novo Nordisk (which we have already mentioned) also involved services co-creation, and Louise Lauridsen, Digital Channel Manager, Europe at Bristol-Myers Squibb also presented a collaborative approach. Starting from the dismal figure of 11 minutes that is the average rep call duration in Spain, she emphasized the need to tailor the materials to the audience. As one of the stages in the cycle, they include workshop with the customers.

This same presentation also featured the practice of a large cross-functional team focused on providing the truly patient-centric solutions. The topic was touched in a panel talk on cross-department collaboration (marketing, digital, sales, medical and IT), with Paul Simms, Bharat Tewarie, Anders Dyhr Toft and Dana Viger participating.

It’s already here: AI bearing fruit

We promised at the beginning we’ll go back to what Maria Raad had to say. There were 4 trends distinguished in the presentation (Big data, empowered patients, better disease interception and more personal engagement). Behind all four, AI featured prominently:

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Among all the applications of artificial intelligence that are already the working reality today, there’s one on which Roger Domecq, Head of CRM and Sales Transformation at Novartis Spain, delivered a practical case: AI in CRM. The solution works by analyzing previously assembled data and generating suggestions for reps to arrange for their next activities facing the customer.

Another success case of using AI was presented by Darren Frey, Senior Data Scientist at Sanofi in the context of predictive analytics. The method demonstrated involved precise short-term forecasting based on social media and sales data and processed by AI. The approach allows at least a 30% increase in accuracy (i.e. from 30 to 60%).

How not to get lost in data and processes?

An important part of digital transformation is making sure the organization does not get overwhelmed by the expanded horizons. A panel talk with experts from Pfizer, Novartis, Lundbeck and Sanofi was dedicated to customer insights and selecting the right customer insights for analysis.

The Janssen presentation, mentioned above, included a call to link data to value provided to the customer.

The splendid speech by Sarah Rickwood, Vice President, European Thought Leadership, IQVIA, was dedicated to launching excellence. Analyzing the evolution of launches starting from as early as 1995, they defined 6 stages on the way to the present-day complicated environment. This was combined with an overview of the past, present and future landscape and what implications it has for a successful launch.

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As an efficient approach to efficient launch excellence, Sarah Rickwood suggested the FAAR model, with the formula “Be Focused, Actionable, Aligned and Realistic”.

Francois Motyl, Global Digital Governance Lead at Novartis, presented an approach to end-to-end governance of customer experience.

Omnichannel transformed

The need to provide a truly omnichannel customer experience is clear when you consider that no one channel can substitute or supersede the others. In HCP engagement, even with the plethora of channels that pharma is now trying out, HCPs still use a vast array of other information sources. We have mentioned how Louise Lauridsen of BMS referred to the shrinking rep call times, but her presentation also included an assessment of sources of information, where reps are in Tier 2, at 39% rates. This is indicative of their role as just one channel in the large landscape.

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This landscape is expanding. Cyril Mandry, Senior Marketing Director, MSD spoke of social media as a powerful means of communication. 60 to 80% of the audience are on SM, and 93% buying decisions are influenced by it, so pharma has at least 4 opportunities here: marketing, social selling, employment activities, and developing reputation. A memorable quote inspired by the SM setting was simply this:

Engagement is earned, not bought.

This, according to the presenter, implies the need for a long-term content plan. Another channel introduced with customer journey in mind was chatbots (discussed by Hannah Thompson and Kym Jacks-Bryant of Norgine).

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Naturally, this huge landscape is to be consistent and the channels should be aligned with one another – this is why “multichannel” is now becoming “omnichannel”, the difference being that integrated experience provided by the latter. This requires a smart content strategy powered by good command of tech.

Stacey Berold-Kutscher of Ferring presented an original approach to engaging HCPs via popular digital networks. Reducing the team on the company side to just 3 members – Pharma Brand Lead, Digital Brand Lead and Medical Advisor – leading a blog and involving patients and KOLs, as well as providing downloadable content, they achieved considerable results.

Managing the omnichannel strategy that comprises multiple touchpoints, all of them personalized and providing added value also requires a fair share of proficiency working with content. The conventional way of creating content with an agency here and there is becoming dangerous. Where is the guarantee that the content created in silos will stay not just compliant, but also relevant to its place in the funnel?

Rethinking the way content is created and managed across channels is imminent. We at Viseven Group are aware of this fact and present the modular COPE – Create Once, Publish Everywhere approach. Here, content exists in the form of flexible modules that represent a core idea with supporting information – the value item, as well as metadata. Importantly, modules exist without channel-specific limitations, so that one module can be theoretically used in a website, email, app, eDetailing presentation, landing page, etc.

With the help of business rules, modules can be assembled into channel-specific templates, and thus provide the necessary level of personalization. The possible combinations yield a spectacular number of available content items to be constructed – and used at lighting speed whenever and wherever required by the audience needs.

To know more about what modular omnichannel content practices Viseven can recommend and implement, don’t hesitate to contact our expert in the field.

P.S. If you are interested in what’s going on in omnichannel life sciences communications, you can subscribe to our blog to receive fresh updates on the state of the industry.

Adobe Experience Manager integration with eWizard Platform for new-gen pharma content management

In another move to create a world of truly interconnected digital ecosystems for life sciences, Viseven Group is happy to introduce the integration of eWizard Platform with Adobe Experience Manager! This powerful solution, already claimed to be in use by 7643 companies, presents new opportunities to cater to pharma marketing’s long standing needs.

Here, we will dive into the whats and hows of these changes. We will look at how you can connect your existing systems, including Veeva, with AEM using eWizard, craft and reuse websites that fit AEM, while tracking their performance in Veeva/Salesforce, as well as how content approval processes and data integrity can be improved.

Data Integrity and the need for integrated pharma content solutions

The current business landscape is infused and intersected with data… Wait, it consists of data. With the most recent concerns about its quality, no wonder that the entire pharma industry is searching for ways to get things as neat as possible. Over the course of the last several years, FDA has had to issue quite a number of 483 warning letters concerning data integrity deficits in life sciences industry. For the most part, these have to do with regulations, electronic signatures, etc.

Now, pharma marketing is, in turn, affected. After all, brand reputation is part of the goal in the movement for data integrity, not just the regulatory confidence.

If we look close enough at the so-called ALCOA principles of data quality, we can see why:

Attributable – If you see materials in your DAM that you could and would possible reuse, it will surely help to see who uploaded them, when and why – and maybe how they performed.

Legible – it goes without saying that no marketer will ever reuse content that fails to interest them; unintelligibility is a putoff.

Contemporaneous – “just a file” is not an asset, but simply an object. How long since it was last used? Besides that, documenting the performance of content in real-time is something that begged for automation – and now has been automated.

Original – no one would like to get globally approved templates for, say, an ad, website or email in a version that has already been localized several times, with Gujarati text over a picture clearly destined for Russian market.

Accurate – all about context and metadata, which implies proper tagging and linking of all digital assets per key message, market, campaign, etc.

Digital Asset Management and Content Approval Software – life sciences perspective

Of all industries, pharma arguably has the most complicated and branching content lifecycle. The layers of responsibility imposed on various stages, starting from agency and up to MLR, make the workflows mudded at times, especially so if different systems and transfer formats (PDF, documents, PPT, etc.) are used.

In general, we can usually distinguish between three such layers. Asset Management per se, done by agencies, can be put to order as a short-term objective. Typically what’s needed here is a single workspace with sufficient integrations, a pack of content authoring functionalities and a way to report on the outcomes.

Next is the marketing review and approval workflow, which requires not only a unified platform to work on the content (e.g. comment on the assets), but also some formal mechanism of approval endorsed by tech.

Finally, the compliance layer – medical, legal, regulatory – also requires a single “source of truth”, but with even more meta tagging, taxonomy and context, as well as more formal approval chain.

The needs that are more or less in common across all these levels are as follows:

  • clear approval nomenclature (think Zinc, which is already in use by many an entrerprise)
  • possibility to share content across affiliates and agencies to ensure compliance and cost-efficiency (content reuse is the best way to achieve this)
  • metadata and tagging for the available assets
  • permission control and customizable user roles
  • possibility to somehow plug all of this together with CRM to track the approved key message performance
  • bonus point – ability to think in terms of key messages and not content items separately. This is the new approach to multichannel that Viseven has been especially pioneering recently with the modular Connected Content.

Sewing together Veeva Vault PromoMats and AEM integration with eWizard

At the moment, these different needs are solved by means of multiple systems in place, each serving its own stretch of the content lifecycle. For example, Veeva Vault PromoMats serves for storage, meta connectivity, and review. Content authoring and distribution is done via channel-specific solutions: email platforms, development environments, CRM/CLM, and so forth.

The first step in achieving digital excellence is, of course, instilling digital culture and getting proficient in each of these systems. The logical next stage is creating clear workflows that transcend the systems and unify the processes. With the advent of Adobe Experience Manager, be it primarily as a powerful means of managing websites, we see this tendency in its mature stage, with attention to workflows built into the very concept.

In turn, eWizard Platform, too, transcends its original role of multichannel content authoring solution and can now connect Veeva systems and AEM into a single whole, building bridges wherever necessary for the corporate needs.

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The platform allows to take approved/validated digital assets from Veeva Vault (seamless integration, nothing except credentials at one point is needed), arrange them in a channel-specific template (eDetailer, email template, in case with AEM, as website), and then publish it to the target system. Everything that can be automated is automated, leaving no manual work to the user.

At the same time, the performance of the website published in Adobe can be tracked further, with the data available in Veeva via CDN.

Alongside this improvement, eWizard offers to use the new Modular Content approach, where content exists beyond channels in the form of flexible modules that can fit different types of channel-specific templates. A single module with key message can be inserted into a template for website or email, or eDetailer presentation, with further adaptation if necessary – all inside eWizard.

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As a result, the workflow that embraces Veeva systems and AEM via eWizard, “straightens” the multiple lines into a single, all-encompassing picture:
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Adobe Experience Manager examples in practice

Suppose you have an environment in Adobe Experience Manager where you want to place your company’s new website.

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At the same time, you want to be able to use assets from Veeva Vault to create a channel-specific content item (website) to be published in AEM. As a user of eWizard, you know where to look for the templates:

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You can edit your microsite as necessary, using the modules available. Since eWIzard has an extensibe capacity for metatagging, only the modules approved for use with the content under construction appear, as per business rules.

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Maybe you are required to update the patient profile on the website, and you already have the recommended assets in Vault. eWizard allows to use these assets without leaving the system, loading them from Veeva directly:

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After that, you can export the modified version of the website back into Vault as a PDF for validation and review, if your company’s workflows require it.

After validation, you can use the same built-in automated publishing functionality to get your brand new website across to AEM.

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In this way, you combine the benefits of both systems and enhance them further with the innovative possibilities offered by eWizard, making content workflows easier, faster and more efficient.

You can then track the performance of your content in Veeva:

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It is time to integrate all the efforts and chances of your marketing campaign to create focused interactions and build funnels and customer experiences that win the day! Try and see how it feels to have complete control over your digital assets – and you will be surprised at how, one day in 2019, so many things were resolved at once, leading to smart pharma marketing at the service of your brand.

Our dedicated experts are several clicks away, ready to help you learn more about the new possibilities you have.

17th eyeforpharma Philadelphia 2019: twitter digest

PHILADELPHIA, April 19 – the most comprehensive patient-oriented pharma event of the year has passed, and didn’t fail to bring a breath of fresh air into the industry.

The motto of this year’s #efpphilly:

has explored the ways in which pharma can redirect its efforts in innovation and progress towards those who really stand at the engine of the industry. After all, aren’t we all patients at some point in our lives?

Let’s explore a 360 view that the many exhibitors and speakers have brought to this event, with inspirations that have been generated for the year to come.

  • Business talk – look around, pharma

Continuing on the themes of the eyeforpharma Barcelona 2019, an apt takeaway of which we’ve already published, it’s been emphasized (by Paul Simms initially) that pharma should be on the lookout for new business partners.

  • Amazoniation of healthcare keeps on amazing the industry

Audience at #efpphilly says the most likely bold prediction to be true is that Amazon will be the fastest growing healthcare company.

Patricia Brown from Merck advises this approach to implementing agile marketing: “take inspiration from outside industry brands – it’s possible to deliver a patient experience that matches any non-pharma customer experience”.

  • Cross-disciplinary cooperation will benefit the end stakeholders – patients

Northwell Health expressed a statement that creating a more patient-centric care requires strong collaboration across health systems, advocacy groups, pharma and patients.

  • Put care back to healthcare through partnering with patients

Marc Boutin (National Health Council) and President Percival Barretto-ko (Astellas) talked about why diversity and inclusion is a strategic imperative – and key to realizing patients as partners.

  • Patient-focused, -centric, -oriented? What about… Driven

Peter Anastasiou representing Lundback – on pharma’s evolution from patient-centric to patient-driven, incorporating patient insights into R&D is crucial.

Results of patient-driven strategies may one day look just like this:

  • Make innovations accessible

Any future partnership of pharma should be centered and driven by desire to bring care to the patients. Questions like ‘what’s the point of innovation if patients can’t access it?’ – are a recognition that the focus should be on the patient needs at point of access.

  • Technology to enhance patient journeys and empathy to build meaningful patient experience

Christine Farmer from Novonordisk showed the way how technology helps us to visualize one and Cognizant showcased the patient journey through the lens of empathy.

No larger-than-life event of today is considered full without a serious take on the digital, including the ever-lagging pharma.

  • HCPs and pharma: lack of time, attention span and preference to one channel

“Where do physicians spend their time online?” – a question which has been researched by Amy Turnquinst (Healthcare Solutions) and Paul Kudlow (Trend MD). Here are some of the results they’ve got:

  • Digital brings patient adherence — a case study

  • Patient-centric rep is not making a sale

He helps patients, as told during the panel on the role of the rep. And it is pharma’s duty to reshape this relationship, perception as well as expectations, not in the least – with the help of Digital.

  • Technology is fast – but adoption is slow

Important is also the attitude that software needs to be developing all the time to stay relevant. And the biggest change in going omnichannel is the mindset. Not technology.

  • Rep of today is a channel orchestrator

  • Digital means omnichannel for pharma

During the panel talk on Omnichannel Market Engagement, Viseven’s Business Development Officer – Alexander Dudinets – has noted that in the era of multichannel communication the nature of the marketing cycles has changed: they are overlapping, changing and constantly mutating into one another. If content production for marketing cycles will not become affordable and accurate, there’s little hope for pharma to catch the speed of content lifecycle.

This is where Viseven’s solution, the eWizard platform, is specifically designed to accelerate content creation, localization, rounds of approval and publication to the speed of light. Pharma can split content in smallest meaningful parts and reuse it for many channels and messages, so bringing value to the end stakeholders would become as affordable as it gets.

As for Viseven team, we have enjoyed the event capacities to their full extent: run, exhibition tour, exhibition and panel. Our Chief Officer (US/Canada), Kenneth Sanchez, participated in the early morning run and delivered an excellent pitch during the patient engagement exhibition tour. And our Team A – Oksana Matviienko (CMO) and Ruslana Magdych (Global Account Director) – had an excellent networking time at the exhibition booth, expanding on the intricacies of multichannel content creation that brings value to all stakeholders.

If you would like to know more about forward-thinking technology, which enables implementation of modular content approach into omnichannel communication strategies and speeds up content creation process — drop our experts a line. Decoupling the content from channels is the first step towards value-based engagement with HCPs and patients alike!

Landing page design trends for pharmaceutical marketing

Well, here are 2 options for pharmaceutical marketers:

  • to win trust, credibility and drive more loyalty by embracing upcoming trends in landing page design;

OR

  • to fail by not paying attention to what users are looking for.

In today’s increasingly digital world, it comes as no surprise that Internet-savvy customers might hesitate what sources to rely on and whom to trust. It takes visitors about a few seconds to determine the usefulness and quality of a webpage. If it’s not functional or consistent enough to generate their interest, they’ll abandon the page even before clicking on the product or service section. In a few words, a landing page is a tightly focused web page that a user arrives on (after clicking a link in an email, for example). A powerful landing page is a powerful pharma marketing tool with clickable CTA buttons. Thus, its optimization and design should be of high importance. Landing pages are here to help visitors to figure out whether your website is worth spending time on. Let’s call it 24/7 support for pharma managers that is working tirelessly on making the brand appealing, consistent and memorable. Thus, paying attention to the slightest details of your landing page design is a vital task.

NB! “The devil is in the details” – it is as simple as that…

According to Kevin Mcspaddenas, the average human attention span decreased from 10 seconds in 2000 to 8 seconds in 2015. In those 8 seconds, the landing page should tell your visitors why they need to stay on your site and shouldn’t go to a website of your competitors.

When it comes to creating a perfect landing page for your pharma marketing campaign, there’re lots of important details to consider: beginning with the design (fonts, colors, etc.), user experience and finishing with the content and how it’s structured. Here’s a brief overview of the latest trends for forward-looking, tech-conscious pharma marketers who are ready to fully embrace new tendencies:

1. Single-pointed concentration

…this is the first thing to point out. Mess and digital “clutter” are what should be taken away not only from our day-to-day routine but from the web landscape as well. In the midst of a wide array of data, images, and graphics, customers are willing to see only what they need most at the very moment of the search. We are living in the era in which time and energy of every individual are valued the most. This is why we refer to a single purpose of your landing page design – make it as focused as possible.

2. Personalization – choice or necessity?

Guess: what’s the main difference between a company that thrives and the one that lags behind? The first one is able to meet the needs of its customers much better and on a more personal level. Landing page message should be tightly linked to the unique value your company offers and be an answer to whatever customers might be willing to know. Is there a better way to use your landing page if not to “communicate” with your target audience through your brand? Beyond doubt, that’s the main point…

3. Clarity and Minimalism

The design and structure of your landing page should be chosen based on the main website layout. Minimalistic footer, precise headline, clear CTA buttons, a few images or just one –  they shouldn’t distract customers, but vice versa, urge to go further on investigating a website (the same goes for social accounts). Entice users with easy site navigation using maximum 1-2 CTA buttons and hyperlinks that allow them to escape back to other pages if needed.

4. Solid color palette

Colors subconsciously affect our feelings, emotions, and attitudes much more than we can imagine. No doubts content is king here (in all its various forms), BUT non-verbal communication (unlike verbal tools) can help patients to better understand what your products or services are about. The colors you choose might do both: drive interest or withdraw from further investigation: each tone causes specific associations, encourages taking immediate actions or simply uplifts user experience.

5. Video to experiment

How about incorporating different multimedia elements on your landing page? The best way to stand out in a competitive market is to add something unique that has not been used that much so far. Do not get this confused, it shouldn’t be a video-only landing page, but by adding it you can increase your conversion rate dramatically. Obviously, a video should come after the headline where users can see it and choose to play.

6. Fonts

What is new out there for pharma marketers in terms of fonts and typography? Pharma landing pages need to be highly appealing due to not only the images but clear typography as well. The year 2019 will be a year of digital diversities and experiments; fonts are changing along with other elements. Their foremost purpose is to carry your message out to the audience. Thus, it’s essential to figure out what fonts have been most influential recently and keep pace with that trend. For example, sans-serif fonts are easier to read, especially on mobile devices. Regardless of future trends, simplicity in typography won’t be out of the game. Especially it concerns pharma, as its wording needs to be clearly defined and easy to read.

NB! Font size and weight matters. That is always good practice to stick to one type of font. Good if they are fresh, far worse if they look fancy.

7. CTA

Call-To-Action buttons are still most crucial in terms of improving conversion rate and driving traffic to your website. They need to be effective and action-oriented, yet simple and user-friendly. Not to mention that visual CTAs always work much better.

Based on those above-mentioned trends, here we have gathered some practical recommendations that should be counted if you want to elevate your landing page efficiency and tighten up its design:

  • Maintain Brand consistency

Any differentiation in your brand name might seem confusing and unprofessional, especially for new users. For example, if you choose caps, be consistent and stick with it (the same goes for the number of words – there shouldn’t be overflows).

  • Optimize images for Mobile

Don’t neglect the logo! Sometimes the logo images might appear a bit more blurry on the mobile screen if they’re not properly optimized (by the way, which is not good). You’ll benefit much better when your logo is easily displayed on a mobile device like in its natural dimensions on any other screen.

  • Add more space

Sometimes the slightest details make the biggest difference. Matching and mixing all those small details can help to create a cohesive design. Don’t bundle everything together! Small, simple bullets (instead of long paragraphs), a catchy headline, relevant images and convenient contact form with just a few fields to fill out can help to maintain a solid focus and increase concentration on needed content.

  • Get More with Fewer images:

At times, having one good image is enough to completely change customers’ perception about pharma brand. Once you choose an image, ask yourself how it represents your brand and whether it compliments it or not. If it doesn’t, find the one which captures the audience’s attention. Images are like visual CTAs that subconsciously encourage us to take immediate actions or learn more.

  • Keep the same spacing

It’s always good practice to maintain consistent spacing and font sizing. For example, all section padding is 60 px, while all CTA buttons or other small spaces are 15 px.

  • Forget about diversity in fonts

Believe it or not, too many fonts might look messy and deconcentrate users’ attention. Try to combine them wisely or stick to no more than 2 or 3 font families.

  • It’s worth experimenting with color palettes

Dilute pure colors or add gradients in order to make a text hierarchy more subtle and soft.

NB! A quality color scheme is the “promise” of pharma brand innovativeness.

  • Highlight the CTA buttons

Ideally, CTA buttons should be contrasted enough against the background. For example, a prominent orange button with an overall blue color scheme.  They are the reminders on what pharma marketers want their users to do while scrolling down the page. Make those CTA buttons consistently worded and properly colored.

Well, we need to get right to the point in our landing page design – to achieve a positive, long-lasting impression. Yet before going to design itself – content first is the only right way. However, how about flexible, reusable content that fits any channel, system or device? Moreover, Viseven has a needed expertise in creating engaging microsites for global companies in pharma landscape. If you want to launch a perfect landing page – contact us and our highly experienced professionals will gladly help you to create the state of the art landing page, meeting all the specific requirements and deadlines. Subscribe to our newsletter and discover more about our whole new approach in multichannel pharma marketing. 

Pharma Marketing Tools for Powerful Multichannel Strategy

How to stay on top of the competitive pharmaceutical market? Regardless of whether the goal is to promote newly launched product or improve brand perception and loyalty, the main point is in differentiating your brand among a plenty of other ones’. In 2019, digitalization is predicted to become the mainstream for each and every marketing strategy in pharma. In order to keep ahead of the continuous race, data quality should be an undoubted part yet patient-centricity remains on top. Today’s major pharma marketing task is to gain a deeper understanding on how customers interpret and respond to key messages. To help you stay ahead of the competitive game, we prepared a list of the most popular pharma marketing tools for productive and efficient brands promotion.

Statistics show: 9 out of 10 large pharma companies spend more on marketing than they do on R&D. According to several studies the administrative tasks take 1-2 hours per day to complete. In this regard, the digital environment is an excellent promoter, which facilitates direct answers.

A platform for content creation

It goes without saying, in order to keep brand identity as well as maintain recognition on both global and local levels localization is a must. Yet here comes a major question for any brand manager: how to localize without compromising key messages and brand consistency? Let’s take an email to show by example: adding just a few features to your existing email might become a tough task that requires more coding operations than you could imagine (not to mention wasting your budget on even tiny changes) – not very comparable to what we call “excellent” pharma marketing, right? If your marketing campaign isn’t supposed to be an average one, you will need a solution that covers all stages of an email campaign, from the beginning to the end.

As revealed by the latest statistics, almost 68% of physicians prefer to receive information from pharma reps via email.

Email marketing automation powered by eWizard and Salesforce Marketing Cloud integration helps to drive much more success at scale. It was created especially for pharma marketers and helps to create all types of content, such as emails, edetailers, websites, etc in a truly multichannel way.

Project management applications

Wondering – how to deliver your projects 2 or even 3 times faster? With the view to lead digital transformation successfully and simplify its processes project management applications should become a constant presence in pharma marketers’ toolkit. These apps enable to create and deliver a limitless amount of high-quality projects supporting smooth collaboration in teams. With a huge set of different functionalities to offer and scalable interfaces, they aim to handle the most challenging aspects of pharma marketing lifecycle: quick access to files, increased visibility, simplified workload, and much more. There are plenty of management apps to choose, such as Trello, Wrike, Asana, etc. These project organizers with visual boards are helping pharma marketers to eliminate time-consuming tasks, collaborate effectively with internal and external stakeholders and deliver flawless marketing campaigns.

SEO

SEO (search engine optimization) metrics provide a comprehensive view of your keyword domain linking Google Analytics with Search Console. Managing SEO processes of a marketing campaign might become a tough part of pharma marketer’s day-to-day work. Yet if you aim to intensify competitive research, SEMRush is a great all-in-one marketing suite for those companies who want to be ahead of their competitors. It offers tremendous benefits, such as Traffic analysis tool “Google analytics for competitors” (all data from customers’ browsing history). It’s always good practice to keep track on competitor’s websites effectiveness and a cherry on top – watch the efficiency of each page of your own website and constantly double its traffic. In a nutshell, SEMRush will grant you with a helicopter view on your website efficiency progress.

Marketing automation system

Each day pharma marketers are facing an immense amount of repetitive tasks: social media, SEO, follow up emails or other website activities. Thus, to skyrocket the success of your marketing campaigns, automation is vital. Inbound marketing strategies are all about maintaining long-term customer engagement and building valuable experiences. By creating relevant and helpful content, you become a real expert and advisor so there is no need to “reattract” customers again and again as you’ve already earned a lot of trust and credibility. Instead of using multiple applications and wasting money on each integration separately, it’s worth to manage all your marketing workflows within a single suite. This will give you a full view of each customer interaction and a much higher return on investments.

HubSpot is an all-in-one digital solution to boost your brand growth – almost everything you need for an effective marketing campaign just in one place. This is exceptionally helpful when you need to track a website efficiency or check the productivity of your email campaign. The platform provides software, services and 24/7 support for executing marketing flow all in one place round the clock.

HubSpot makes your SEO optimization easy. While creating your content, you can get keyword suggestions or SEO advice in order to stand out.

Localization? Easy!

The pharmaceutical industry is grasping the opportunity to expand its impact on emerging markets. Global pharma giants have already recognized that the only way to connect their brand to a new market is through smart localization. However, the question remains, how can pharma approach local areas in the exact same manner as it approaches all other countries? Localization requires much more effort than just translation from one language to another; just imagine the amount of time and efforts wasted on adjusting the content from your eDetailing, landing pages, social media posts or emails to any local requirements. Thus, to allocate resources, reduce costs on localizing activities and attain bigger market access, pharma stakeholders need to tighten their focus on a long-term perspective towards the whole localization process. In order to reduce all that complexity, consider using the eWizard platform: localize effortlessly and efficiently on time and within budget. With eWizard you can easily build real multichannel communication with 100% content reuse and localizing presentations in HTML5 format.

Data visualization CRM

Why CRM and how does it serve pharma marketers? First and foremost, with CRM system (Customer relationship management) you’ve got a 360 degree view on all your customer data with options to analyze, store, track and access data. All information could be easily filed and organized in perfect pipelines within CRM system. Great news: there is an array of different pharmaceutical CRM software to choose (IQVIA, bpm’online, Kapture, PharmaCode, Veeva CRM, to name just a few). All you need is to select the one, which fits your specific needs.

Veeva CRM is a leading digital solution for field and sales forces to optimize customer experience. With advanced functionalities pharma marketers could stay engaged with their customers via a the channel of their choice. Thanks to automatic content publishing from eWizard platform to Veeva Vault PromoMats, CRM or CLM they are in a full control of the whole spectrum of digital assets.

Comprehensive analytics and cloud solutions

According to the McKinsey Global Institute, with the help of Big Data strategies nearly USD 100 billion can be generated annually across the USA health care system.

Big Data, the Internet of Things (IoT), cloud-based computing and mobile technologies are the major drivers for raising the efficiency of the pharma marketing lifecycle. Due to increased demand for better and more comprehensive analytics, pharma marketers can be better prepared to predict any behavioral patterns of their audience. Analytical services are the only solutions that empower in-depth expertise. Moreover, they allow forecasting market demand and designing agile strategies. Data capture, ML, AI, virtual technologies, statistics, modeling… they all have been adopted to a high-speed healthcare space.

As shown by Deloitte research, by 2020 most of the healthcare industry, including pharma and biotech companies, will be harnessing either a public, a private or a hybrid cloud.

Digital communication

What is the first thing to come to mind when we think about virtual care? Beyond question it’s convenience. Waiting in front of the HCP’s cabinet might become a futile business, so thanks to latest technical solutions and remote tools pharmа reps are able to reach the audience without taking away their time while focusing on the main concerns. Physicians are more perceptive when they are in control of their schedule.

Pharma marketers have a great opportunity to guide their audience through key points interactively. After a remote session, a follow-up email with previously discussed data can be sent directly to a customer mailbox. Benefits? You can ensure the highest quality of all remote sessions as they are recorded, stored and revived with regards to future optimization or filling the gaps in the areas where any updates could be required. Grasp even more options with Viseven Remote Detailer, powered by eWizard platform, which allows both to conduct remote sessions and work with content to show.

According to research, physicians are more likely to recall their interaction later after remote sessions. Furthermore, 59% of HCPs are willing to ask their managers follow up questions.

Messengers

How do patients “talk” to pharma brands of their preference no matter the location? It’s a well-known fact that lots of customers use online platforms or social media networks to approach pharma&physicians’ communities directly. Messengers and mobile apps became a huge part of today’s healthcare world both for patients to consume information and physicians to demonstrate empathy with no in-person interaction. However, among the huge array of benefits, let’s name a few:

  • An easy way to get to know what’s going on in a medicine space
  • Digital participation with physicians’ community from all over the world
  • Great customer service, 24/7 help tab and immediate medical assistance (hotline)

… a win-win service to be offered, isn’t it what patients appreciate the most?

According to a survey, patients declared that they prefer to take into account online prescription, than going to a doctor. The attitude of respondents regarding the development of the digital pharmacy was Extremely Good (30%) which confirms the growing importance of the online environment for patients today.

Digital era has significantly changed the way people consume healthcare related information: they are more competent, technical-savvy and precise. An increasing access to data throughout the world makes pharma marketers and brand managers always take one step further while implementing innovations rapidly or… remain left behind. Let’s call it a new pharma marketer’s mindset: a systematic, channel-centric thinking towards agility in marketing, great CX, scalability time to market and personalized approach. If you are willing to deepen your expertise and fuel your workflow, feel free to sign up to our newsletter or contact our team of experts.

Digital Pharma Advances 2019 in London – key points & discoveries

LONDON, January 31, 2019 – As the opening notes by Bharat Tewarie, Executive Vice President and Chief Marketing Officer at UCB, drew the curtain and unwrapped a whole set of all-too-familiar terms…

…among others, blockchain, AI, digital therapeutics, Brexit, multichannel and disruption

… it became clear once again why the Digital Pharma Advances conference name starts with that word. Those who have followed along over the past several years know that this event is most fruitful for those seeking to innovate the tech part of pharma.

However, life sciences have their own, inherent, age-old – and still largely unresolved – issues like patient centricity, branding, compliance, adherence, to name a few. One could think of these new realities (introduced in the opening, as well as in the spectacular buzzword cloud) as of something that will help solve pharmas’ traditional questions – or as of dangerous intruders that the industry will have to adapt to in order to survive.

The truth is, they are both. Who can be truly ready for the advent of AI as long as digital transformation is only some 15% complete? Who can be serious about multichannel while materials are being produced in silos by local agencies? Pharma has to face some of its greatest challenges before being able to unzip the whole pack of novelties and benefit from them.

However, who said you can’t use some of these innovations already to transform your organization, making it more efficient and ready to take the digital dive?

The event’s presentations, panel talks and other activities essentially revolved around 4 grand topics:

Digital permeated the discussions on all four. Here is a brief overview of the most memorable moments, along with the possible takeaways.

Patient centricity & adherence: the reality

Patient apps. Patient centricity. Patient engagement. Apps again, and why they sometimes fail to yield the results – all of that has been researched and discussed. However, a stunning presentation by Søren Smed Østergaard, Vice President & Head of Digital Health at Novo Nordisk, redefined everything in an explosion of truth.

In general we need to design solutions that allow the patients to disengage from their disease, not engage further.

 

No one wants their disease, and simply pushing more information or constantly engaging the patient (i.e. reminding the patient) is an impasse when it comes to truly maintain adherence or achieving patient centricity. A smarter approach is gradually coming on the stage, one based on careful UX considerations, allowing the patients to be what they are, without focusing too much on their conditions.

The topic was further developed from a different angle in a patient engagement case study by Zara Patel, Digital Patient Engagement Manager at LEO Pharma, as well as in a panel with executives from Roche, Novo Nordisk and Merck.

HCP engagement, the smarter way

Another important focus topic was, of course, engaging the HCPs. Since the onset of the “reps-plus-multichannel” struggle, the main point has been content personalization and informational value. As practitioners are demanding more RWE and clinical research, but rep admissions are shrinking, the multichannel content game is becoming increasingly sophisticated.

Mate Balazs of Novartis delivered a presentation focused on these issues, citing a “magical secret to succeed” in the title. In reality, the secret is a fortunate combination of channels and content types – from VR to webinars, all thoroughly personalized and oriented towards long-term relationships.

Obviously, “mapping digital literacy” is one of the key factors of success – and organizations should find their own means towards that end.

Another round of discussion on HCP engagement strategies was the panel talk on the first day, where, notably, Anand Das of Pfizer mentioned co-creation as a means of tailoring the materials to audience needs.

A presentation delivered by Viseven Group’s CMO Oksana Matviienko (discussed here below) showed the practical way to craft the content needed for that purpose.

Arranging funnels and defining KPIs: case study

The rise of “smart” CRM dashboards turned out to be the beginning of a new era in KPI use – one where metrics are analyzed much more consciously. An interesting measurement case study was presented by Simeon Simov, Digital Insights Manager at GSK.

Based on the various stages of the awareness-to-advocacy funnel, he showed what KPIs were specifically identified as the most actionable ones (you could think of them as “anti-vanity metrics”):

  1. Content visibility (awareness stage)
  2. Interactions
  3. CTA efficiency
  4. % of the audience becoming brand ambassadors (advocacy stage)

Digital transformation and culture: it’s all about the mindset

Although initially given by Bharat Tewarie in the context of harnessing AI capacities, this has much broader implications. As the event progressed, it became clear that most of the initiatives and best practices described requiring a shift in digital culture and organization to be implemented to their full extent.

A very indicative (and profound) presentation given by Samuel Driessen, Senior Director External Digital Channels at Teva, demonstrated successful steps towards digital transformation from both the organization/culture and value/trust perspective. He highlighted a “hybrid” approach to content production throughout the global-to-local ladder:

The new multichannel

Further down on the practical, immediately actionable level is the contribution that led Viseven team to the event. Having worked in the multichannel life sciences milieu over these transformative years, Viseven is now heralding “Multichannel 2.0” – the new, demonstrably more efficient approach to content production.

The presentation by Oksana Matviienko showed the distinctive idea behind it: having content created once, and without link to a particular channel (eDetailing, email, etc.) – and then using automation to publish it to any system or platform (DAM, CMS, CRM) in use across the entire organization. Further, the content itself can now exist in the form of fragments (“building blocks”) that undergo MLR and approval and can then be combined to form the end product – flexible at multiple levels, and bringing the ultimately personalized value to the stakeholder.

Want to learn more about the workflow already adopted by several industry leaders? You can download the free ebook which reveals the principal points, and turn the new page in your multichannel excellence.

Salesforce Email Marketing Automation with eWizard Integration

A while ago, we announced the strategic partnership with Salesforce.com, featuring a highly anticipated integration of eWizard platform and Salesforce eMarketing Cloud. The email marketing Salesforce integration covers all stages of an email campaign: from email creation to its distribution and analysis, offering a solid groundwork for mailing campaign optimization. And now we’d like to highlight key prerequisites and main outcomes this integration brings for digital pharma marketing.

Benefits of Email Marketing Integration with Salesforce

Let’s overview the key benefits of the integration and how it might be helpful for all pharma marketers across the industry:

  • Salesforce Email Analytics.

Integration enables tracking recipient behavior and using it to create better Salesforce email campaigns. You can see which emails were opened, which links were clicked, and which content was the most engaging.

  • Salesforce email marketing automation.

The email campaign integration with Salesforce Marketing Cloud reduces the risk of errors and time spent on many manual tasks, such as publishing and creating emails. Salesforce email automation streamlines various email-related processes, while also maintaining a high level of email personalization.

  • Efficient email marketing Salesforce campaigns.

With Salesforce email marketing integration, you don’t have to jump from one application to another to craft and send an email. You can just do it in a couple of clicks, making it easier to create high-quality engaging campaigns that don’t require a lot of time to kick off.

Email marketing automation with Salesforce responsibilities streamlines various tasks that used to require manual input. Now, you can easily get them done in just a couple of clicks.

What is Salesforce Marketing Cloud?

Salesforce Marketing Cloud is a platform marketers can use for a myriad of tasks and goals. And thanks to email automation with Salesforce integration, it becomes easier to create emails with a personalized touch. Here is what you can do with SFMC:

  • Create and manage content;
  • Send and monitor messages;
  • Find your target audience;
  • Design customer journeys;
  • Deliver personalized content based on user behavior;
  • Bring multiple channels together;
  • Centralize customer data;
  • Create 360-view of your customers;
  • Divide your customer base into segments.

With these features powered by the best email marketing integration with Salesforce, you can amplify your marketing campaigns and create them faster and of higher quality. Moreover, email integration can solve a few other problems, examples of which we’re about to discuss.

What are the Challenges the Integration and Content Experience Platform will help Overcome?

When it comes to localizing email campaigns, all marketers are confronted with a challenge –balancing between ensuring diversity and compliance. How do you diversify while remaining within branding requirements? How do you resonate with local needs while maintaining an easily recognizable brand identity?

And it might not be even worth all that hustle and expenses:

today, 260 bln emails/day toll a bell in mailboxes around the world, they’ve got something to tell the recipients. But open rates tell us a whole different story, ranging from 15% to 28%.

In other words,

across industries, only every 5th to 3rd email is opened.

A big part of those messages doesn’t even have a chance to appear in the inbox, as they go straight to the spam bin marked as “irrelevant info” by half of the email recipients.

However, these stats do not change the fact that email remains the main channel used to reach physicians. Many HCPs still prefer receiving personalized messages from pharma companies. But the problem is that personalized emails require lots of coding. Making a few tweaks would often mean hiring a trusted digital agency and investing significant time and financial resources. And let’s not forget about time-consuming approval procedures in pharma.

So, pharma marketers are facing a tough choice: either make an average email that has a high chance of being dumped as spam or make a great, localized one, but waste the monthly budget of a tiny country.

Luckily, with our content experience platform, eWizard, they no longer have to choose between these two options. Oksana Matviienko from Viseven admits:

“Capitalizing on a decade of working experience alongside global pharma actors, we developed a truly comprehensive solution that’s automating email campaign workflows at every stage of the email production process. Equipped with the eWizard platform, pharma marketers and sales reps have a powerful mix-and-match tool for creating and reusing approved email templates, which all have the same look and feel no matter the brand or market”.

Contrary to your average email template that’s rigid and inflexible, eWizard Email Templating Service contains a number of pre-designed content modules to mix and match for all that creative jazz. This model allows users to make an engaging email in minutes and eliminates the need to address an agency for localization or editing. With the adaptive templating approach that lies at the heart of eWizard-created emails and marketing email automation flows, marketers have creative freedom while adhering to budget constraints and branding guidelines.

Here are Some Benefits of eWizard Email Templates: 

  • The solution saves tons of time and budget resources by allowing users to endlessly reusing master templates that are created and pre-approved on a global level;
  • A template serves as the branding framework; all that’s left to do is to fill it up with localized content! Create a new unique email in no time by placing ready-made content fragments modules (footer, text with image, graph, etc.);
  • Forget manual or hired publishing! You can publish your email to Veeva Vault automatically as well as review, approve, export, and distribute to Salesforce Marketing Cloud.

If you’re an ambitious marketer aiming for a seamless Salesforce email marketing campaign workflow that delivers personalized emails, do not hesitate to contact our team of certified experts for details on the Salesforce integration with email marketing. You can also subscribe to our newsletter for the latest updates in digital pharmaceutical content marketing.