Engaging gastroenterology presentations: 7 tips to drive engagement Posted on November 30, 2018 by Andrii Nikulin Many a brand manager working in pharma marketing will admit that promoting a product to HCPs of certain specialties is quite different from working with the GP audience. Each area has its own peculiarities, and they deserve being analyzed. Some talented marketers who have previously worked with GPs may even experience a sort of “culture shock” when encountering a different therapeutic area. Attitudes and preferences can be unexpected. Here, we will look at one of the specialties where pharma-to-doctor relationships have been noticeably digitalized: gastroenterology. It is a moderately difficult specialty in terms of the marketing effort needed but requires an insider understanding. For example, according to statistics, about 49% gastroenterologists restrict access to pharma reps. This is less than some other areas but still considerable – and definitely the picture is not as optimistic. Let’s look at what needs to be done to push that number down – and how this is solved with eDetailing. We will first analyze why and how gastroenterologists form a special group – and what value they are more likely to appreciate. This is followed by a list of seven observations about GI eDetailing presentations themselves. These recommendations are based on real projects throughout a period of roughly 9 years. Our professionals took time to analyze which findings were accidental and which recurring, so you can use these 7 points as a good orienting sign in the therapeutic area. 3 important things to realize about gastroenterologists 1. They are quite open to digital It is a common practice in pharmas that undergo digital transformation to run pilot projects (like remote eDetailing or apps) exactly in the context of GI campaigns. Why? Gastro specialists are generally younger than many other groups of HCPs (this, of course, varies by region) and are frequent users of digital devices and resources. For example, about 75% in the age group 31-40 are social media users (the proportion is 50% in the 61+ group). Similar trends can be detected when it comes to the level of confidence in online resources and gadgets. This means that eDetailing is going to meet warm reception – but also high expectations to UX and overall quality. 2. They are overloaded and typically stressed. In a survey of 700+ GI specialists on their working routine, HCPs reported that they direct patient care was already 8 hours of their day. Paperwork (3 hours) and more work at home (2 hours on average) added, this is considered one of the causes for much-discussed “epidemic” of burnout. When asked to grade their stress levels from 1 to 5 (in another survey), about 20% evaluated them at 4 or 5. Lack of time is a common concern here. So convenience and immediate illustration of any key point are important, as well. 3. Visuals! This becomes self-evident when you finally think about it: gastroenterology is the field with the largest amount of things that can (and should) be represented visually. GI specialists are dealing with relatively large organs and formations of recognizable shape; things like absorption and peristalsis are inherently material for images and animations, not speeches. Unsurprisingly, professional video influences decision making for 61% of gastroenterologists. Good to know that these things can be easily incorporated into eDetailing these days. Practical tips on perfect GI presentations 1 Use video / 3D animations This is the immediate conclusion from what was discussed above – and is confirmed by many digital content professionals within our team and partners. Gastro presentations perform best when they incorporate video. This is most appropriately used to demonstrate the product’s mechanism of action – but also to illustrate pathological processes dynamically. 2 Make patient profiles realistic Although patient profiles in gastroenterology presentations are rarely too varied in terms of age, they can vary greatly even when you look at the photo of the profile (think complexion, etc.). As a result, visualized, interactive patient profiles that illustrate relevant clinical cases add to informational value of the presentation. 3 Use creative comparisons Due to some reason or another, it works well when “technical” and “scientific” notions and processes are explained using the language of comparison. The key point here is “creative” – of course, just comparing the duodenum to a boomerang won’t work, but once you have found a reasonable comparison, you can pretty much have the whole presentation storyboard built around it. 4 No text overload (it’s not a journal) It is a common mistake when designing an eDetailing presentation – looking at the slides on the large desktop screen, one cannot resist the temptation to add more text, another key message, or more numbers – after all there’s so much space! However, in reality, the presentation will most likely be viewed on a portable tablet, so too much text in one place is a putoff. If you want more text, consider popup windows or accordions. 5 Practical info straight away: dosage, formulations and such As gastroenterologists are among the typically overworked HCP groups, they prefer to see practical information easily available at the fingertips. Okay, the product is great, so what does the package look like? What is the dosage? As a bonus: additional related patient-oriented materials will be a plus. 6 Incorporate KOL Whenever possible, try to incorporate citations of key opinion leaders in the field. GI specialists respect their medical communities. 7 Link to website or follow up with email We are living in an environment infused with multichannel communications. Thinking that a CLM presentation might have a lasting impact on prescriptions all on its own is no longer realistic. As we have seen, gastroenterologists are quite okay with the Internet – so why not make the presentation contain a link to the product website or landing page (which, of course, contains social media widgets)? Another option would be to follow up on presentation with a specially designed email (template-based) – either way, the presentation cannot stay isolated in an informational bubble. Interested in creating pharma content that works? Contact our team for a combination of experience, innovation and carefully analyzed insights.
Sustainable content for pharma – a pioneering approach to automating content creation is defined Posted on November 20, 2018 by Andrii Nikulin TALLINN, Estonia, November 14, 2018 – Viseven shared its unprecedented experience of bringing pharma customers’ content management flows to a high standard of sustainable practice. Our marketers tend to pump too much time, budget and energy on campaign launches. We suppose this has something to do with content lifecycle. Is there anything that could be done? – this is a challenge Viseven team received from one of its global customers earlier his year. This was by no means unique: the story had already come across before, and on multiple occasions. Such concerns echo the general sentiment of recent findings. No wonder: the issue of content sustainability is intrinsic to the industry. About 78% pharmas claim their content production has increased (exponentially but disharmoniously) into “moderate to enormous” amounts to handle yearly. What’s going on here? It seems like in the pursuit of personalized content and physician engagement, life sciences companies agree that increasing the amount of content is the way to achieve multichannel excellence. Never mind that 1/5 of that content does not end up being used… However strong the striving for creative multichannel excellence might be, there is a high probability that companies are just drowning in a self-inflicted content tornado. That’s why lots of pharma companies are seeking new forms of content creation, and reusing the existing assets is considered the top alternative to available practices. In many ways, the launch of a new way to treat content creation is long overdue. This is exactly the request Viseven was approached with: find a way to reorganize the way we look at its creation and face operational challenges with a sustainable mindset. And we’ve found it! Next-Gen content creation Tailoring and repurposing underlying essential content to suit different audiences is a brave new trend in pharma marketing… Its inherent power is universality. In an ideal content creation world, content gets broken down into components that are like water – able to fit any environment. We are thrilled to share this experience of making content flexible and universal. It’s time to stop handcrafting content and put it on an assembly line instead. Nataliya Andreychuk, CEO at Viseven The new approach puts two things in the spotlight: content lifecycle and its sustainability. Content sustainability manifests itself as a combination of content-adaptable modules and templates. Centralized repository enables the created content to thrive by facilitating edits, approval, publishing as well as subsequent reuse and repurpose. And just like on an assembly line, where every tool is doing its various tasks, templates represent that graciously unified solution to have a base for working harmoniously – various channels, single template. According to research, templates already take the second place after leveraging existing content in desirable content creation practices. This confirms the rule-of-thumb for generating content among pharma marketers: No matter what type of pharma content is being created (eDetailing for face-to-face or remote meetings, content for digital libraries or web portals, or just branded email templates), it is a good idea to have a globally approved template and interconnected components to fill it with. As a result, this channel-agnostic content is created once but can be published to many systems. With such content sustainability in mind, finding, sharing, editing and reusing digital assets is automated – be it globally or locally. As you can see, sustainable content creation is not an oxymoron once the underlying mindset is in place. Dive deeper into this end-to-end content delivery approach following this link. Contact us to get more information on how modular content is built and what positive outcomes to expect.
Viseven certified for IQVIA’s Orchestrated Customer Engagement platform Posted on November 16, 2018 by Andrii Nikulin TALLINN, Estonia, November 16th, 2018 – Viseven has been certified to have obtained a necessary level of expertise to navigate IQVIA’s revolutionary Orchestrated Customer Engagement Platform as well as to create platform-compliant content. Ever since its launch in March 2018, IQVIA’s Orchestrated Customer Engagement solution (OCE) has been already adopted by more than a dozen of leading pharma and healthcare companies. Merck, Pierre Fabre, Roche are among those, who already agreed to streamline digital experiences for both themselves and their customers. Viseven is thrilled to be among the first agencies to join the right side of innovation by having been certified for this cause. Integrating data capabilities is the business logic we, as a company of 10 years of experience working with Life Sciences, can closely relate to. That is why being a part of the IQVIA’s OCE partnership program is an extensive lesson on innovation in Life Sciences we were more than happy to learn. Nataliya Andreychuk, CEO, Viseven A quick recap of the “platform of platforms” – OCE is one of the most innovative cloud-based customer relationship management solutions currently available. Its mission is to break the internal silos of pharma companies by seamlessly connecting IT, sales, marketing, operations and other departments through accurate data sharing and reporting. This integration is generating 360-degree customer insights, laying the groundwork for meaningful engagement and interactions, and empowering for making informed commercial decisions. A fusion of multichannel marketing, sales force efficiency and closed-loop marketing enables different stakeholders to see and contribute to creating a unified experience across multiple channels. Okay, enough of the big talk. The Suite’s business concept is backed by powerful technology – such ”unheard-of” tech as Salesforce.com, Mulesoft, Amazon Web Services, Heroku and Box. On the other hand, there are IQVIA’s very own, Lexi, Ada and Appolo apps to finish up the solution with an interconnected narrative. Lexi reduces the disparities between the platform and non-OCE datasets and systems. It is the engine connecting all applications and data, giving each employee a unique, but actionable view of the customer. In its turn, Ada, the AI-based solution, provides those employees with immediate recommendations for next-best actions, customized for every role and subsequent impact. Ada is the way to swim in a pool of data, get the best out of it thus making it actionable. The cherry on top – Appolo, an intuitive, elegant and human-centered UI to offer a multiangular view on customers’ needs to multiple personas, be it a product manager, sales and marketing representative or an executive. With such a solid technical groundwork, the content compliance requirements for OCE must be very demanding. Yes, they are. That’s why Viseven has been trained and certified specifically to adhere to those technical guidelines to be able to develop and deploy assets on IQVIA’s platforms. By completing an onboarding process on OCE Sales, Viseven has gained an even deeper understanding of how innovative data management like OCE is helping pharma companies at the forefront of innovation to build a truly end-to-end solution. With the help of our content production accelerator eWizard, as well as skills mastered and expertise gained during the Agency Enablement Program, Viseven is now equipped to create any kind of content that would accommodate to the extensive OCE network. Do not hesitate to drop us a line if you are interested in any of the OCE-compliant content creation capabilities mentioned above.
How to create an interactive multichannel presentation (from that PDF file you have) Posted on July 17, 2018 by Andrii Nikulin So you want a full-function interactive presentation – one that is clickable, tablet-tappable, swipeable, and ideal for reps to use – but what you’ve got at the moment is a static PDF file? Maybe the file came from the agency, or was sent from the global office as a guideline – and now your department is facing the perspective of hiring a whole digital content team to create a multichannel wonder based on this. Maybe it is also upsetting that the project is nearly a from-scratch one, what with the whole HTML+CSS things to think of – so how challenging will it be for the budget? Have you wondered whether there is a shortcut from PDF to interactive format? In that case, you’re not alone – and yes, that’s an excellent idea! HTML presentations, eDetailing, interactive visual aids (IVAs) – whatever they are called in your organization, they are THE content in many cases, especially when it comes to rep interactions. Besides, once you have the presentation, it can (after just a little tinkering perhaps) be used in a variety of channels, including remote conferencing. At the same time, just having everything delivered by IT team is, well, not as cost-efficient as using the file the designers have carefully styled through. That is why Viseven team has created a PDF-to-HTML converter as part of the eWizard platform – a response to the many requests that (mainly) life sciences brand managers and marketers had. In this brief guide, you’ll see how this works and what can be achieved with the possibility. [in case you are curious] When best to use the PDF converter There are these moments is pharma communications where the responsible executive just needs more content. Preferably with minimum investment, of course. Since the “digital transformation” gained its full speed several years ago, the marketing budgets have grown slowly but steadily – a sign that the global offices started taking digital content very seriously but are reluctant to “overfinance” it. Out of the marketing directions considered in statistics, it is precisely the HCP audience that gains the steadiest attention, with about 50% pharma endorsing the effort to that end. A lion share of that content is presentations, of course. Yet, it’s not secret budgeting is also careful – about 1.5-2 years ago, only 30% of enterprises could track digital spending fully, mostly the more digitally savvy ones, according to McKinsey. As more pharma has been digitalized, the question has become more pressing, and regional affiliates are often left with a product/campaign launch in a new (emerging) market – and with restraints to comply with. At the same time, no one wants to sacrifice time-to-market (in fact, the #1 area of opportunity, as attested by 67% of companies). This is where the possibility to convert comes in handy. In general, it’s up to the organization to decide when to use a PDF converter to get an interactive aid – and when to go old-school and develop from scratch. Here are the three situations in which conversion becomes indispensable: Launching a new multichannel campaign that needs to be filled out with content really fast – and there are preexisting static assets. Budget restraints and focus on content reuse – but that content needs to get a “new life”. More and more content is required for field force efficiency – and a general strategy to foster in-house talent. Now, the converter itself. In fact, the procedure of creating an IVA is very simple, and only spans 3 steps. Ready? Step #1. Open the PDF converter in eWizard In your eWizard account, go to your eDetailers gallery – the place where you can see all the presentations you are (or have been) working on. In the corner, there is the +ADD NEW button, which presents you with several options. The last of these is Convert. Once you select it, you will see the popup that asks to upload the original file. The default method is simply to drag&drop the PDF from a folder on your PC. If your company is using Veeva Vault PromoMats, the left sidebar of the popup presents an option to load a file from Vault. Step #2. Find the PDF file you want to convert Rather self-explanatory, in fact. You can either drag&drop the file or click anywhere inside the popup to open the file manager. Your PDF file will most likely contain text on top of the background (so that it’s selectable with the mouse). Such text will be recognized by the system during the conversion so that you will later be able to edit it in the resulting HTML (the background will be, of course, preserved). All pages in the PDF will become separate slides. As soon as you select the file, a conversion starts, taking a few seconds before the magic begins… Step #3. Edit and add interactive components (events, actions) As soon as the conversion finishes, you will see the new presentation right there in the gallery. If already have some experience working with eWizard, you know what to do next: click the Edit icon (“pen”) and voilà – you can tinker with your new presentation, changing whatever needs to be changed. The selectable texts from the original PDF are up to you to change: You can even add new elements and whole new slides, expanding the presentation. Quite simple, isn’t it? If you have followed along, you can already consider yourself to be at quite an advanced level in content management. And, of course, if you are completely new to eWizard and have not yet got an account, don’t hesitate to request a demo to try out what you have read. Get creative with your digital initiatives – because multichannel excellence relies on your freedom of action. Now is a perfect time to start!
How is Virtual Reality used in Healthcare and Pharma Industries? Posted on June 7, 2018 by Andrii Nikulin The future is unpredictable on every occasion. It significantly influences our daily lives with more technologies that we couldn’t even imagine back in the day. From social networks and media to touchphones and complex applications, digitalization changed our way of perception of things. Even more, it has changed a lot of business approaches and industries. As for the pharma and life science industry, the digitalization and use of modern technologies became a like a breath of fresh air, forever impacting the most vital thing for healthcare in common — communication. Modern-day pharma faces the enormous challenge of shifting to more efficient ways of engaging doctors with the recent explosion of VR and AR technologies. What does it mean? Imagine presenting your clinical data simultaneously, using any suitable device instead of manually sorting out and laying huge rows of useless documentation on the table. The wide range of scientific resources and data usually contained from a bunch of digitals and charts can be presented in a visual form, hands-free, and portable whenever and wherever it is most in demand. “The pattern of activity in a brain region involved in spatial learning in the virtual world is completely different than when it processes activity in the real world,” said Mayank Mehta, a UCLA professor of physics, neurology, and neurobiology at UCLA College and the study’s senior author. Let’s see how virtual technology helps to build strong patient engagement. What is Virtual Reality in Medicine? Let’s start with what VR is. Usually, this is something associated with video gaming: users can watch some virtual objects superimposed on the display and sometimes even interact with them. Since 2012, technology production has become massive with a huge explosion of Oculus Rift, HTC Vive, Gear VR, and Google Cardboard. Since that, it has become a massive hit at medical conventions, conferences, and live events. Denise Strauss, former VP of cardiovascular marketing at Boehringer, now VP, and head of marketing at Sunovion Pharmaceuticals, notes: “For sales reps, rather than walking into a physician’s office with print material, the Google Cardboard VR experience immediately catches their attention.” At this point, virtual reality technology in healthcare can be easily confused with augmented reality (AR), as they share the idea of bringing virtual objects to the user’s perception. Yet VR and AR are significantly different. While VR devices are aimed to detach a person from real-life entirely, augmented content is a consequent response towards delivering information directly into users’ eyesight without losing touch with the real world. With AR, you stay in a physical world with added virtual elements. Hence, it might bring a better understanding of users’ real-world experiences. Still, we are going to focus more on virtual reality in healthcare. So what does it offer? 4 Production Modes are offered by Virtual Engagement: Theater mode 360-world video’s combination of content and images presented on a simulated theater screen can drive deeper engagement with your brand among its potential audience. For physicians, if it’s for training or educational purposes, VR solutions such as simulation can help get an inside view of patients’ inner processes and conditions, which are usually hidden. For example, how it feels to “experience” Parkinson’s disease or migraine, what symptoms may occur, or to view the whole migraine aura. 360-degree video The most widely used VR tool. Despite being unable to change the user’s position while watching, it remains a significant virtual immersive experience and education provider. With the help of VR equipment, patients may observe how the prescribed drugs and medicines work in 3D just before their eyes. Another example is LOROS hospice in Leicester, which created a VR film of a walk in a park to provide respite to terminally ill patients. Simulated 3D Environments Designing, implementing, and integrating 3D objects into the VR world with a particular software such as Cinema 4D or Maya allows users to determine their position. For example, the audience can interact with your drugs at the molecular level and integrate the data in a 3D world. Gesture-based Interactivity This activity has its peculiarity — the ability to recognize human gestures while interacting with VR objects. It works perfectly for patients with movement disorders. Implementation of Virtual Reality in Healthcare In modern healthcare, the use of VR is adopted to help patients and doctors achieve better results in treatments, including surgery, physical and cognitive rehabilitation, pain issues, mental health, and others. Medical Education and Training Modern medical universities like George Washington University are implementing VR into learning and medical training for real neurosurgery and thoracic surgery. VR allows for creating and exploring an operating room with a model of a patient’s brain and body before performing a procedure. It significantly improves the awareness of doctors doing surgery, patients lying under surgical blades, and even their families, who can better understand procedures ahead of time. Another good example is that the company that produces stents for cardiology or angioplasty can use VR to provide doctors with a safe experience. Instead of providing clinicians with reading materials and presentations, VR training creates an immersive space to describe a production process, explain usage, and educate about correct device implementation. Pain Management Did you know that your brain doesn’t differentiate between real and fake? We must look for additional triggers and questions to identify whether something is true. Meanwhile, our brain always lives “between worlds,” easily mixing the real world with imaginary stuff and not caring to discover what is what. Does it sound unpleasant to you? Either way, it works perfectly for such medical purposes as pain management. Thomas Caruso, MD, a pediatric anesthesiologist at Lucile Packard Children’s Hospital Stanford, states, “pain is a perception that’s coupled to your attention, mood, and emotions.” It means that if a patient’s mindset can be less focused on the surgery moment or other unpleasant nuances of medication, they will more likely feel less pain and struggle — significantly influencing the therapy. A good example is patients being busy with medical VR games and barely feeling the stick of a needle or an IV going in. Also, using VR helps patients to deal with the fear of dental care – or even losing it all — because of decreased pain. Physical Therapy and Rehabilitation At this point, using VR gives many healthcare possibilities. First, it allows clinicians or medicine developers to feel what the patient with Parkinson’s disease feels regarding movement. This experience will enable doctors to step into patients’ shoes and create a more accurate treatment approach based on practical knowledge. Second, it gives a proper rehabilitation space to help patients suffering from movement disorders and diseases. In the medical VR environment, the patient interacts with objects doing necessary exercises. The overall gamification of the procedure makes people forget about the pain and different psychological factors that may distract and interfere with rehabilitation. For example, children with complex regional pain syndrome (CRPS) experience pain in one or more limbs almost all the time. Medical VR games like squashing watermelons help them to focus more on the movements and the game rather than pain and stress. As a result, children’s confidence is increasing, and treatment improves. Virtual Reality in Pharmaceutical Sales Using VR tools gives enough space for unique promotion ideas for pharmaceutical companies. As marketing and sales communications are often a question of content and delivery, we all know upfront that PowerPoint presentations and PDF brochures with walls of text and strange infographics will bore healthcare professionals to death. As a result, you get the interruption of communication. Not quite an outcome you expect from your revenue teams, right? Your target audience will likely be impressed with what VR offers. This is where the “customer journey” term becomes literal: you can take the HCP through the prepared virtual project demonstrating the medication and how it works. Users can be presented with an analog of the human body and see how its health is affected by the medicine you present. VR in pharma marketing convinces people much stronger than any possible wording on your next sales slide. Pros and Cons of Virtual Reality in Healthcare VR technology isn’t for everyone. Unfortunately, it is not a cure-all for every disease, and its possibilities are limited. The implementation of VR may be costly and take some time. The VR hardware glasses range from 60$ (Google Daydream View) to $1,500 (HTC Vive Pro Eye Full Kit). Also, these kits are fragile and need to be maintained regularly. You may need additional software that fulfills your business needs. At this point, there’s a need to find an appropriate team of developers who can create a unique application for healthcare based on virtual engines like Unity or Unreal Engine. Some people may feel nausea, similar to motion sickness, as their vestibular apparatus did not adapt to the new environment. Getting used to VR may take some time or several sessions. The main problem is that VR is a young technology, and its use standards and policies are still being determined. It is getting less severe with every technology update — the better software and hardware, the fewer people feel the discomfort. Despite VR providing the best immersive experience, it is still not a panacea for education. A virtual environment works perfectly for describing information or engaging in new activities. However, it can not provide 100% immersion as it does not give a user proper hand control. For example, it can simulate surgery and let you go through every aspect of the operation. Still, it cannot give the feeling of a scalpel in hand, living tissue, and other nuances that are possible only in the real world. Nevertheless, the benefits of virtual reality in healthcare are much more significant and valuable to those whom it helps to stop struggling. As we listed above, from educational and training purposes to unique therapeutic experiences and rehabilitation, the future of virtual reality in healthcare is quite promising. See and feel for yourself: once you get your headset, there are thousands of medical applications of virtual reality which do not require a doctor’s prescription. Instead, these applications promise better health and wellness for specific conditions. For example, Embodied Labs, a company specializing in immersive educational technology, created an educational app for caretakers. This app holds several training sessions that address the issues of hearing loss, eyesight, and dementia. The healthcare market is growing, and the pharmaceutical sector will be constantly updated with new VR ideas and solutions, improving medical education and patients’ procedures of treatment. If you still have any questions about VR technology or want pharmaceutical expertise, do not hesitate to contact us. Our experts will provide you with full consultation.
Sharing code across teams: current practices in agency race and how to prevent stumbling Posted on May 12, 2018 by Andrii Nikulin Ctrl+C, Ctrl+V, more than 70% code currently shared on GitHub is duplicated. Did you just breathe that (no more guilty) sigh of relief and think “So it’s not only us”? Now, granted, most of the code out there is repetitive. Reinventing the wheel (a.k.a. retyping primitive bits of code that display/hide something, etc.) is definitely worse than plastering a dozen lines here and there all over several projects. Have you ever known people who actually sent JSON files via email? Okay, we all know there are multiple ways of sharing code and avoiding monkey jobs. The problem is, sometimes these code sharing tactics fail miserably. Especially when the code is being shared between teams who work remotely. The next thing that happens after a digital agency has bruised their toes against an unsuitable module system or code sharing practice, they tend to regress to the safe haven of “you do what you do”. In this article, let’s focus on what makes agencies stumble when creating and sharing/adopting code for pharma-related content. By the end, you’ll have identified what stumbling blocks there may be (and if your toes as a manager still hurt, they’ll probably be healing, as well). Frenetic deliveries, frail ecosystems With the “normal” rhythm of deliveries and deadlines, it’s hardly possible to blame any agency for poor codesharing practices. This is especially true for the pharma-oriented content: while traditionally the bulk of eDetailers, apps, emails, what-have-you was quite moderate, the situation has changed for many. On the one hand, pharma is noticeably laying more emphasis on digital production. As many as 84% managers reportedly believe that whenever there’s some true customer experience to deliver, content is the answer. On the other, HCPs are not as easy to impress; to appeal to today’s doctors, pharma has to provide not just ‘content’, but highly personalized experiences. In EU, 75% medical specialists explicitly state they want content that’s related to their specialty. The bulk of content is growing, even when marketers realize that it’s not the quantity but quality that matters – because of personalization. Accordingly, the entire cycle is shrinking, with deliveries coming at a fairly frenetic pace. Under these conditions, there comes the paradox. Setting up an adequate system that allows sharing encapsulated code entities, modules, blocks is becoming more necessary than ever – and yet, there’s simply no time to approach the question scientifically, so to say. Those who have worked with JS for a while remember the improvised, function-wrapped modules from before NPM and require; but even with ES6, there’s still room for improvement. It’s not just about refactoring and interdependencies, but also things like discoverability and sizing. There are stories about teams who went through painstakingly trying out very different approaches to sharing code, and the more dedicated ones end up inventing their own systems. Those, however, who don’t have the luxury of looking around and contemplating options, find themselves stumbling over several common problems with different codesharing practices. Here are the painful spots – and the lessons to infer. #1 Small bits of unspecific functionalities – all too many of them In one of these stories where they look for ideal not-reinventing-the-wheel solution, a team’s initial practice was publishing their code as modules on NPM. Now guess the problem. Right. First of all, the split repos by themselves were something to consider. Next, the code was split into small modules meant to be bundled together at some point in the perspective. Normally, of course, this is a good thing – after all, smaller code entities are more readily made self-contained, resembling those ideal “building-blocks” that we strive for. However, in some cases this multiplicity becomes a problem – you can have too much of a good thing, it turns out. The issues of refactoring and ownership of these packages, of course, exacerbated the issue. As an obvious remedy, there seems to be the idea of a single multi-package repository – but this, again, has its drawbacks: multiple package JSONs, multiple test/build environments – and an uncontrollably complex dependency tree. The truth is, each team should decide what the optimal package size should be for their specific purposes, and define the ways to store those packages, accordingly. Ready-made solutions are mostly lower-level in terms of both size and abstraction, but to reach ultimate efficiency (and not to regress to “tolerable” practices) an agency deserves to share larger entities on the same self-containing, comfortably encapsulated terms. #2 How maintainable is it all? Another issue that many encounter is keeping the shared code accessible and up-to-date. It’s not just the question of ownership, e.g. on NPM mentioned above, but the general discoverability and versioning concerns. While no one would want to install a whole library to use a component, when it’s the other way round – i.e. everything floating free, things become messy. Not only is it harder to find the modules needed, but also the versioning gets complicated quite fast. Now, the higher the change rate/frequency of updates – the more teams are working remotely – and the more testing needs to be done, specifically on the integration level, the more frustrating it gets. One doesn’t have to go far to hear people complaining about linking, submodules only working on one branch, nesting issues, etc. Again, the optimal approach is to consider how maintainable you want the whole shared code to be – and in what particular ways. For some projects, the focus is on testability; in some, it’s mostly about the plain possibility to find updated versions and ensure backward compatibility. Either way, the system has to be arranged for clarity. #3 Industry-specific requirements Who you write code for determines many things, including (crucially) functionality and how it gets constructed from separate elements and modules. If you are an agency working on pharma eDetailing presentations, for example, there most certainly are recurrent elements that customers request most often. Take a carousel with expanding elements that contain, say, patient profiles. Think of all the probable variants to implement this, a bunch of carousels, each of them relying on some shared functionality and building upon it. Now, the “core” functionality will very likely be assembled from more basic modules – and if these tend to be too small, there will appear all the problems with refactoring, testability, and linking. Of course, there’s also the reverse scenario, in which the packages used provide go-along bits you don’t really need, creating unnecessary interdependencies and devouring resources. Again, with pharma there are even more specific functionalities, especially related to the (extraordinarily well-developed) CRM and medical/legal review systems used, like IQVIA or Veeva. This is why, ultimately, code should be encapsulated, packaged, shared and updated based on industry-specific functionalities. The industry is, of course, whatever the customer intends to do with the deliverables once they leave your agency to see the daylight. Trial and error is not the only way it is Have you recognized any of the issues mentioned above? If so, you’re not alone, especially if your agency is specialized in medical content. There seem to be no ideal ready-made solutions around, as if everybody were to design code-sharing practice of their own. But do you really have to go through all that evolution on your own? Of course not. The reason why widely accepted module/package systems are easy to misuse is that they are for everyone – from website developers to mobile app designers. To adjust them to one’s needs will mean a lot of workarounds and duct tape hacks. Working with frameworks, storages, and platforms that were initially built around the needs of your own “segment” is more comfortable. For pharma content development, you can consider the possibilities of eWizard platform, where the available modular components are designed specifically with pharma content functionalities in mind – and with the purpose of saving time on repeated combining. Eliminate the anxiety of incorrectly split code packages – and you’ll see how surprisingly fast the different teams can really collaborate once they get to focus on the real tasks.
Engage and CoBrowse: where is the future of remote engagement? Posted on September 18, 2017 by Andrii Nikulin Sometimes it seems too tough to reach the right HCP, be that doctor or pharmacist, right? No wonder, all of them are too busy doing their daily work. And, definitely, not anticipating med rep’s visit. Yet, you, as a pharma marketer, need to do that. For God’s sake, how? Well, the only way out seems to reach HCPs at their convenience. Actually, the modern technology suggests that opportunity, providing a number of solutions for remote interactions with doctors and pharmacists. What’s more, if you are a regular Veeva user, it’s even easier to make such type of interactions a reality. Let’s have a closer look at how this works. [Spoiler alert]: Doctors and pharmacists like the idea of remote communication with med reps, KOLs and MSLs. Increasing HCPs reach via online meetings with Veeva CRM Engage Veeva CRM Engage empowers to break the restrictions of limited office access to healthcare professionals while preserving the benefits of in-person communication. Due to direct connection with CRM system, the solution combines 3 in 1: email, phone, and face-to-face interactions, keeping a sense of personalization. Such a combination enables full synchronization of all communication channels with live analytics capturing. Besides, it optimizes med reps daily routine together with ensuring key-message compliance across all the channels. To keep it short, here’s the list of other advantages Veeva CRM Engage offers to both medical representatives and HCPs: Better customer involvement – supply customer needs with relevant and timely interactive content, sharing it and communicating with them online. Boosted productivity and improved reach – enable your medical representatives to work more efficiently and cover more contacts more frequently without spending extra resources. Easy and cost-effective content reuse – keep your message consistent and compliant, easily updating content and approving it within minutes. Expanding remote communication with Veeva CRM CoBrowse Alongside with Veeva CRM Engage, you can try Veeva CRM CoBrowse, which suggests even more opportunities for remote interactions. The solution combines both self-detailing and medreps-guided detailing, providing HCPs a unique chance to opt for a more convenient type of communication. Powered by CRM system, CoBrowse enables delivery of highly personalized content, based on previous interactions. Like Engage, doctors can choose the best time and explore relevant materials from any place and device. Among the other benefits are as follows: Going beyond traditional face-to-face communication – share a link to the thematic websites with HCPs, containing digital materials of their interest, e.g. videos, interactive HTML5 presentations, clinical documents etc. Convenient timing independently of location – both doctors and med reps can choose the best time of interactions and join CoBrowse session either on their laptop or tablet from anywhere. Deep insights into customer behavior and needs – thanks to full integration with Veeva CRM, CoBrowse allows unveiling customer preferences and the way they interact with the materials presented. Having all those customer insights always at hand, you can tune the further communication, adapting it to the current HCPs needs and responding to them instantly. Thus, as you can see, leveraging the smart technology not only helps you to improve interactions with customers but also to save time and money, as well as cut down on resources consumption. Being the certified 4-Level Multichannel Veeva Partner, Viseven team is proud to offer you the most complete solution for managing communication with doctors and pharmacists on all the touchpoints – Digital Content Factory. It combines cloud-based platform for content management with two levels of access – for brand or product managers and for agencies or developers. Due to full integration of Digital Content Factory with Veeva CLM, Vault PromoMats, Approved Email and CoBrowse, you can get the full control over your digital assets. The solution also empowers you to easily switch between communication channels, easily edit, update and adapt materials to either face-to-face or remote communication in a couple of clicks. Besides, Digital Content Factory allows optimizing inner communication between teams and departments across global and local offices as well. Thus, you can save up to 50% on localization and updates, likewise speed up approval process up to 4 times. Want to see it in action? Drop us a line and request a free demo right away!
Medical Science Liaison in Pharma: Meaning, Role & KPIs Posted on September 12, 2017 by Andrii Nikulin It’s hard to deny that the most vital part of success in communication is to be on the same level of acknowledgment and engagement with an interlocutor. The same rule works perfectly for business messages. Suppose the brand targets all the awareness levels of its audience. In that case, the chance of getting better conversion increases with each interaction. Customers need to feel qualified in their choices, which is especially important for such complex industries as Pharma. Historically, pharmaceutical companies primarily relied on sales representatives to promote their products to healthcare professionals. However, as medicine advanced and treatments became more specialized, a need arose for individuals who could provide in-depth scientific knowledge and engage in meaningful scientific exchange with physicians and researchers, who are called MSLs. So, what does MSL stand for in Pharma? MSL is an abbreviation for Medical Science Liaisons, and their role is crucial within the industry. What is MSL in medical terms, and what do they do? Learn more from our guide. What Is MSL in Pharma? An MSL, or a Pharmaceutical Medical Science Liaison, is an individual whose job is to maintain clear communication and relationships with the medical community. They provide healthcare professionals with valuable insights and essential information on the proper use of certain products and services when treating patients. While MSLs do work on behalf of different pharmaceutical companies, their job is not to promote but to educate and assist providers. Every pharmacy MSL is a highly educated expert, most likely with a postgraduate degree. In most companies, it is a requirement for all professionals applying for this position to hold at least a master’s degree, PhD, or its equivalent. A deep understanding of the pharmaceutical industry and hands-on experience enable MSLs to stay updated on the latest changes and advancements in their chosen field, making communication with key opinion leaders and doctors much more efficient. An MSL is a field worker, so most of their daily routine is external communication with KOLs and physicians. Being more research-oriented and science-savvy, they are perfect conversationalists for those who, for some reason, refuse to build a dialog with sales reps. The scientific background of MSLs allows one to discuss more complex cases and facilitate the exchange of scientific knowledge and insights. HCPs can provide more meaningful and in-depth feedback on local disease states, clinical experiences, and treatment challenges they face. This feedback is vital for pharmaceutical research and development efforts and the design of clinical trials, as it ultimately leads to the development of more effective and relevant therapies. By establishing themselves as trusted sources of objective competence and scientific expertise, MSLs can effectively address the needs and preferences of KOLs and physicians. Physicians, in particular, value in-depth conversations about disease states with company representatives who possess equal scientific competence and interests. They seek interactions with MSLs who are not focused on product promotion but are research-oriented and provide educational insights. Through collaborative discussions, MSLs can communicate their company’s position while providing objective competence on discussed scientific issues. This approach aligns with the expectations of KOLs and physicians who strive for unbiased scientific information and trusted connections with pharmaceutical companies. By nurturing these collaborative relationships, MSLs can establish themselves as invaluable intermediaries, fostering a mutual understanding and trust between the medical community and the pharmaceutical industry. How to Measure MSL Performance? As the primary goal of an MSL is not sales but to raise awareness, it may take a lot of work to define the necessary KPI. Pharmaceutical companies and organizations may have different priorities and focus areas, leading to various performance indicators. For example, an organization that aims to increase the adoption of a specific drug in the market may prioritize KPIs related to KOL engagement and thought leader development. They would want their MSLs to establish strong relationships with influential KOLs, engage them in scientific discussions, and support their growth as thought leaders who can advocate for using the organization’s drug. On the other hand, an organization focused on scientific education and dissemination of information may emphasize KPIs related to scientific communication and education. They would want their MSLs to deliver impactful scientific presentations, provide educational materials to healthcare professionals, and conduct training sessions to enhance their therapeutic area’s understanding. Nevertheless, a few criteria would fit most of the pharmaceutical MSL cases. Medical Science Liaison: Key Performance Indicators KOL Interactions While the frequency and duration of calls demonstrate activity, longer meetings provide more time to discuss important topics. However, the accurate measure of success lies in the quality of the interaction. This can be evaluated by assessing how well your predefined insights were addressed during your meetings with KOLs. Medical Projects Key performance indicators for medical projects include the number of publications clinical studies to target, investigator-initiated studies executed within a specific timeframe, the number and quality of insights gathered from round table meetings, etc. MSL-KOL Satisfaction Conduct a simple survey for KOLs to gain feedback to gauge interaction satisfaction. Ask them to rate the MSL in areas such as the quality of the interaction, effective use of time, knowledge level of the MSL, and follow-up on discussed topics. Also, providing an optional field for comments or suggestions allows one to get a straight response. MSL-Internal Stakeholders’ Satisfaction It is also great to conduct surveys among internal stakeholders. Conducting surveys following specific medical activities like sales rep training or completing medical education is expected. Utilizing a simple survey with a few questions and a scoring scale of 1-5 (not great to excellent), you can calculate the percentage of individuals scoring a 4 or 5. A suggested KPI could be to achieve a score of over 80% in the 4-5 range. What Are the Challenges of Implementing KPIs for Medical Service Liaisons? The main challenge in implementing Key Performance Indicators (KPIs) for MSLs is identifying the correct indicators that accurately demonstrate professionals’ efforts. This challenge arises because MSLs often assume different roles; while some may actively participate in clinical trials, others may concentrate on more personal interactions with key opinion leaders. KPIs for each Medical Science Liaison should differ, allowing progress tracking with individual obstacles and achievements in mind. MSL objectives should be realistic and tailored to the specific context of the area in which they operate. Another challenge is to find the best tool for KPI tracking. There is a lot of software to choose from. Still, the right one should offer a range of features that allow proper customization and personalization while guaranteeing data accuracy, safety, and opportunities for additional evaluation of MSLs. The main task of KPIs is to focus not so much on the MSL’s actions but on the results that professionals have achieved through their work. Companies can accomplish this by combining qualitative and quantitative metrics and using them to evaluate how well a medical service liaison performed during a set period. Medical Science Liaisons vs. Medical Representatives To better understand MSL’s role, let’s compare it with medical representatives’ routine. A Medical Representative, also known as a Sales Representative, is responsible for directly promoting and selling pharmaceutical products to healthcare professionals. They typically work in a sales-driven environment, and their main goal is to increase conversion by convincing healthcare professionals to prescribe or recommend certain medications. They provide information about the features, benefits, and potential uses of the products they represent. A pharma MSL, on the other hand, is a scientific and medical expert who acts as a bridge between pharmaceutical companies and the medical community. MSLs do not have a sales target. Their primary responsibility is establishing relationships with key opinion leaders (KOLs), such as doctors, researchers, and academic institutions. MSLs provide scientific and clinical information about their company’s products, present research findings, answer medical inquiries, and collaborate on clinical trials and studies. Medical Service Liaisons as Communicational Solution MSLs are an essential field force for bridging the gap between pharmaceutical companies and the medical community. Their role as scientific and medical experts allows them to engage in meaningful scientific exchange, gather valuable insights, and collaborate on clinical studies. By measuring their performance through KPIs such as quality of KOL interactions and project achievements, organizations can ensure their MSLs deliver objective expertise and foster trust between the medical community and the pharmaceutical industry. Want to learn more about MSL’s role in the pharmaceutical business? Fill out the form below and our experts will reach you.
Digital Content Factory: Strategic Approach to Digital Leadership Posted on March 24, 2017 by Andrii Nikulin BARCELONA, March 14, 2017 – So there they are, Global Marketing teams, struggling to create tons of digital content. Overworked, pressed for time, finance and constantly sacrificing really “fun” marketing moves for the sake of localization for emerging markets. Not anymore, claims Viseven, a recognized provider of digital solutions for pharma companies worldwide. At 15th Annual eyeforpharma Barcelona 2017, their joint case study with Teva has shown a much more beneficial way to arrange for creation, development, localization, distribution and reuse of global eDetailing. There it goes: the Digital Content Factory, a united workspace for everyone out there involved in content production marathon. Sounds complicated? Not really once you are in. The Digital Content Factory is, in fact, a liaison between Global Team, Digital Agencies and Local Teams. This improves communication, fosters transparency and allows for unparalleled flexibility. Optimization is the name of the game here: a relatively small amount of people in charge of vast amounts of high-quality content for both global and emerging markets. You may say you won’t afford another extra digital content manager every month; fine. Then it’s all about what people to employ and where – not how many. The core idea is distribution of tasks. Marketers are going to market; they won’t do the programming job. On the other hand, there’s a way for a global team to request eDetails from the external agencies, have them done with KPI schemes and… …and then have the content readjusted dozens of times by local teams. At this very point the updates and localization – even the slightest replacement of text or images – turns into a real nightmare, as consumes more time and budget with every change. Nataliya Andreychuk, CEO, Viseven Group: “Digital innovations should be affordable and transform company’s business processes at no outrageous cost. Aiming to prolong content lifecycle, enable its reuse and optimize eDetailing development and flow between pharma headquarters and affiliates, we have developed Digital Content Factory – a single space for Global Marketing team, Local Marketing teams and creative agencies.” Digital Content Factory, powered by eWizard platform, is the solution, which helps: easily get global digital assets from the content store; localize and update them in a matter of hours, not weeks; set up KPIs for monitoring without addressing the technical team; review, comment and approve them within minutes; publish the ready-made eDetails to all the major CLM, CRM or DAM systems in a single click: Veeva Vault, Veeva iRep, Veeva CRM, MITouch, iPlanner, Viseven CLM, Widen, Box, Dropbox etc. Decentralized execution, centralized governance. Now, if one wrote a list of objections to this idea… OK, write one. How many of these revolve around “how do the people communicate”? Perhaps most of them. That’s why an idea like Digital Content Factory has only appeared now and not years ago. Since the content created in this system is easily plugged into Veeva/QuintilesIMS, there really is a unified workspace, which ensures digital strategy transparency. This way, pharma can create engaging content that will speed up time to market and won’t take long to pay off. Want to know how to fit Digital Content Factory into your organizational structure and drive innovations into your marketing strategy? Get more information at our official website or contact us right away. Nataliya Andreychuk CEO Viseven
Should Pharma Provide a Virtual Platform for HCP Engagement? Posted on February 1, 2017 by Andrii Nikulin Are there any skills you once wanted to master online and dropped the idea because… whatever? Have you ever been watching too many How-to videos on YouTube, until you gradually lost interest? Or, perhaps, started a free-to-register course by a random author, only to find it discontinued – so you jumped over to a similar one and went through all the preliminaries, never to arrive at the really valuable stuff? Practice shows, a lot of people now seem trapped in the paralyzing amount of options when it comes to digital learning. When, earlier in the 2010s, there was a mighty explosion of countless online courses (MOOC), completion rates were as low as 10%. People are easily distracted these days, and still need guidelines as to where / in what order to get information. What does it have to do with pharma educating physicians? The answer is simple: continuity of learning experience that pharma needs to provide. A large, well-designed platform for providing HCPs with information is something many leading companies are working on right now, and it has its benefits. Maybe you heard the statistics on how long an average med rep visit lasts these days; you may be interested in providing informational value to your audience, which is the best way to cement reputation. However, the chief advantage of a virtual engagement platform is something even more significant, although not as obvious. It’s overcoming the fragmentation of customer experience in pharma marketing. After all, rep visits are not the only channel for doctors to get their information. More than 70% of healthcare practitioners look to the Internet when they need to know something. There are journals, research sites, branded pharma sites – and there is the towering figure of medical community they respect. A rep visit alone cannot provide consistent learning, it often feels unattached to the normal information flow – and that is the problem that virtual HCP engagement platforms can solve. Fractured Bits of Engagement Funnels (And How to Glue Them Together) The doctor was fidgeting with her phone, occasionally making eye contact with the rep. The visit had lasted for about four minutes now, but the lunch break was relentlessly coming to an end. Perhaps she would have to read that article on Crohn’s later in the day, after work. Meanwhile, the representative seemed overly enthusiastic about the brand new relief for IBS. – And did you know that over 34%… Brand new: the formula appeared nearly identical to the one described the day before. Only the brand was different. – It is surely interesting, – said the doctor, trying to sound patient. – I heard about it from your, erm… colleague from – – – . The rep was somewhat discouraged. – Very likely; however, I’d like to point out that unlike any other product offering a similar spectrum… Sigh. Now he is going to talk about guidelines and finally offer a link to the website. Open for all. Sigh. Good to know not all rep visits look like that – in fact, HCPs are actually interested in getting information from pharma, and there are many digital HCP engagement tools that can help companies. The doctor in the passage above is very much likely to go to the website when searching for that gastroenterology article. However, the truth is that in all of those episodes when doctors search for information they need, it comes in bits and scraps. The information that representatives provide is often repeated from one to another (62% of the time, doctors say) – and there’s no one to blame because given the duration of call, you are supposed to provide the required marketing “push” first. The valuable parts, where pharma’s good intentions of educating the audience lie buried, remain outside the time frame of the visit. This information is then absorbed online. It’s good when a rep’s visit is followed up; it’s bad that it’s followed up by just another brief episode. At the same time, pharmaceutical detailing is more educational by nature than any type of marketing imaginable. As we know, learning requires consistency. Not the bits and pieces of a marketing funnel. Especially not several completely different funnels from a number of brands. That’s why doctors sometimes prefer searching for information online over rep visits – and at the same time, they still want live talk with reps as part of their learning experience. If you try to represent this informational “ambient” graphically (as we did on the right), you will get a stable flow of guidelines/legal information, a big, turbulent but customizable stream of different content available online – and the scattered visits, occasionally provoking interest for websites, and sometimes followed up. Now, here’s the future of this ambient when the visits shrink in time as they do. Note that the value provided by one single visit is not even enough to incite further HCP engagement in pharma; the bit of information provided by reps are more easily lost when surrounded by competing companies’ bits and scraps – and the role of online learning increases to fill the space. Now, if you want to steer the general flow of interest, you will want to come up with something to glue together the scattered experiences – including the online ones (i.e., outside the doctor’s working hours). This “something” must be clearly related to the rep visits, but also provide more substantial information than can be given in 6 minutes or so. A virtual HCP platform is exactly the name given to this “something”. The idea is, this single major hub unites the different types of engagement and different formats of content in a single, customizable funnel. In this way, supposing the doctor is interested in some issue, they can either address the information online and then order an eDetailing session (possibly remote), or be “redirected” there by a rep. In both situations, the funnel doesn’t need to rely on a single type of engagement to continue – thanks to the broader definition of what follow-ups actually mean. This provides benefit for the HCPs, since they get their undisrupted learning experience, and is equally beneficial to the company, since audience retention suddenly becomes much, much easier. At the same time, the value of even the smallest bits of information (be it educational or marketing) rises drastically once they are part of a bigger education/promotion framework. This for That: Desirable Components Now, all of this may sound fabulous in general terms: a global platform to encompass all types of omnichannel HCP engagement, a place frequented by medical professionals, and all of them communicating freely with pharma… A skeptic would say it’s all a vague idea, a kind of umbrella notion. Wrap everything into one interface? What exactly is everything, after all? It would be unfair not to give any ideas as to what a good pharma HCP engagement platform can be made of. We found the most desirable building blocks for one based on the audience’s expectations, and they can be grouped in the way shown below. Of course, the main thing to bear in mind here is still integration. All the elements in a well-tailored platform should be perfectly accessible from one to another; navigation should suggest further content from anywhere. For example, it pays off to enhance textual or video content with an offer of an eDetailing session – so one should consider suggesting it automatically through a form. Everything should be connected, every element should lead to another one, so that the learning in not disrupted. Now, let’s look at the three major types of engagement in a platform. LIBRARIES Doctors get: resources Pharma gets: enhanced trust Who doesn’t want a convenient source of information? Searching the web for some particular content can be infuriating at times, so when a specialist sees that some resource spares them browsing time and has accumulated enough valuable content, they’ll stick to it. It is important to note that such projects work well when the amount of content is sufficient. This means a library is not made up only of product information and original research done by the company. It makes sense to fill the collection up with content curated from different sources, as well – in this way, the platform becomes more valuable to users because it serve as a hub. “Let me think… where should I go to find that stuff?” – so the library should cover enough for the audience. It’s not the corporate website – so general scientific information is more than welcome here. WEB CONFERENCES Doctors get: communication Pharma gets: data Medical community is a thing, and it was there long before pharmaceutical industry emerged. Regardless of whether or not pharma provides a place for doctors to exchange opinions, they will find the opportunity to do so. Why not create a communication environment that pharma is let in on? First of all, this is the perfect opportunity to make sure that web conferences held are attended by a thoroughly interested audience. It makes sense that, if you organize a meeting with KOLs and put effort into arranging for it, you’ll want your audience to be informed. What the platform does here is guarantee that the word gets spread. Secondly, data. By participating in professionals’ talks, pharma can get insights that escape the regular questionnaires and gain an insider view on the situation. REMOTE DETAILING Doctors get: convenience Pharma gets: increased frequency of calls / chance to steer engagement The discussion on whether rep visits are still relevant seems, by now, closed – and yes, almost everyone agrees we need reps. What makes detailing unsatisfactory is not its essence – it’s mostly wrong timing, pushy behavior and lack of preceding interest. Visits that come out of the blue and take precious time are clearly not as effective. That is why HCPs now prefer a 50% to 50% proportion of face-to-face rep visits to remote detailing sessions. The advantages of this eDetailing type are more or less obvious; what makes them especially effective in a virtual platform setting is, there is background. The rep tells about the things the physician wants to know about – because they requested a session (or were offered one) on that same platform. The Glory of eLearning Techniques To add a final touch to the virtual HCP engagement platform, think of something that makes it even more valuable to users. Yes, users – the doctors are not just potential customers here, they are supposed to join the platform for their own benefit. Ultimately, all the possibilities provided by the platform are, for them, focused on learning the new information. And the recent trend has been, eLearning outperforms the conventional ways on multiple scales. This is acknowledged: the share of eLearning industry in corporate training is now estimated at $107 billion out of $200 billion – eLearning is something that people genuinely enjoy as an experience; it takes less time, and information retention is higher. What makes eLearning so popular? There are several things that set it apart from the traditional methods, so we can consider emulating them: Activities, Not Just Information First and foremost, eLearning is based on interactive types of content. Doing quizzes, simulations, different tasks is a useful way to keep concentrated; besides, we humans are simply wired to memorize what we do better than what happens elsewhere (for example, in a lengthy research paper). Interactive exercise and testing is potentially the cherry-on-top that makes a platform unique and valuable. Gamification Who said HCPs don’t deserve fun, even when learning complicated materials? After all, gamified experiences serve to increase the willingness to access information – and are successful at this. When surveyed, 80% eLearners have claimed to wish for more game-oriented activities; the use of such tactics can make the platform more frequently used. Interactivity When eLearning was just starting to take over, much effort was thrown in to compensate for the physical absence of a lecturer. As the result, the interface used in distant learning tech is designed so that the user has to interact all the time. Instead of being distracted from the content, the user is distracted from side thoughts towards the content. Competitiveness Have you ever noticed that some online quizzes offer to compare your results to the average? This is done on purpose. People are, in fact, interested in being part of a community and being rated within it – this provides a sense of real achievement. Reward System Another feature that makes eLearning so engaging, a sense of reward can be provided in multiple ways. It can be a personalized invitation to a really interesting (web) meeting or event, access to some especially elaborate content, etc. The last two points depend on organization, and are best implemented when there already is a community, so it takes some time to figure them out. At the same time, the core eLearning features (at the top of the list) rely simply on the ability to produce interactive content. The key is to develop a set of tailored templates (click, switch, drag and drop, mark the boxes, etc.) that can be used for multiple activities. In this way, a quiz on coronal artery can become a quiz on cerebellar function without much coding done. The necessary amount of interactive content can be created quite fast using templates and a suitable tool for repurposing content – a job that can be done by those same agencies that make eDetails. A virtual HCP engagement platform is, so far, the most effective way to steer pharma communications with extra value for the audience. Good thing is, these platforms are something you can build gradually, extending upon a certain base of available content – until it becomes a frequented virtual haven for medical professionals. Personalize HCP Experiences with eWizard Powered by Viseven, eWizard is a content experience platform that allows a pharmaceutical company with any level of digital maturity to create and implement HCP digital engagement strategies of any purpose and scale. eWizard’s functionality includes a wide range of widgets and tools to: Streamline Content Production Use a rich collection of ready-made templates to create content for emails, eDetailers, and other marketing channels faster and at reduced cost. Accelerate MLR Approval Increase time-to-market and deliver high-quality content to your target audience faster by reducing the medical, legal, and regulatory (MLR) review process with the modular approach. Omnichannel Campaign Management Plan global and local marketing campaigns, create campaign roadmaps, estimate campaign expenditures, track time, and view the progress of marketing objectives in a single environment. Enhance Cooperation and Workflows Create user accounts, assign roles, and organize users into groups to optimize collaboration between multiple stakeholders within different teams, departments, and organizations. Generate High-Quality Videos with AI Convert existing presentations into videos or generate new videos from scratch using AI-powered avatars that speak over 40 languages and pre-built-templates. Edit and add text, images, GIFs, animation, music, and stickers. Render videos in one click and download them in 1080p or 4K. Need more information about the platform? Contact our specialist or request a demo of eWizard now.
