Landing page design trends for pharmaceutical marketing Posted on February 20, 2019November 21, 2024 by Andrii Nikulin 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 Posted on February 11, 2019November 21, 2024 by Andrii Nikulin 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.
Sharing code across teams: current practices in agency race and how to prevent stumbling Posted on May 12, 2018November 22, 2024 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.
Medical Science Liaison in Pharma: Meaning, Role & KPIs Posted on September 12, 2017November 22, 2024 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.
