The pharmaceutical marketing industry has spoken – and all signs point to omnichannel! In today’s ever-changing customer landscape and digital-first world, omnichannel is the modern marketer’s tool to deliver a seamless brand experience across channels. Creating a cohesive journey for physicians and their care teams throughout all brand touchpoints allows customers to engage with your content in a more meaningful way – but we can only do that if we have the right analytics in place.
Omnichannel marketing and subsequent analytics and optimization go hand-in-hand. Omnichannel analytics are crucial for understanding HCP behavior and preferences across every strategic touchpoint leveraged. By analyzing performance data across multiple sources, pharmaceutical companies can begin to identify key trends by customer segment to better personalize content in the future. All this leads to the ultimate goal of improving customer engagement and delivering on ROI.
The outlook for omnichannel marketing is bright. The industry is well along its way in optimizing brand messaging strategies and enhancing customer experience while strengthening the relationship between brands and HCPs. And with artificial intelligence and machine learning empowering the pharmaceutical industry, the sky is the limit. AI can synthesize insights across various channels, providing clear direction for optimizing content strategies and personalizing interactions.
Keep these 3 goals of omnichannel marketing in mind as you are building out your strategy and analytics framework:
- Create a more personalized experience:
By delivering consistent messaging and a turnkey experience everywhere the HCP is, including online platforms, mobile apps, social media, and in-person, HCPs are provided with a seamless information journey end-to-end.
Omnichannel analytics allow pharmaceutical companies to tailor their content based on HCP specialties, preferences, demographics, and interactions with the brand, and provide them with greater personalization across every stage of their journey. This is great for engagement as according to 81% of Sermo physicians in HCP Sentiment Part 10, they prefer when content from pharma is personalized to them.
- Improve engagement with the “next best” content:
Omnichannel marketing drives enhanced engagement with both patients and HCPs alike because when done correctly, you can deliver the “next-best” piece of content based on a holistic understanding of their engagement with your brand.
At Sermo, given our strong first-party data assets, we can trigger next-best content targeting off of a provider’s activity on the platform which may include video views, clicks, email or direct message opens, poll votes, and more.
- Drive Brand Loyalty:
Let’s face it – we don’t want to be hounded with messaging by any brand! By providing a seamless experience across multiple channels, the likelihood of a click or scroll to learn more increases as brands meet customers where they are.
While omnichannel marketing sounds great in theory, we have to be honest about the challenges of measurement and analytics so we can be proactive about solutions.
Fragmentation is a continual hurdle, as omnichannel analytics are built off data ingested from various platforms and sources. Creating a holistic overview is essential to understanding what marketing is actually working.
As in any industry, dealing with your customers’ personal information requires the implementation of best-in-class security and air-tight compliance. Make sure your marketing platforms and partners – especially digital and social – have a strong understanding of all data privacy regulations from GDPR to CPAA, and that their members have consented to share their engagement information with you.
When it comes to tracking the influence of your omnichannel marketing campaigns, we have a few things we recommend keeping in mind before launching on each platform:
- What performance metrics are available above and beyond views/clicks?
- Can I conduct measurement studies on top of the campaigns if desired?
- And for US-based marketers, do I get PLD (physician-level data)? Wiith the right opt-ins and data usage agreements in place, pharmaceutical companies can gain more robust, physician-level insights to feed into their omnichannel analytics strategies.
Pro-tip: Inform omnichannel strategies with market research
Don’t JUST look at the data to understand how your marketing is working – ask your customers directly! You can survey physicians and their care teams before and during marketing campaigns to understand:
- What message resonates the most?
- What types of content do they want to see?
- What’s the preferred format?
- Who do they want to hear from, and when?
- What are their unmet needs?
At Sermo, we offer two types of measurement studies for campaigns on our social platform:
–Campaign Impact Study: in this type of study, we investigate the engagement levels of the audience exposed to the campaign and those who were not. The comparison between these groups provides an implied impact of campaign exposure. Through these activities, we’re able to measure metrics beyond just views and clicks to provide a clear window into the degree and nature of physician impact including the likelihood to recommend and prescribe,
Check out this case study to see how campaign exposure drove higher perceptions of Brand X as the leader for weight loss, glycemic control and MACE reduction benefits.
–Moore’s Pyramid Impact Study: tailored specifically to Medical Affairs activities, we conduct online quantitative survey to program participants to measure the program’s effectiveness on the first 5 levels of Moore’s Pyramid which includes:
- Pre-activity vs. post-activity measures of learners’ readiness to change practice
- Self-identified method to change practice
- Actual practice change over time
Omnichannel analytics can identify the most effective channels and messages for specific segments of healthcare professionals, allowing marketers to create campaigns that resonate with their targeted audience and create ongoing communication, keeping HCPs informed about new products, services, and medical updates.
If you’d like to explore how Sermo can support your omnichannel analytics strategy, contact us at business@sermo.com
On behalf of Sermo, thank you for checking out our blog post on omnichannel marketing and analytics. This is just one of the many examples of engagement opportunities and insights available with Sermo.
At Sermo, we turn physician experience, expertise, and observations into actionable insights for the global healthcare community. Engaging with more than 1.5 million HCPs across 150 countries, we provide physicians and providers with a social platform that fosters impactful peer-to-peer collaboration & discussions about issues that are important to them and their patients. Sermo offers on-demand access to physicians via a suite of proprietary technology to provide business intelligence that benefits pharmaceutical, healthcare partners and the medical community at large.
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To explore our exclusive business solutions, please visit us at sermo.com/business or email us at business@sermo.com.
