One of today's false myths is that we talk less because we're always on our cell phones. In fact, one of the trends of the next few years is precisely that of "high tech - high touch". Let's explain in detail.
Many claim that technology distances people because they find, thanks to it, alternative forms of communication. But if it were actually so, we would no longer meet on the street, but we would exclusively use Facebook, Instagram, WhatsApp.
The data tell us that the shift to the increasingly active use of technology does not take away, but adds modes of contact. New technologies complement the present ones and make the world of communication more complex to govern. This will entail a total retooling of content creation and relationship with others.
Think of email or the telephone, which have accelerated the way we share, meet each other. In every area, the human impact of technology seems natural to us but eventually it changes habits.
It's clear that technology has had a huge impact on our lifestyle and approach to work, but processing a transformation as momentous as this and turning it into a change of strategy requires psychological steps and awareness. We must accept it, not deny it: technologies are and will be present and will transform the way we communicate in both personal and professional relationships.
From a pharma marketing in Italy perspective, we need to manage the multiple communication channels that the customers we want to connect with are on. This doesn't reduce the communication impact of individual channels, nor does it shift it from one channel to another, but unfortunately it complicates and amplifies the process of contacting the physician.
How much does technology impact communication to the physician? Just observe his day. How many and what emails he reads in the morning. What he uses during his professional activities and who he meets and for how long. What online courses he takes and what material he delves into. The data collected over the past few months suggests that there will be greater difficulties in accessing physician interest and time in the future than pre-Covid-19. Thus, pharmaceutical sales rep in Italy will have a profound transformation with an increasingly integral and immersive use of non-personal promotion (NPP) activities.
The technology used in a massive way during Covid will stay with us and remote and digital interaction will be a new stable communication channel in addition to the previous ones. To manage the channel you need to know it, and above all you need to know - for each physician - the interest and acceptance of the channel. We at Merqurio know how to do that. Therefore, to the matrix of interest for the content, to its geographical presence, to the prescriptive potential, to the therapeutic autonomy on the pathology, it is necessary to add the reachability and acceptance of the content through the channel: frontal or remote (through email, phone, web, FAD and Webinar). Therefore, although the methods of "traditional" face-to-face communication, meetings and conferences remain, new ways of relating to the doctor must be added. And for all new modalities, the interest in the channel must be acknowledged, and ad hoc content must be constructed.