Reshaping pharmaceutical marketing: 'one size fits all' is gone forever

The evolution of pharma marketing in Italy is forcing marketers to face new challenges in content marketing: producing continuous event-based updates and 'liquid' planning. If communication to the doctor is co-ordinated across different channels and is high frequency, why should marketers plan for the long term? Thus, it is not only multichannel marketing that is a challenge in Pharma, but rather innovative models for marketing itself, which is then looking for new models of material production. One of the major efforts we observe and support in the application of pharma multichannel is the adoption of network and customer material production programmes.

The Content Marketing

The production of material must:

• be adapted and re-planned on the basis of market events and news, congress presentations, publications of clinical studies, new launches and changes in competitors' commercial strategies;
  
• be readjusted on the basis of customer response, thanks to continuous monitoring of reading behaviour and response to requests;
  
• be linked to the channel and mode of communication.
  

The continuous adaptation of contents and their relative 'perishability' are a greater threat to results than the accuracy and correctness of the same. In other words, it is more important to produce fresh, continually updated and, above all, revised material in the light of reader satisfaction, rather than to work long hours to create 'the best message'. This working model, which involved huge efforts to create a visual that was correct in every respect, was based on the fact that the same medium would be used by the sales force for many months, for tens of thousands of expensive face-to-face visits. It was also based on the fact that the same medium would be used by the sales force for many months, for tens of thousands of expensive face-to-face visits. This method also required that the sales representatives had a unique and planned behaviour, that the promotion medium would be suitable for the statistically representative average of doctors, and that the message would be unchangeable for months.

The enormous opportunity offered by the innovative tools of non-personal promotion, the new channels, the tablet, the new CRM, digital, web marketing - all based on multichannel models - are useful and effective tools. Many of these tools we have never seen before and perhaps we make some mistakes when using them; perhaps a little practice is needed in their execution, but certainly now all problems have different forms and require different tools, and therefore new skills.

Content Marketing in Pharma

In order to communicate taking into account the new media, marketing has to revise, not the contents, but the processes from which the contents originate and keep in mind the process of dissemination of the same, reshaping them on the basis of feedback. Let's assume, to give an example, a promotion of a mature product, no longer carried by the internal frontal information network for some years. Let us suppose a statin or an ace-inhibitor, subjected to the coordinated pressure of generics, comarketers and products in the same therapeutic category. The product, having declined significantly in value at the time of genericisation a few years ago, is now experiencing a steep decline in units. There is no budget for it to be carried by the network and in any case the margins are not there. Marketing has agreed, with a good agency, a coordinated plan of remote scientific information together with massive digital communication. The investment, given the still significant size of the product turnover, is about 7% of the revenues. The distribution of phone/digital costs was decided as 60/40. The doctors to be contacted have been segmented: on the basis of interest as well as specialisation, on the receptiveness and adherence to the phone-detailing model, and on the choice of the micro-zones with the highest sales. 9 contacts are planned over 12 months, including 7 simple calls and 2 in-depth video calls. A reserved channel area has been set up for the digital area, which doctors can access directly, without logging in again, with an editorial plan of 10 contents, promoted in a mixed push and native way. Let's add it up: in terms of content marketing, we are talking about having 10 pieces of content prepared for digital, 7 call scripts, 2 video materials to share. On a product whose patent expired years ago, the last visual is older than a five-year period and the last study is 10 years old.

How should marketing proceed if not by relying on the content production expertise of an agency? Only those with experience can truly support not only the execution, but also the creation of channel-appropriate content. The production of content and services for non-personal promotion is a challenge that needs to be addressed at the project stage. The biggest obstacle is the resistance, or the difficulty to understand the new behaviours, of the doctor and the patient.