Reshaping pharmaceutical marketing: the rising costs of traditional marketing

I do not believe that the traditional channels of pharmaceutical marketing no longer work. I don't believe that the traditional channels (i.e. the face-to-face representative and residential events) are in crisis.

I firmly believe, however, that not everyone is using the new channels. I believe that many are doing it correctly and others less so. I believe that some are using the old models on the new channels.
The increasing difficulties your network is facing, (both frontline and remote and digital) can be summarised very succinctly as difficulty of access and difficulty of attention.

In this first article I will focus on access.

The difficulties of access can be related, from time to time, to the increasing costs and to the lower effectiveness of the current channels and processes to reach the doctor, on his desk or in his email box or in a telephone-video call. Leaving aside what everyone takes for granted, let us take a closer look at some of the dynamics.

Fewer face-to-face visits: longer waits in public and private surgeries, longer appointments, less time spent by clinicians on scientific information, turnover of elderly doctors replaced by younger doctors who have not yet been identified, reorganisation of the daily and cycle visit plan. The daily average falls, the cost of the visit increases. The doctor has more commitments than before, even though he now receives fewer average patients, but he has a communication model which obliges him to react more quickly. The pharmaceutical sales representative in Italy finds it more difficult to get in and be heard, and doctors are putting up more and more barriers to optimise their time.

Between the correct application of current privacy legislation, the acquisition of emails, their storage, processing, updating is really very challenging. While the potential risks of incorrect or improper management of the doctors' database can be very costly and even have criminal relevance, it is increasingly necessary to commit both operational and compliance resources to be in compliance. I stress the issue, which I ask you to observe with great care, of capturing emails and updating them correctly. Having a perpetual (not periodic) update of doctors' emails goes beyond the technical possibilities of a sales network based on sales representatives. To make a system work that truly forwards promotional emails, whose content is approved, to selected doctors in support of a communication campaign requires expensive platforms and a good investment of resources. In short, it costs money to send emails that meet the standards and work.

Shall we talk about direct pharmaceutical marketing in Italy and the costs involved? Today, having a database of correct addresses, maintaining and updating it (always in accordance with the standards) for doctors visited and not, organising packaging, preparing a postal package has its own cost that must be taken into account. Shipping samples (where possible) or small gadgets or information material approved to the individual doctor still works, don't get me wrong, but it has more complexity and costs than before.

If anyone thought that the activity of the Remote Pharmaceutical Representative in Italy in the past was 'innovative', with the lockdown of Covid they not only had to reconsider, but they immediately tried, improvising, to approach this profession. Everyone was calling, or rather trying to call, sending messages through the most disparate channels and making do with video call platforms with content that was really sometimes remembered for its almost ridiculous naïve style. Remote information cannot be improvised, neither with the pharmaceutical sales representatives currently in force, although they are experienced and competent, nor with agencies that are being invented today. The 'conversion' of frontal sales representative into remote or hybrids requires a truly in-depth training effort and expertise. In addition to the training for conversion from traditional to hybrid, it is necessary that their heads, area managers and directors, are able to lead the change, have the coaching skills, manage the new "territories".

For those of us who have been providing remote information for some time, there has been a greater "awareness" on the part of the target audience as an acquired communication model, but the redemption (the effectiveness and efficiency of reaching the doctor according to Merqurio parameters) has decreased, due to the increase in the doctor's load. Fewer visits or remote video calls, higher costs.

Managing a more effective model, targeting the right doctor with specific interests who wants to talk (and not just listen) to what you want to present, is a must.
Managing a more effective model, with digital activities that are sent from a qualified source, that generate real interest, are opened, read and with content that stays in the doctor's mind, is a must.
The management of functional direct pharmaceutical marketing to support, with correct addresses and professional workmanship, the right doctors (did I already say that?) is a must.

So, managing a multichannel done right, can save you money, and maybe Merqurio can support you in this, talk to us.