The 3 Steps to a Digital Pharma Project

The challenges faced by a manager in the pharmaceutical sector in using digital to promote or inform the medical profession about drugs all seem new and difficult to tackle without support.

We could combat the problems related to the use of digital in pharma marketing in Italy one by one, with a fairly objective approach. I could suggest parameters to keep track of, a working model to verify correctness and adherence to regulations, or I could suggest how to calculate ROI. In fact, all this is conspicuously present in the literature and is available on various websites of agencies, consultants and service companies. Most of these elements could be as relevant to a digital project as to a 'classic' information project. The question I ask myself is whether organisations actually encourage the use of digital in pharmaceutical promotion: without real cultural and technical support, it seems to me to be just a statement of intent. For my part, I therefore try to encourage companies and managers by explaining below the three key points of digital project implementation.

Find out how to create a digital project

Creating a digital project is not complex. It starts with a few absolute assumptions that are similar to those of traditional models. Here is the three-step solution.

#1 Invitation-Engagement

The invitation is the phase in which you inform the target group of the possibility of participating in the project. It is important that you check: that the target group involved is the right one, that regulations are complied with, and that it is accessed with a single click. The invitation must generate curiosity and interest in the topic and not in the product to be promoted. It is engagement, as it must also be an interesting, attractive bait, offered at the right time and place. The invitation-engagement is in itself pharma multichannel, just think that even in real life we are invited to attend a party either via phone or via WhatsApp or Facebook. This happens because people read communications differently and inviting even friends to an event has become increasingly complex. In the pharmaceutical sector, you therefore need to have a profiled database with all the data you need - including: specialisation, doctor's interest, email and marketing authorisation - and, above all, to have created an expectation in your readers. Otherwise, nobody will come.

#2 Content-relationship

Content is often referred to as the king of activity on digital. Check that the access distance to the content is attractive and easy to reach (users must already be logged in). Make sure that the output distance is also only one click away, like the button on the TV remote control. For this reason you must provide content that is interesting, attractive, new, useful, practical. The relationship is created by the consumer experience and must be memorable, exciting. Do you know an e-mail with a link to the product's PDF data sheet? Here, rest assured, you need to do the exact opposite. You need to have content production expertise or a marketing and medical marketing agency that supports the creation of channel-valid materials, starting with the key message. Otherwise, nobody will read you.

#3 Measure-modify

Measurement is obvious. Perhaps it should not even be mentioned, but in the digital sphere not everything is measurable in ITS of IMS. Check that if you cannot measure in chunks, at least you must be able to measure in SOV or WC, you certainly cannot measure in clicks. If you create a site without users, you must expect that no one will come in and that you will have invested money badly, even if you invest in new access and logged-in users. Design change is the part of reacting to input; in digital it is measured in hours. Precisely in relation to digital time, the ability to change the road - or part of the project - needs to be fast. If you are familiar with the difference in driving a barge up a river propelled by power, compared to a catamaran in an offshore race flying over the water, you have a sense of the difference in measurement and reaction of a frontal Pharmaceutical Sales Rep in Italy network compared to a digital project. Obviously you need the data to be on a dashboard, you need to be able to drill down where you need to, and you need it to be interconnected between effort and outcome to enable us to understand how the campaign is actually going. Otherwise you will not be able to understand and react. The question that remains unanswered is: how to sell it internally and how to have reasonable certainty of effectiveness? Here again I have a three-step solution:

1) Engage an experienced company that is known to have experience in digital communication and has real case histories in pharmaceuticals;
2)Ask them to propose a digital project after a full briefing on positioning and needs;
3)Give them maximum internal support in marketing and content, following the project step by step through the joys and pains.