No doubt that a lot of marketing people within pharma are going to be spending endless hours, meetings and Power Points trying to justify a dip in the social media marketing water. Well, you can’t put an ROI around EVERY conversation and to try and do so is a huge waste of time driven by people who don’t understand marketing with people instead of selling them.
Social media is changing the way people communicate and gather health information and make decisions. It’s changing how people share news, share opinions, and share personal events around what it’s like to live with some health problems or around certain treatments including Rx drugs.
Social media has made word-of-mouth marketing one of the most powerful marketing tools available yet there seems to be a frenzy of DTC marketers who need to prove its ROI. This is a mistake because they are loosing sight of the bigger picture.
The two-way nature of conversations in social media channels presents a fundamental shift in how companies communicate with their customers. Now they can talk back to you. Nothing in the history of marketing has let us consumers communicate with our favorite brands in so public a manner.
Social media didn’t change marketing from a monologue to a dialogue—it changed it to a multilogue. Now, companies can talk to customers and customers to companies, but customers can also talk to other customers, prospects, and the public in general.
How the hell can you measure answering a question from a patient that leads to that patient staying on therapy ? How can you measure your branded website becoming the “go to” source for credible health information this leading to trust in your brand ?
You can’t and any attempt to do so is just a delaying tactic by people who fear what patients and consumers have to say. They want to sell people not market with them which is a huge mistake.
I have said it before and I’ll say it again: Pharma marketers need to evolve their marketing and think differently. Stop thinking of the hard sell and think of advancing the public good with great health information that leads to prevention and treatment. That is good medicine which in turn leads to good business and if you believe EVERYTHING you do has to have a hard ROI than you are not in tune with marketing with people instead of at them.
Related articles
- The no “bullshit” approach to social media ROI (newmediaandmarketing.com)
- The FDA gets it right on social media marketing (worldofdtcmarketing.com)
- Minimizing social media risks with new (ah-em) FDA guidelines (worldofdtcmarketing.com)
- Consumers still searching for health information (worldofdtcmarketing.com)
- You can’t put an ROI on every brand conversation (newmediaandmarketing.com)
- The 10 bottom line truths around social media marketing (newmediaandmarketing.com)
Passionate healthcare marketer with over 10 years of experience I believe that what's best for patients is best for healthcare marketers. I also write a monthly DTC Column for PM 360 Magazine and have written many articles on healthcare marketing in an age of empowered patients.
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Its like calculating digital spend Vs ROI
Social media is having an impact on every single component of the marketing budget of almost all organisations today. Invariably then, the Finance department seeks a ROI on the digital spend so allocated. Till sometime back, it was extremely difficult to directly demonstrate revenue impact of money spent in the digital arena in the way that more straightforward sales efforts can claim. However, we now have analytical tools that go a long way to uncover the effectiveness of social-media strategies, determine the footfalls arising from it and calculate the subsequent increase in revenue.
On the same lines, this would be an appropriate time to mention on an event which is an exclusive networking dinner and cocktails bringing together two distinguished thought-leaders to share their perspectives on how Social Media can enable stakeholder insights and impact revenues. It is being held on 15th of March 2012 in Bridgewater Manor, Bridgewater, New Jersey From 6:00 PM – 8:00 PM, EST. Interested readers can an send email to ssaranga@empowerresearch.com to get an invitation.