TEASER: What DTC marketers and consumers do as the result of seeing a relevant DTC ad differs by a wide margin. DTC marketers would like to think that patients ask for the advertised drug when visiting their doctor, but that’s largely untrue.
Category: Health information online
SUMMARY: Your product website is a window between your brand and target audience. You might not be able to talk to one another, but what your audience does behind that window can tell you a lot about how they’re thinking about your brand.
OPENING: Online health seekers decide whether to stay on your website within the first five seconds of landing on your homepage. They decide if your site addresses their questions after looking at 1.24 pages. Here are what I found in over two years of research with online health seekers.
QUOTE OF THE DAY: “Social media by its very nature is about a personalized – typically non-vetted – spread of information. However, the platforms that enable that flow of data are still owned by profit-minded tech giants. That presents a situation where money can get in the way of facts on some platforms.” The spread of false health information is a threat to our nation’s healthcare.
SUMMARY: Pharma has not embraced a content strategy when the number of online health seekers is climbing. A content management strategy can lead to a better brand-patient relationship and turn customers into brand ambassadors.
SUMMARY: Among US adults who looked for health information and used the internet for their most recent search, the percentage who reported accessing health information without frustration was stable during the study period (from 37.2% in 2008 to 38.5% in 2017). The percentage of online health information seekers reporting easily accessing health information did not meet the HP2020 objective. Continued efforts are needed to enable easy access to online health information among diverse populations. (Source: Public Health Reports)
SUMMARY: TV doesn’t make sense for smaller and older patient populations. DTC marketers should be thinking digital and aligning execution with their needs.
Walk into any corporate pharma HQ, and you’re likely to see a mission statement that’s pure bullshit about how patients come first. We all know that Wall Street and sales come well before patients. Want proof? Just look at any pharma product website that is nothing but a sales brochure in a majority of cases.
