It’s the age old question that has eluded a lot of DTC marketers. Can you be patient focused and implement patient centric marketing while meeting brand objectives (ROI) ? I believe you can if you have an in depth understanding of your audience and what they want and need from you, your brand and product.
While the FDA ponders the use of social media for DTC marketing marketers can still use this channel to provide patient insights into specific disease states, medications and treatment options. I had a chance to take a deep dive into social media for MS patients and uncovered specific needs and segments of patients.
While talking to a product manager at a biotech company I noticed a hand written letter pinned up on her office wall. When I started to read it I saw that it was from a patient who was wrote to say “thank you” for the product that she works on. “I keep that letter there to remind me of what’s really important here. People like her sometimes get lost in all the meetings and maze of getting things done”. Amen !
Today having a great vision of where your marketing needs to go is not enough. You also need to be a great salesperson so you can sell your organization on where you want to go and get them excited about reaching todays web savvy patients and consumers.
Last year I led a lot of research into how and why patients are using social media for health as it applies to health conditions and treatment options. While the FDA is still debating social media guidelines, consumers are having conversations on social media around specific conditions and medications. Here are the top-line findings via qualitative and quantitative research involving more than 2000 people.
A LinkedIn colleague of mine yesterday reminded me that there still are a number of pharma product websites which do not render correctly in browsers like Chrome and Safari. Frankly, that is inexcusable because you only have one chance to make a first impression and patients are using product websites as they evaluate medications. Here is a list of basic website operation for marketers so that they can ensure their digital marketing drives patient behavior.
From Forbes comes this wake-up call; U.S. share of global pharmaR&D spending has fallen from 51.2% in 2007 to 45.4% in 2012. Europe’s investment was essentially unchanged and Asia’s increased from 18.1% to 23.8%. Further digging into the numbers revealed the following. “The decline of $12.0 billion in the inflation-adjusted U.S. expenditures from 2007 to 2012 was therefore driven by a $12.9 billion reduction in industry’s investment in R&D.
This is guest post was sent to me via email over the holidays. I wasn’t sure if I should post this story but after going back and forth and debating it I thought it was something we all need to hear because any company is only as good as the people they employ. Keep in mind that this is just one person experience. My experience working at Lilly was one of the best career moves I ever made and Pfizer is rated as the top company people like to work for.