Digital Pharma Newsletter
Dear Reader,
ExL Pharma is proud to present the inaugural edition of the Digital Pharma eNewsletter. As producers of the Digital Pharma event series, we are pleased to be part of a community that is passionate about exploring how new media is changing the way the pharma industry communicates with patients and physicians. We hope this newsletter will become part of the fabric of discourse on this important subject that permeates through cyberspace and lands on your computer screens as you pursue your own work as a marketer in this arena. We’ll be bringing you articles from a wide array of marcomm professionals who will share what they have learned in this space, which is still in its nascent stages. You are welcome to submit a written piece to be considered for an upcoming issue. Please send your articles to Jason Youner, at jyouner@exlpharma.com.
If you have any questions or suggestions, please let me know.
Best,
Jason Youner
Editor, Digital Pharma eNewsletter
Director, Digital Pharma event series
ExL Pharma
Listening Should Not Replace Market Research, But It Should Seriously Be Considered As An Important Supplement
Of the five main Groundswell objectives, “real insights” falls mainly within the Listen category (see Josh Bernoff video). The other four objectives are: Engage, Energize, Support, and Embrace. Listening involves really understanding what your customers are saying — if you don’t make a plan to listen and learn from your customers, you will never truly get the meaningful insight that empowers social media. In fact, there are many who have said the following in one form or another: “if you do nothing else in social media, at the very least, you should Listen“.
Many times, we think we are “listening” because we do market research and focus groups, but the issues with those are: (1) they occur in acute and “artificial” settings (i.e. at a single point in time and not in a customer’s “regular” environment), (2) they are oriented more towards the “what” and the “how” type of metrics/data, and (3) we are usually the ones directing the questions. On the contrary, Listening — in the social media sense — usually occurs in a medium/environment that the customer is most comfortable in (e.g. at home on the computer), is opinionated and therefore directed towards the “why” reasons, and is obviously self-motivated. Not to say that Listening should replace market research, but it should seriously be considered as an important supplement.
So, here are several ways that you can get meaningful insight — including some pharma/healthcare-specific examples — starting with rather simple and free tools to more “sophisticated” and cost-incurring options…
Free Tools
Thanks to Google alone, there's quite a number of free tools that you can use to search and monitor the social media landscape for your product names and corporate brands, starting with the basic web search and Google Trends for comparing keywords (e.g. your product vs. competitors). Progressing one step beyond basic search, you can use Google’s blog search to limit search to blogs which Google archived and, additionally, you can also set up Google Alerts to send yourself an email whenever Google picks up one of your key terms during its daily scour of the web. In fact, you can even set up an RSS feed and have the alerts delivered to your inbox… Or, of course, you can also use Google Reader to read the RSS feed.
If you have a website, then you probably want to look through your Google Analytics results — watch the helpful videos at Google Conversion University for detailed info on interpreting your analytics. Finally, if you have a podcast or blog, then you probably want to setup a Google Feedburner account to help track your subscribers and optimize your feed(s) for syndication/distribution.
Beyond Google, there is a multitude of other free tools — like Technorati for blogs — that are available on the web and are designed to search specific types of social media. Read Mashable’s excellent post on “Top 10 Free Tools for Monitoring Your Brand’s Reputation” for some of the best ones.
(Free) Community Sites
When thinking about social networks, there’s often a tendency and temptation to take a “build it and they will come” approach. However, depending on who your key customers are, you might want to first consider a “fish where the fish are” approach instead. With plenty of “free” social networks — such as Facebook, MySpace, numerous (topic-specific) Ning communities, and even YouTube (both videos and comments) — one can easily find a network to peruse and discover useful information… You just have to make a point to proactively seek them out.
A great example of this is McNeil Pediatrics’ ADHD Moms Facebook page, which seeks to create “…a unique online destination where mothers of children with ADHD can hear directly from other moms about their experiences raising children with this condition“. By creating a community, McNeil has essentially created a “listening post” for issues surrounding a therapeutic area they are invested in and which they can easily monitor and manage (to an extent). NOTE: Be sure to check with your internal authorities (e.g. legal/regulatory) before creating/engaging with any public-facing web initiative.
Other great “free” destinations specific to healthcare include: PatientsLikeMe, WEGOhealth, WebMD, Revolution Health, Everyday Health, and many other health portals and forums. Also, have a listen to this interview with Jack Barrette to understand the importance of “Consumer/Patient Opinion Leaders” and their use of social media platforms to engage and influence their community.
Social Monitoring Agencies/Dashboards
If you’ve got a small budget and want more in depth information (trends, sentiment, analysis, etc.) you can start off with a data dashboard like Radian 6, which is very popular in the social media circles and has a very low barrier to entry (in terms of cost) and is very scalable according to your budget. However, if you can afford a larger budget and prefer to have someone else monitor and compile the data for you, then you should look at the various Social Monitoring agencies that offer this service.
In the BioPharma world, the two agencies I am most familiar with are TNS Cymfony and Neislen Buzzmetrics, but there’s a HUGE number of these social monitoring services with similar offerings — just check out Jermiah Owyang’s comprehensive list from 2006 (which has been updated more recently).
(Paid) Patient and HCP Communities
Now, if you’ve got the budget and a clear objective for getting insight through engagement with your customers, then you have a choice of (1) mining an existing social network/community or (2) creating your own community and inviting customers to join it.
Existing Communities
The good thing about existing communities is that you can jump right into the mix and start gathering information immediately. The best examples within the Health Care Professional (HCP) space are Sermo and Medscape Physician Connect — you can subscribe to their services in order to monitor and engage in discussions with their community. Other HCP communities include Ozmosis, iMedExchange, and Clinician 1 (for NPs/PAs), though my understanding is that they have slightly less interactive models — mainly advertising and sponsorship more so than actual engagement. For an interesting article and a nice chart of the various services, read “Behind Doctors’ Social Networking Websites” in Medical Economics.
Creating a (Paid) Community
As alluded to earlier, the choice to create your own community should not be taken lightly. Besides the high cost and time/resources needed to recruit people to your new community (which better have a good reason for them to join and stay there), there’s also a huge ongoing commitment that will be needed to nurture and grow the community. However, if done right, it can also be very rewarding, because you’ve built a community for your specific purpose, which you can then use to get deep insight whenever you need. From the patient community stand point, there are services like Communispace — which launched the successful Alli Connect community — and WEGOhealth, where you can sponsor a community around a specific health area, inclusive of a health activist/advocate for that disease area who helps to moderate and manage the community. From the HCP standpoint, there’s a service that I recently discovered called Within 3, which is like a combination of Sermo, Communispace, and LinkedIn. Within 3 offers an HCP networking community that allows members to search and connect with others around areas of interest, expertise, and even through literature database searches (i.e. PubMed) — a very interesting model that I look forward to learning more about soon.
This area of healthcare and patient community networks is growing quickly, so don’t be surprised to see many more of these pop up soon.
Shwen Gwee
Founder, Social Pharmer and Med 2.0 Blog
"And that's why I seem so frenetic. I need to go grab a cup of coffee and chillax..."
I've discovered a lot of Social Media conversations like that one. I've also discovered that I jump into a lot of conversations, like that one, that are already going on. These conversations seem to have enough people in them already. These conversations don't seem to need me. Social Media gives that impression a lot. Search for any keyword. Read a stream of hashtags. Follow somebody's blog post comments.
Truth be told, all of those other statements are true for most Social Media conversations. The conversations *are* already going on. There *are* a lot people engaged in these conversations. They *don't* need you.
The reality of Social Media *also* means those statements are patently false when you apply them to most conversations. Just because the conversation has been going on doesn't mean that you can't contribute a new element to it. The potential population of a Social Media conversation has *no* upper limit. The conversation that doesn't include as much input as possible is still lacking in value.
I think this is the core of Social Media that makes me stay involved. I *can* be involved in as many conversations that I can watch in person, or by search terms, or by seeing them leak into other conversations I'm already participating in. I can drop a snippet here, pick up a snippet, share a link, write a quick post, speak up at a conference, share a link, comment on a picture, listen to a PodCast, watch a VidCast, share something in my Google Reader, start a Wave...
But all of those things require time, willingness, and curiosity. All things that make us human, not necessarily things that make us good business people. There are days that I seem to be more human than a lot of people that I work with. I seem to be pushing the limits, drinking more coffee, taking chances that make my wife nervous for me. Now, realize that this is in a conservative industry, so I've got room for improvement.
So, I try to do more. I try to pay attention to as much information as I can. I try to participate in as many conversations as I can. I try to share my enthusiasm with as many people as I can.
And that may be why I seem so frenetic...
Brad Pendergraph
Manager, Decision Support
Novartis
With the term “Unfriend" having been named the word of the year by the New Oxford American dictionary, it’s probably a term that’s no stranger to those of us living and working the in realm of social networking. Specifically when our professional and personal lives collide.
As one who adores the benefits of sites like Facebook and Twitter as a means to keep in touch with family and friends, where are the boundaries for our professional relationships? As eMarketers it is expected we are active in the space, but what happens when we want to truly use it for our personal purposes? Are you unfriending your colleagues who have somehow made it into your personal space on Facebook?
Maybe you’re using Facebook mainly as a professional tool – and when that’s the case, how do you balance promoting your company/product/services or yourself with those who just want to have fun?
Or maybe you just don’t care that your family photos from your beach vacation last summer are beside your strategic insights on online pharmaceutical marketing. Or you’ve integrated your LinkedIn profile with your Twitter account, and your recent tweet about how much fun last weekend’s bachelor party was is your way of showing your colleagues how personable and diverse you are. If this is the case, you may be one of the 28% of users who use social networks for both personal and business purposes.
Regardless of your personal decisions on how each social network fits into your world, you need your own personal social networking strategy, in addition to the one you provide for your company. It goes back to your own personal objectives. Who do you wish to interact with and for what purpose? Then what channel(s) are relevant to that audience and objective(s)?
Once you know that, you can start developing or redefining your cyber footprint and I suggest you share that with your colleagues, friends and families, to help curve the confusion or even potential “rejection.” Explain your decisions, and if you wish to have both personal and professional relationships/dialogue online, clearly define those paths. It could be as simple as sending a LinkedIn invitation when someone friends you on Facebook from work or it can be a more complex privacy setting where you control who sees what. Maybe you have two separate twitter accounts with different followers and they each integrate into separate networks. If you’re smart enough to develop this strategy for a brand, I’m sure you’ll find a way to do it for you as a brand.
With at least 65% of workers of all generations agreeing that social networks blur the line between personal and professional life, hopefully 2010 will bring us clearer, personal decision making for utilizing social media to meet so many diverse needs.
Jennifer Korch
Deputy Director, US eMarketing
Bayer Healthcare Pharmaceuticals
Sources:
1 Beresford Research “Use of Online Social Networks” September 17, 2009
2 Lexis Nexis “Technology Gap Survey” conducted by Worldwide Research April 15, 2009
CONSIDERING THE APPLE iPad™ for Pharma Marketing
Deciding whether to integrate a new technology into your marketing and communications efforts can be an exciting proposition filled with potential pitfalls and problems. This point of view aims to provide you with the best potential integration points for the Apple iPad within your pharma marketing efforts, and some simple steps you can take to better evaluate the value of those efforts.
The iPad is a tablet form factor computing device running an upgraded version of the iPhone OS, built by Apple Inc. Connectivity is via Wi-Fi or 3G data network through one of the following enabled communications channels:
- Safari Web browser
- iTunes Music/Video store
- iBook store eBook content
- Apple and third-party developed apps
- Games
- Social media
- Utilities
While email and Web are proven channels that can be used to reach core audiences, the iPad does not offer a truly unique differentiating feature for pharma from these channels. Similarly with music and video stores, the iPad will not initially offer any differentiators over the existing delivery channels on the PC, Mac, and iPhone/iPod Touch platforms.
One steady performer, in terms of marketing power, continues to be mobile apps. Currently, there are over 150,000 apps in the Apple iTunes app store for the iPhone and iPod touch platforms, nearly all of which will be available for download onto the iPad when it launches. In addition to these legacy apps, the iPad also offers developers the ability to create iPad-specific apps featuring interactive long-form content. This additional functionality will allow apps to take advantage of a number of the iPad’s key features, including the larger color screen, rumored ability for new apps to be developed in Adobe’s Flash Pro CS5, and faster processor.
That’s why, for the purposes of pharmaceutical marketing, we are going to focus on this unique differentiator – the iPad app.
To help you determine the best use of this new tablet form factor device, we need to first define the relevant areas within the marketing communications process that will benefit from larger format content and interactivity. They are as follows:
- Sales force (Presentation & Training)
- Consumer marketing
- HCP marketing
In the following sections we will review each and provide you with recommendations and simple benchmarks to use in the evaluation of the iPad for your uses.
SALES FORCE PRESENTATION & TRAINING
Closed loop marketing (CLM) system applications have existed since the late 1990s. Primarily based on the Tablet PC form factor, they required enterprise-wide commitment to provide and train the entire sales force with expensive, sometimes cumbersome, new hardware, and new interfaces that often require the sales teams to learn a new way to sell.
The iPad offers a number of advantages over the Tablet PC while retaining the majority of the core capabilities of a CLM system. At just 1.5 pounds and 0.5 inch thin, even the smallest sales reps can carry and present from it effectively. Its 9.7 inch screen will allow reps to comfortably present interactive content during a touch screen navigated detail, and its entry-level price point is a third of the cost of using Tablet PCs.
By far, the biggest advantage that the iPad will offer sales force efforts is the large format display of content through the iPad app. Using the Apple provided SDK, apps are relatively easy to develop and cost effective to implement and deploy. Apps built to facilitate rep detailing of interactive content to an HCP will have the same potential as a CLM system to track presentation trends and audiences, with significantly less development time and cost.
More importantly, pharmaceutical marketers can now develop their own apps for use by the sales force without having to rely on integration with enterprise-level software and design format guidelines. Users will have the ability to download new content from within these apps on demand, and marketers will be able to update or remove expired content whenever needed.
Apple’s Enterprise developer license even allows for private distribution of these apps for up to 500 devices within a company, without having to host the app on the iTunes app store for all to download. This internal distribution method allows companies to distribute sensitive apps and training materials with confidence that they will be secure from competitors or others even though the app is available through the iTunes app store.
CONSUMER APPS
Will consumers buy the iPad in enough volume to make it a viable communications platform for pharma marketers? Only time will tell, but Apple has over 125 million registered credit card users signed up for iTunes and mobile services, 60 million of which are iPod Touch or iPhone users. Even with only a five percent initial uptake among iPod Touch/iPhone users, Apple could sell four million units very quickly, making the iPad an early hit.
As with the sales force, size and form factor should play a significant role in the consumer’s consumption of pharma-based content (in the form of iPad and iPhone apps) on the iPad. Pharma marketers looking to capitalize on the consumer target’s use of the iPad should focus on long-form interactive content, as well as gaming and other edutainment-based apps.
Long-form interactive content is “Web-like” content that relies less heavily on Internet access and more on self-contained, interactive, touch-navigated experiences and data. Sample content could include any of the following and more:
- Weekly/monthly health e-magazine for disease state information
- 3D, touch interactive MOAs for disease or treatment education
- Branded support program materials delivered weekly or daily
- Social media-based content for brands or disease groups
As with any new marketing program, all proposed apps should be vetted to ensure their contribution to measurable brand actions and should be considered as part of a broader integrated program.
HCP APPS
Physicians are typically early personal technology adapters, and as a result they are already heavy users of smartphones and Web-enabled mobile devices. Nearly 80 percent of physicians have indicated that they use such devices—up from 54 percent just a year ago.
However, while they are early adopters for personal use, physicians tend to be laggards in technology purchasing for the office, relying most frequently on outside system providers to place hardware and solutions in their office as part of a solution support plan. There are many examples of this over the last 10 to 15 years:
- Free computers for physician eDetailing
- Video display technology for waiting rooms (DVD, Laserdisc, streaming content, etc.)
- Tablet PCs for pre-consult screening and registration (Freesia™)
- Wireless PDAs for ePrescribing
If an outside company chooses to implement an iPad in the physician’s office, it will most likely be locked in some way to prevent the use of other software on the device. Even if it is an open environment, it is anticipated that physicians will only utilize the iPad in the office when it is provided for them through a third party.
Similarly to our consumer recommendations, all proposed apps should be vetted to ensure their contribution to measurable brand actions, and should be considered as part of a broader integrated program.
Authored By:
Geoff McCleary
Vice President of Strategy
imc² health & wellness
geoff.mccleary@imc2.com
