Download Marketing to Digital Docs: Innovative Ways to Reach

share:
P u b l i s h e d by F i e rc e M a r ket s
Marketing
to Digital Docs:
Innovative Ways to
Reach Healthcare
Providers in the
New Media Age
Reaching doctors today with traditional marketing materials is more challenging than ever. For
pharma reps, the days of in-person sales calls
and free lunch seminars are gone. Today’s digital-savvy doctors are time-crunched and mobile,
and they want targeted and relevant communication solutions that fit their lifestyles.
That means pharmaceutical organizations and
their partners need to adapt and shift to effective digital channels to reach physicians. Not
only to keep up with doctors’ changing habits and preferences, but more importantly, to
build effective pathways to thought leadership,
influence prescribing behavior, and establish
compelling long-term communication channels
with healthcare providers.
So how can that be done?
It starts with digital. Today, 53% of all marketing
outreach to doctors happens via non-personal promotions, the majority of which are digital
communications, according to research from
sales and marketing consultancy ZS. “It is the
first time in the eight years of the semiannual study that non-personal contact surpassed
sales force activity,” said ZS AffinityMonitor
leader Malcolm Sturgis in an interview with
FiercePharma.
This shift in communications doesn’t mean
sales reps are going to disappear. It means
that the two sides of the traditional healthcare
marketing coin — in-person sales rep calls and
non-personal delivered communications — need
data-driven strategies and a cohesive plan for
engagement.
P R E S E N T E D BY
“It is critical that pharma companies tailor their
interactions to the physician's preferred channel
and ensure sales reps bring meaningful material
to the physician's attention," Sturgis said.
With that goal in mind, we evaluated some of
the most effective and innovative digital ways
that marketers can reach physicians today and
outlined the benefits of each.
 MARKETING TO DIGITAL DOCS: INNOVATIVE WAYS TO REACH HEALTHCARE PROVIDERS IN THE NEW MEDIA AGE
share:
Video content hosted on
integrated platforms
As people become more visual and media based
in their information consumption — video will
account for 69% of all consumer Internet traffic
by 2017, according to Cisco — it’s been becoming
more commonplace for marketers to deliver more
content in video format to healthcare providers.
Physicians are already responding to this change,
spending an average of more than 180 minutes
per week watching video content for professional
purposes, according to a Google and Manhattan
Research study. The primary advantage to video
for healthcare use is that it is more engaging than
static communications and offers a quick way to
humanize and explain complex ideas and concepts.
Switch Video, a creator of short animated videos with clients including Bayer and Abbott, for
instance, uses its information-packed explainer
videos to show doctors how specific medications
work for particular diseases or to visually detail
results of clinical trials.
More than 60% of
healthcare providers
have used online
conferences more often
than two years ago.
More than 30% of
healthcare providers
have watched a
presentation from a
key opinion leader
in the past month.
Video content also delivers when it comes to
accommodating doctors’ busy schedules as they
can be accessed anytime, anywhere and any
place. In fact, 90% of all healthcare providers have
watched some kind of professional videos online
such as videos from experts on specific conditions,
drug mechanisms of action, and prescription information, according to Don Lewis, senior director of
life sciences at ON24.
ON24 Video allows users to create branded gateways as standalone pages or part of a website
to post snippets of webinars and interactive videos. The webinar clips can also be combined with
other uploaded images and videos to create new
content.
Modern video platforms not only offer the ability
for physicians to tap into various types of video
content, but also on demand, and in ON24’s case,
it provides comprehensive engagement and realtime reporting and analytics for marketers in one
location.
Webinars, with on-demand
content add value
Doctors have long attended seminars as a way to
hear from key opinion leaders and stay current in
the medical field. However, in today’s digital-first
Henry Schein Practice Solutions
Advanced Webinar Features
Drives Higher ROI
Dental healthcare products and services company Henry Schein used webinars to introduce
its products to new customers and offer addons to existing dental practice clients. However,
the webinar-meeting tool platform they were
using had a lag time of up to two days to get
reports on attendee information, which frustrated the eager sales team. The system also
lacked in the ability to track individual activity, such as time watched or click-in behaviors,
making it difficult for salespeople to determine
the level of interest of a potential lead.
The Practice Solutions group turned to ON24
and its Webcast Elite on-demand cloud-based
webcasting platform. Not only could marketing manager immediately pass qualified leads
to sales CRM through seamless integration, but
Henry Schein also gained a new outreach tool
with on-demand informational webinars that
could be offered for dentist client viewing at
any time. And it worked. The immediate reporting led to higher ROI, while the better overall
experience led to reports of higher satisfaction
from customers, sales teams and marketing
managers.
 MARKETING TO DIGITAL DOCS: INNOVATIVE WAYS TO REACH HEALTHCARE PROVIDERS IN THE NEW MEDIA AGE
share:
world, traditional in-person seminars are considered too time consuming and expensive.
The time stress and cost awareness experienced
by most physicians are driving the trend to online
conferences and presentations. More than 60% of
healthcare providers have used online conferences
more often than two years ago and more than 30%
have watched a presentation from a key opinion
leader in the past month, according to ON24 data.
However, doctors still need programs to educate
themselves about the latest drugs, research and
regulatory movements. With the shifted trend to
webinars today, they can get all of that and also
have robust experiences that offer meaningful
interactions, on-demand content and social media
connections.
Webinars have also been shown to be more effective. On-demand formatting alone, which allows
physicians to tap into content in their own time,
improves viewership by an average of 40%, Lewis
said.
“We use webinars as a marketing platform to
engage healthcare providers with front-facing
tools like information widgets and social media
icons available at the push of a button to help
create their own personalized interaction with the
content,” he said. “On the back end for marketers,
we use data and analytics to gauge individual level of engagement during and after a webinar, and
provide that information to our clients for additional sales and marketing uses.”
On-demand webinar platforms can be set up to
deliver traditional informational discussions, but
also include other elements like key opinion leader question-and-answer sessions, explainer videos,
and access to resources like PowerPoint presentations and white papers. The more effective and
compelling the content, the better the engagement
and brand awareness for the marketer, Lewis said.
Virtual learning environments bring
education experiences to the cloud
Growing in popularity in academia, virtual learning
environments are finding new uses as marketing tools. The healthcare industry is replete with
academics, who carry their enthusiasm for education into their careers. Innovative marketers in the
industry are catering to this affection for knowledge by providing virtual learning environments
that mimic the modern educational experience.
Virtual learning environments can be set up for comprehensive engagements with clients, delivering more
Metagenics Better Health Through Nutrition and Lifestyle Medicine
Webinar Platform Almost Doubles On-Demand Views
Metagenics, which sells medical foods, nutritional
supplements, and lifestyle medicine programs to
healthcare professionals, was looking for a new
way webinar platform. The company specifically
wanted to showcase the dozens of well-known
industry experts it partners with on a wide range
of health topics including healthy diets, gut
microbiomes, inflammation, metabolism, and
menopause.
The strategy behind the partnerships is driving
education with its body of nutritional and lifestyle
research into how key nutrients and lifestyle recommendations can improve health and reverse
the effects of chronic disease. Metagenics selected ON24 with the primary goal to use the webinar
platform to increase product sales through their
channel.
The results? Webinar viewership from new prospects and happy customers. The new ON24
webinars extended Metagenics’ audience reach by
43% generated across on-demand viewings.
Cynthia Corbett, manager of events at Metagenics,
said, “The difference is like night and day between
our old provider and ON24. It’s well worth the
money we pay to produce high quality virtual
events and stream them on-demand on our website. I am thrilled with the features and benefits
and am in the process of renewing my contract
for another year.”
 MARKETING TO DIGITAL DOCS: INNOVATIVE WAYS TO REACH HEALTHCARE PROVIDERS IN THE NEW MEDIA AGE
share:
one-on-one call center chats, and live classrooms are
just a few of the features that can be included.
“Virtual learning environments work as vast
repositories of content with elements that are custom created and can be changed, updated and
switched out in real time either by ON24 or by the
customer,” Lewis said. The cost and time saving
benefits of this new medium are driving organizations to shift to these flexible platforms.
immersive experiences, standardizing training practices, and reducing costs. ON24’s Virtual Learning
Environment platform, for instance, has the ability
to launch with a virtual interactive flyover of a company that can move down to enter a lobby crafted
to look like the actual hospital or company business
campus. Individual content pieces are selected by the
client for a custom immersive experience for users.
Instructional training videos about how to use company equipment or services, an expert lounge for
Mobile online events offer
convenient on-the-go information
Doctors are just like everyone else: glued to their
smartphone. Kantar Media reports that 81% of physicians use smartphones for professional purposes.
But they’re not just checking in every once in a
while. Two-thirds of doctors who use mobile devices for work check them more than 10 times per day,
according to a recent Merck Manuals survey.
Virtual learning environment branded platform
Medical Device Manufacturer Creates 3-D Learning Experience
When one large medical device manufacturer
was looking for a better way to globally deliver
training, new hire onboarding, and education programs in support of the safe and effective use
of their products, they turned to ON24. The idea
was to engage hospitals that either used or were
potential users of its equipment in a more comprehensive and interactive experience.
Through ON24, the med device company created a hosted virtual learning environment—which
provides an immersive 3-D experience— includes
multiple realistic-looking locations, including an
operating room, research library, exam room,
and doctor’s office. A wide range of educational
resources are available: procedural videos, models, patient education, product brochures, and
webcasts. It also provides faculty biographies and
opportunities to contact them.
Role-based access controls align to the highly regulated industry; allowing the device manufacturer
to let its clients, and potential ones, to tap into the
content, and even include the ability to change
what language the platform was in, so it could be
used globally.
“Physicians are often more self-directed than others, so this gave them the opportunity to look at
the content they wanted in their own time,” Lewis
said. “The immersive 3-D experience adds another dimension to communication and education
that result in better overall engagement at a lower
cost.”
The ON24 virtual environment has become the
single point of access for clinic knowledge and
procedural education pertaining to the company’s products, with training that can be accessed
anytime and from any location. Each month, more
than 150 healthcare professionals and physicians
from 16 different countries access the virtual environment and spend an average of one hour and 50
minutes. During this time, more than 465 training
documents and educational webcasts are viewed
and/or downloaded.
 MARKETING TO DIGITAL DOCS: INNOVATIVE WAYS TO REACH HEALTHCARE PROVIDERS IN THE NEW MEDIA AGE
share:
Digital outreach to doctors
more important than ever
Healthcare providers today are pressed for time
and more likely to turn down in-person sales meetings than ever before. A recent annual study from
CMI/Compas confirmed that trend—more than
48% of primary care physicians now limit sales
reps visits. For healthcare professionals who need
to reach the modern physicians, the answer is
innovative digital communications.
As Robert Porter, editor-in-chief of the Merck
Manuals told FierceMobileHealthcare, “This underscores how critical mobile technology has become;
it has shifted from a ‘nice to have’ to a ‘must have.’”
The bottom line is that smartphones and tablets
are how doctors stay connected on the go and
pharmaceutical and healthcare marketers need to
figure out how to use the medium effectively to
deliver messages and communicate with them.
New digital tools, analytics and insights are allowing
marketers to be more empowered than ever to reach
doctors in new ways and provide sales reps with
reliable data to make the in-person conversations
they do have impactful. Using creative, data-driven
and targeted digital marketing programs, pharmaceutical marketers can build new communication
pathways that better fit into doctor’s busy lives.
Modern marketers will leverage these tools to build
not only creative and lower-cost solutions, but also
establish more effective long-term communications
channels and influence prescribing behavior in this
highly regulated market. l
One way savvy marketers are doing this is by
delivering online events by phone or iPad. While
doctors are certainly in favor of off-site and accessible learning, the key for marketers is to optimize
content for those platforms. By making sure content is reformatted and accessible, marketers are
able to mitigate the risk of healthcare providers
abandoning online events out of frustration.
ON24 is the global leader in webinar-based marketing solutions that drive demand
generation and customer engagement. Its patented cloud-based platform features
industry-leading webinar analytics for events, campaigns and benchmarking. ON24’s
award-winning solutions are integrated with leading CRM and marketing automation platforms, enabling marketers
to optimize demand generation, enhance lead qualification and accelerate opportunities in their sales pipelines.
 MARKETING TO DIGITAL DOCS: INNOVATIVE WAYS TO REACH HEALTHCARE PROVIDERS IN THE NEW MEDIA AGE