The Future of Patient-Focused Marketing From The Agency C-Suite

Frank X. Powers Shares His Perspective With PharmaVOICE

In the September issue of PharmaVOICE, they dove deep on patient-focused marketing. Marketers in the life-sciences field are facing ever-evolving challenges to meet ever-changing patient expectations. According to one recent study, 77% of patients start their health journey online beginning at a search engine. This action alone provides marketers huge opportunities as well as challenges to connect with patients or caregivers at the very start of the engagement cycle. As a result, marketers are starting to incorporate digital and social aspects while also embedding personalization throughout the communications, especially in more traditional channels, such as television.

The torrent of big data allows this, but it doesn’t mean it’s easy. Marketers must meticulously measure and analyze relevant data in order to create impactful efforts for the new-age patient and physician. By developing customer-service programs, strategies to appeal to millennials, prioritizing mobile, and personalizing both patient and physician interactions, marketers can set themselves and the brands they represent up for success.

Frank X. Powers, Elevate’s Managing Partner, sat down with other C-suite executives from a diverse field of agencies to provide input on the challenges, changes, and opportunities that lie ahead for tomorrow’s marketing experts. Specifically, Powers jumped in and shared his thoughts about this future marketing world that has already begun.

The development of personalized marketing will change everything. It’s already happening in consumer marketing based on the ability to collect thousands of data points on searching/buying habits. While in its infancy in DTC marketing in healthcare, the recent ability to use HIPAA-compliant data collected from thousands of sources to analyze healthcare needs and decision-making enables a whole new avenue of predictive targeting on an individual basis.

We’re already working with our data analytic partners to find ways to apply this to professional marketing, overlaying traditional prescribing data with new personalized data on patients and physicians to create a hybrid of personalized marketing that is regulatory compliant. Mobile marketing tactics, especially those that incorporate video, will continue to proliferate in DTC and DTP. As more and more new apps are developed for healthcare providers to perform clinical tasks and gather information, we’ll find more effective ways to communicate through that channel.

One technique we think will eventually disappear is the building of personas to target. With real data available to build target profiles directly, the need to theorize and build generalized personas will fade away. One tactic everyone predicted was dead was the printed sales aid, but we are getting more and more requests to have a printed piece for rep use. The sophisticated digital sales aids are great, but rarely get used to their full potential due to restrictions on both access and time for interactions, still allowing a place for print collateral to be leveraged.

Head to PharmaVOICE to see the full discussion and see how other executives responded to this interesting topic.