In the world of pharmaceuticals, billions of dollars are invested in the invention and development of a drug. And with 19 out of 20 medicines in experiment failing, that’s a very expensive gamble. But it’s a gamble pharma companies are willing to take because when that blockbuster drug is in patent, the dollar yield is substantial. Recognizing the risk and return in R&D, should companies consider a similar investment in their marketing efforts? At the eyeforpharma Multichannel Engagement Conference held in November, top marketers from the top drug companies gathered to discuss this very topic and share best practices.
Craig DeLarge, U.S. Leader, Multichannel Marketing & Customer Business Lines Support at Merck, believes that 10% of a company’s marketing budget should be allocated to marketing R&D. But, he adds, “you must define what you want to be when you grow up”. This is no easy task in a highly regulated industry, often resistant to change, and married to traditional marketing and sales methods. But the industry may have no choice but to bend. According to Hans Sjoquist, President & CEO at Global Channel Marketing Solutions, many companies are facing the Patent Cliff and that may be the crisis that drives paradigm change. The definition of multichannel marketing is also extending beyond “marketing and sales” to include all channels HCPs and Patients engage with. Multichannel now needs to consider contact centers, mobile, social media, email, sampling, and eDetailing to name a few. And as the channels continue to grow, the ability to understand engagement becomes more muddled.
Pharma companies employing a Marketing Center of Excellence have to answer many questions. What correlations can be found between advertising and engagement? Where is the engagement occurring? Is it on a device? Which device? What content? Is it video, audio, images, voice to text? What’s the sentiment? What are the social interactions? What are the demographics? What SEO is effective? What networks are they engaging with? Are they using digital coupons? Are there dynamic funnels? What is the sales data? What is the customer data? What’s the ideal segmentation? And answers to these questions are imperative to evaluating multichannel analytics. Those analytics should focus on unique individual behavior, not just group trends.
There are tools that can make this challenge decidedly less complex. Marketing Automation can deliver the 1:1 HCP and Patient insight needed. By capturing and analyzing digital body language, Pharma companies can better segment, target, and communicate the right message at the right time to the right people. Additionally, companies can make smarter business decisions on where to allocate sales and fiscal resources by scoring opportunities. Marketing can now assign these opportunities to the appropriate channel for follow-up, nurturing, and education.
Justifying that 10% R&D investment can be a challenge for many COEs. Leadership and budget are keys to developing a multichannel marketing system and infrastructure. As companies begin to develop their Marketing R&D business case, they need to address the concerns of those individuals who feel the risk. They must also gain alignment with sales, brand teams, and IT. COEs must not only tell a compelling story, but define hard deliverables tied to milestone dates and realistic benchmarks. COEs must follow a similar process to drug R&D justification. But, if in the marketing experiment phase marketers can gain insight into the behaviors of HCPs and Patients, and use that behavior to drive revenue, they can experience a blockbuster yield.