The most successful online solutions engage the professional in an experience that addresses at least one of the following net benefits: They help the health care provider’s (HCP) practice, knowledge building, peer interaction, status in his or her community and/or provide patient education.  

The best marketing strategies and innovations for leveraging professional online programs start with determining a value proposition tied to a net benefit and then create a series of experiences around it. This will result in an ongoing relationship versus a one-off interaction, thus building greater loyalty and long-term value.

Today, we are seeing more integrated programs across direct selling, conferences and offline and online marketing efforts that truly create connected experiences via a variety of channels. Examples of creative programs that address several of these net benefits include:

SELF-SELECT E-DETAILING
This allows professionals to create their own E-detail experience through self-selection  of topics versus the traditional multi-chapter three-to-five minute E-detail that may or may not address what's important to them. This personalized E-detail then can be supported by the representative-delivered content (print or tablet PC), based on the selected topics of interest to physicians, nurse practitioners or physician assistants.

RELATIONAL SERVICE CENTERS
These involve the HCP as an active participant or contributor versus traditional professional portals that are static information resources. Such service centers include specific sub-communities that might give feedback on marketing materials, sales aids or patient education. They are the center of larger relational efforts that include conferences, journal advertising, E-detailing, direct mail and sales force strategies. A great example of this is HandSurgeryNews.com, which features surgeon spotlights, procedure libraries and a personalized workspace, as well as elements developed from research on what benefits the professional community felt were most important to them.

The greatest obstacle for E-marketers is getting caught up in programs or one-off “cool” solutions rather than creating a holistic experience that promotes an ongoing relationship with professionals. In the end, the challenge is not getting HCPs’ attention; it is engaging them and keeping their attention.

MIKE MCCAULEY
Sr. Vice President
HealthSTAR Communications, Inc.
Mahwah, NJ
mmccauley@healthstarcom.com

Healthcare marketers are challenged with the task of delivering cost-effective, impactful, and interactive presentations to care providers. One option to consider: satellite technology. There are numerous advantages to transmitting large amounts of high-quality, digital signals via direct satellite links. The broadcast technology allows you to deliver live and Web-based promotional speaker bureau programs on behalf of sponsoring brand teams. Satellite broadcasting events are hosted in compliant venues by invitation only and can give a brand’s targeted clinicians and physicians the opportunity to understand the latest scientific and clinical updates from national and international key opinion leaders in an interactive environment. By combining the feel of a local live peer-to-peer program with access to top scientists and clinicians via a satellite broadcast medium, these programs can help E-marketers manage the budgetary, compliance, and speaker utilization issues that can negatively impact market penetration.

A good satellite program provides seamless integration of all details, including recruiting, registration, field communication, venue logistics, production and A/V. If a marketer has a message that must be delivered by top thought leaders in a consistent and cost-effective manner, he or she can accomplish in one night via satellite broadcast what would typically take months of individual meetings as well as a great investment of time and resources.

JIM WOODLAND
Executive Director, Interactive and New Ventures,
Communications Media Inc. (CMI), and
Director of CMI | Interactive King of Prussia, PA
jwoodland@cmimedia.com

Physicians are busy people, which means that we, as marketers, must bring them value at every opportunity if we are to expect a meaningful dialogue. Too often we see E-marketers attempt to “own” the relationships with their physician audiences by driving them to their own sites and limiting their engagement with the company’s own content. This has led to a focus on paid search for cheap traffic and a reliance on basic performance metrics such as cost-per-visit. Comprehensive, informative sites are necessary, and brand sites will increasingly have to compete with an ever-growing list of online information sources for physician engagement time.

As a result, an array of online media should be leveraged to free that valuable content—clinical data, KOL videos, E-details, etc.—from the restraints of corporate sites and allow them to appear where they’re more accessible. The use of rich media ad formats, targeted e-mail campaigns, and micro sites are a few simple ways to accomplish this. However, professional media providers can do even more to offer brands a seat at the table with their coveted audience. We are seeing some suppliers recognize their role in offering more than simple exposure opportunities. One example is QuantiaMD, a supplier that offers a higher level of engagement with physicians via a mobile format. We purposely work closely with our supplier partners in an effort to “create” these opportunities rather than wait for them to just come along.

This important journey begins by analyzing what interactivity is already happening online. Physician search habits, brand site traffic patterns, e-mail response rates, and E-detail completions provide clues as to what information is most needed. These data have yet to be mined sufficiently to guide appropriate customization of message content and delivery to specific physician target audience segments. The platform through which these messages are delivered matters far less than the relevance of the message itself. The required technology exists. It is now incumbent upon marketers, working in collaboration with their media planning partners, to make the customized delivery of these relevant messages a reality.

ROB LIKOFF
CEO, GROUP DCA
Parsippany, NJ
rob.likoff@groupdca.com

The Internet is an amazingly flexible tool for communicating marketing messages to physicians. By actively engaging doctors in E-marketing tactics, they’ll learn and retain the brands’ key messages in a truly interactive way—and one that will capture and retain their attention.

The first way to catch the eye of your target audience is to create brand content specifically for the Web, so that it will be engaging to the user. Inviting physicians to participate in an activity, rather than offering a static review of data, not only utilizes the full potential of the Internet but also creates a fun atmosphere where physicians are actively learning about the brand.

Ask physicians for their feedback. By seeking out their opinion, you’ll create a personalized relationship, generating a respectful, educated dialogue about the product. In responding, physicians feel like they’ve personally contributed to the brand, making them far more likely to come back in the future. What’s more, they’ll remember that brand when it’s time to prescribe.

Actively interacting with physicians also allows the brand to create specific messages for each segment of the customer audience. These tailored messages can go out to physicians based on their opinion of a specific topic. They can also address prescribing concerns, hot topics in the marketplace, or any other issue that needs to be addressed.

Additionally, online tactics can help physicians by offering education and support to patients. A central Web location can offer access to disease-state education, tools to assist with therapy, and motivation and support to ensure patient compliance. Online patient sessions, accessed via e-mail, can include practical information about treatment that reinforces what the physician has communicated to the patient during the examination. If a physician’s treatment specialty includes support from additional medical professionals, such as counselors, information for these sub-specialties can also be contained and accessed online.

When done correctly, E-marketing tactics can offer a seamless line of communication to physicians, as well as other targeted audience members. This comprehensive approach ensures the brand’s key messages are unveiled at the appropriate time for the individual user—all in all, capturing and retaining the physician’s attention.

TOM ST. PETER
Vice President,
Business Development
DoctorDirectory.com, Inc
Asheville, NC
tom.st.peter@doctordirectory.com

The medium is virtual, but the obstacles are real! As one considers the various obstacles to interfacing with physicians, the list becomes quite long. As a provider of E-marketing services, I present four of the most frequently encountered challenges and some solutions:

BUDGET
In general, E-marketing budgets as a percent of the total allocations are modest (4%-5% from DoctorDirectory.com’s E-Marketing Survey). To navigate around the budget obstacle, identify partners who are willing to put a little skin in the game. Providers who utilize performance-based, gain-share compensation models allow marketers to use incremental revenue from which to purchase services and not from established budgets.

REACH
Traditionally, reach is accomplished through push or pull strategies. Again, seek partners who can assist with both. For DTP campaigns, ensure that your provider has a high quality list, subscribes to prescriber level data for targeting and segmentation, and can deploy multiple channels.

ROI
In our E-marketing survey, more than half the responders felt that incremental revenue was the best method for determining the effectiveness of electronic/virtual services. Develop metrics that use control groups or baselines with which to measure against. At the end of the day, it is still about revenue.

VALUE
It’s also all about the value exchange. Numerous market research studies have confirmed that physicians feel they are not getting the value they need from pharma whether it is from the reps or virtual services. Docs want information, so introduce the science first and use that science to support the promotion later. Control the information flow and regulate the volume of e-mail and other brand exposures, and incentivize participation with samples, reprints, patient-education materials or other resources of value.

While these solutions are not necessarily new, they are rarely deployed in combination. A recent study by Verispan confirmed that doctors get as much value from E-promotion as from face-to-face detailing. Some believe that the virtual world is even better than the real thing—but you will need to get around the obstacles; so find yourself a good navigator.

STEPHEN WRAY
President and CEO,
Cadient Group
West Conshohocken, PA
stephen.wray@cadient.com

In an age of information overload driven through multiple channels and multiple devices, relevance is the key to gaining a physician's interest and sustaining a relationship. Traditionally, pharmaceutical marketing to physicians has deployed a high-control, brand-first, publishing-oriented model. To gain and retain access to physicians, marketers must better leverage digital channels to provide an immediate response to physician needs, offer on-demand access to services, and relinquish control over the flow of information. In a digitally-dominated world, pharma marketers can enable physicians to determine the scope and focus of their interactions. By responding to those needs with personalized information, whenever possible, marketers will help foster an intuitive, engaging online experience. Let’s not kid ourselves into thinking that “digitizing” a sales aid into a tablet PC application is the answer to better physician interactions.  

Offering 24/7 on-demand access to brand resources, tools, and information is a key component of fully leveraging the capability of online platforms. Innovative customer-centric approaches have helped marketers increase the perceived value of their physician customer service while also increasing efficiency and personalization. These strategies can also help pharma marketers reach a wider range of professional targets as part of supporting the total office (physician assistants and nurse practitioners, for example), as well as payers and pharmacists. Marketers should employ a modular approach to digital content creation to enable greater portability across these channels and devices.

Online, the opportunities for professional collaboration and interactivity abound. However, marketers need to think holistically about the professional experience to determine how this is most relevant for their brand. Online experiences that create a learning environment, facilitate clinical case sharing, or elicit peer feedback generate the greatest level of collaboration among healthcare professionals. 

Mobile is the great unexplored frontier in pharma marketing, because of its ability to provide unprecedented levels of immediacy, portability, and agility for communication. Professional audiences will often be the first audience for many mobile initiatives, providing mobile Web access to key facts or utilizing smart phone apps with patient management. Regardless of the audience, marketers need to ensure that the content provided takes into account the uniqueness of the mobile user experience. The next generation of healthcare providers will view mobile devices as 
their primary communication tool—it’s a great opportunity to provide on-demand value.

The digital channel is a very crowded, noisy, complex world. This environment has different rules of engagement—marketers no longer have a monopoly on content creation or distribution related to their brand. Trust, transparency, and relevance are key drivers of online success. Online users, particularly physicians, expect rapid responses and quickly triage the relevance of online content. Marketers must avoid “digital brochure-ware” and strive to make their value proposition clear from the first view. Marketers need to consider how their message and value fit in the broader Internet environment (taking into account the variety of digital touch points) in order to position their online voice effectively.