PM360 Digital Compendium March 2011
Case Study

Developing a Path to Digital Success

By Hans Wernke

An examination of the universal digital marketing principles practiced by other industries resulted in a digital strategy that can be applied to the biopharmaceutical industry.

Rarely a week goes by without an invitation to yet another congress dedicated to social media, digital marketing, and mobile communications in healthcare. Don’t get me wrong, I like a good pharma e-marketing congress as much as the next person, but after a while I can’t escape the feeling that I’ve heard much of it before.

There’s an abundance of strong solution-specific case studies, but taken together, these presentations have begun to feel disconnected from a foundational strategy. Where are the discussions on the broader methodologies that anchor the whizz-bang tactics to the brand’s existing marketing plan? What about answers to fundamental, critically important questions: What does “success” for a digital approach look like? How is success communicated upwards to the C-suite and across an organization? How do other brands do it? How do other industries do it?

It is not surprising that the factors driving digital marketing success are in fact the same as those that are fundamental to the success of any overarching marketing plan. Methodologies such as OASIS, ACES, and KUDOS all focus on the same basic principles: know your marketplace, set clear and measurable objectives, engage your target audiences, develop a plan, measure the outcomes, and make adjustments where necessary. What these concepts do is provide a road map, a clear plan to achieve success in the digital marketing channel. Viewed individually, each of the steps seems painfully obvious (“I have to set objectives…? Really?”), but taken together, they provide the clarity and direction to achieve success.

Applying Process Knowledge to the Biopharmaceutical Industry
What’s wrong with applying an off-the-shelf, universal digital marketing methodology to our particular industry? Perhaps nothing, but we wanted to take a closer look and test that hypothesis. We wanted to get some client feedback, to apply our biopharmaceutical experience, and to see if the core principles could be optimized to work better with our client’s digital assets.

The end result is e-Path, a digital marketing methodology specifically developed to incorporate the digital fundamentals applied in other industries, and to place them within a framework that factors in all the nuances of the biopharmaceutical industry. Made up of five steps, e-Path forms a path to digital success.

Step I. e-Analysis
First things first. Before we start thinking about tactics, it is important to assess the landscape. This evaluation provides a clear view of the existing marketplace. It will also guide our internal discussions on the key performance indicators (KPIs) we want to measure the success of our efforts.

• Online resources available to HCPs and patients in the relevant therapeutic area
• Major websites and communities, and their perceived influence on physician and patient behavior
• Physicians and patients who are the key drivers of online discussions in the identified areas
• News, wikis, blogs, micro-blogs and life streams, YouTube, online conversation, and comments on forums and message boards
• Competitor activity
• Gap analysis

Naturally, the e-Analysis is not a one-off project, but an ongoing process.

Step II. Prioritization of Objectives
While the need to set clear, measurable objectives is well understood, the reality is that this critical procedure often does not get the attention it deserves. Different stakeholders have different expectations of what success looks like. Projects close to completion often get derailed because those involved were never aligned on final outcomes.

This is the phase where the internal stakeholders come together to determine the following:

• Brand objectives
• Stakeholder objectives
• Agreement of KPIs

Completing this phase before discussing strategy, much less tactics, will avoid many headaches down the line.

Step III. Audience Requirements
It is interesting to note that many digital marketing plans presume audience response through intestinal evaluations (ie, my gut tells me this will work).

Why not conduct market research, surveys, focus groups, and advisory boards? If you want to be confident your audiences will use your solutions, engage them in the development process.

Step IV. Targeted Planning
Based on the work conducted in the three previous steps, we develop the actual path, focusing on connecting tactics to specific objectives.

Using an amalgamation of the data from the first three phases combined with digital and healthcare expertise, a flexible targeted plan is produced. This planning phase is built with a level of flexibility to incorporate progress within a drug lifecycle, ongoing digital trends, technology advancements, and updates to the overall communications plan.

We plan our campaigns, educational activities, and digital solutions within the context of the brand objectives. All digital touch points are evaluated through audience assessments. KPIs are built into each tactic and calibrated to our initial e-Analysis.

Step V. Holistic Sustainability
Why holistic? Well, aside from the fact that it serves as a nice conclusion to our e-Path acronym, it illustrates a level of sustainability that transcends the methodology and captures brand growth, voice, and influence. The objective here is to answer the following questions:

• Based on the KPIs set at the beginning of the program, and the objectives we agreed on, how did we do?
• Did all activities go as planned? If not, why not and what should we do differently next time?
• Given the evolving landscape, are our objectives still on target?

Summary
As you listen to presentations at the next digital pharma congress, consider how the tactical solutions are being positioned. Success in the digital healthcare space relies on one’s ability to strike a balance between innovation, exploration, and common sense marketing. As is the case with activity across the marketing spectrum, the key questions we must be able to answer are the following: What does “good” look like? How does this plan help me get there? How do I know if I have met my objectives?

If the answers to these questions are not clear, take a step back and reconsider your approach. Perhaps e-Path can help you challenge your presumptions, and navigate a path to Digital Success.

Hans Wernke is Vice President, Digital Sales & Marketing at eMedFusion (a division of KnowledgePoint360 Group). Hans partners with pharmaceutical, biotechnology, and medical device companies to help them optimize their communication with healthcare professionals through a broad range of strategic and tactical digital healthcare solutions. Contact him at Hans.Wernke@emedfusion.com.