Marketers are casting all the old conventions aside—or planning to. After all, consumers have changed significantly, becoming savvier about health, brand messaging, their relationships with physicians, and the healthcare system as a whole. They have concerns, uppermost in mind, about their health and quality of life.
That means marketers need to always keep one important key front of mind: Delivering on unmet needs. This is particularly true when it comes to personalized medicine brands. Physicians treating rare, sometimes obscure, diseases say the “sell, sell, sell” approach just does not work—and that is now morphing into a more heavily educational approach that offers docs a solid look at why one treatment might provide better benefits than another and then how to navigate affordable access for their patients. And for patients, that means a demonstration of caring from both doctors and brands—offering an ear on social media, in person, or through advocacy groups, and help for caregivers and patients managing daily obstacles. To win hearts today, and up your ROI, empathy is key. These are just a few ways marketers are doing it.
Some patients, on the other hand, are virtually wired into the healthcare system. They prefer to manage their conditions and maintain health through apps and wearables that track (even during the night) and transport information to their physicians or nurses, who alert the patient and direct a change in course. Our author, Fabio Gratton, sees this trend going much, much further to a time when our current user interfaces will become obsolete, making way for an “invisible interface” that sounds like the stuff of fantastical science fiction.
So many people in our industry are studiously rising above old conventions, and in our annual Innovations Issue next month, these innovators will prove we are well on our way to a re-imagined, improved future. You won’t want to miss it!
Finally, the polls are open for 2017’s PM360 Pharma Choice Awards—the only awards in which you, our readers, decide the winners. Visit our online voting site (www.pm360online.com/pharmachoice-vote) and choose your favorite in each of our categories. Our January issue will showcase the winners.
