Archive for the ‘Pharma Marketing’ Category

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Time to Turn the (Home)Page on Destination Websites? Not Quite

Thursday, December 10th, 2009

The growth of social media has taught us several things about consumer behavior. For one, people have an overwhelming desire to congregate, share experiences and evangelize about products. Another is that with the popularity of social aggregators and lifestreaming, people want to centralize their interest-related information rather than going several places to search for it.

This means that pharma marketers need to make product information relevant to several different-and sometimes divergent-audiences at the same time, while making personal connections and delivering unique online experiences to each.  Intelligent campaigns shouldn’t drive everyone to the same singular URL. Instead, they should be directed to destinations that are individualized by therapeutic category, treatment plan or area of specialization.

So does that mean that the standard generic company or product website is dead, as many have proclaimed? Not quite.

The generic website, whatever its role, is evolving, as is the way we use the Internet today. Where a product site was once the be-all and end-all, today it is more of a tourist info center on the information superhighway, pointing consumers in the right direction to interact with your product in the way that suits them best.

But that doesn’t mean that destination sites don’t hold value as a centralized location for information. Consumers still need someplace to go to get information on your product. It’s just that general sites have taken on a different level of importance now, especially when it comes to Search Engine Optimization for pulling in more “natural” and unpaid search results.

So what’s the best way to swim with the most current stream of online consumers and stay relevant without relying solely on a destination website? Be everything to everyone in your target audience. Instead of expecting consumers to search for you, shift the strategy to focus on being wherever they look online and customize your content, URLs and strategy to match their interests.

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Posted in Pharma Marketing, Social Media | No Comments »

Hearing Aid: Will FDA Deliberations on Social Media Help?

Wednesday, November 18th, 2009

The fact that the FDA held Internet-related hearings for the first time in more than a decade is a good first step toward acknowledging the importance of social media (SM) in pharmaceutical marketing.

With nearly two-thirds of Americans regularly searching for heath care information online – Google recently reported more than 4.5 billion health-related searches annually at the hearings – and an estimated 75% of adults having access to the Internet, SM, and how people engage with it, is clearly much more than a trend. It is a continuing shift in consumer behavior and how patients process information and make decisions.

Beyond marketing, the pharmaceutical industry needs to be afforded the opportunity to disseminate critical and valuable information through the channels their customers are using.

And although only four pharmaceutical companies presented at last week’s hearings, by the time the consultation period ends on February 28, 2010, it is a sure bet that most, if not all, of the major players will weigh in.

Most of last week’s presentations centered around three fundamental, if not obvious, themes:

1. A decision must be made quickly
The Internet moves quickly and will not stand still, even for the FDA. Social media is undeniably a powerful and important means of communicating with highly targeted audiences. Reaching the right audience for any product or service is essential to success, and in no other industry is that more apparent and important than pharma.

2. You cannot control Internet content all the time
The fact of the matter is that you cannot police the Internet and all of the content that gets posted 24 hours a day, 7 days a week. As mentioned in the previous post, almost 80 percent of the Internet population researches health topics online. Pharma should have some way to interact with this population, regardless of whether it’s as simple as banner ads on a web page or more complex like ensuring that drug information is listed correctly on social media sites.

3. Present clear guidelines and they will be followed
The overall feeling of the hearings was not one of defiance on behalf of pharma and advertisers. Instead, there was a borderline plea for clear-cut guidelines and regulations as to what can and can’t be done with social media and Internet advertising. After all, the hearings were partially due to the fact that the FDA had issued 14 warning letters to several pharma organizations earlier this year.

But will these hearings yield any action, or at least clear direction? Technology and SM will not wait for the FDA to labor over establishing guidelines in the traditional manner. If they spend time frittering, people will no longer be Twittering and will soon be on to the next SM trend.

Timely and decisive action is needed. But the key component will be to build in the flexibility to adapt to emerging trends.

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Posted in FDA, Marketing, Pharma Marketing | No Comments »

FDA Hearings on Social Media and Internet Marketing

Thursday, November 12th, 2009

Right now, the FDA is deliberating on how the pharmaceutical industry will be able to leverage social media and the Internet. The importance of these proceedings can’t be understated. In such a heavily regulated industry, the wheels of progress turn slowly and there has been difficulty tapping into the reach and power of emerging media outlets.

The fact is the marketing world is moving faster than the industry can keep up with. And with over 80 percent of the population researching health topics online, these hearings could be a watershed moment considering that tribal marketing is only going to increase as social networking becomes more ingrained into everyday life.   Both the FDA and US Government are leveraging technology to reach this audience and will hopefully soon provide clarity, along with guidance on new ways to communicate through this powerful medium.

But even as we wait for a verdict on how the FDA approves how social media and the Internet can be leveraged, the need for reaching these segmented audiences is still critical. Fortunately, AIR Health’s MyOperon web portal is the industry’s solution to reaching these crucial audiences through dynamic, preference-driven pharma marketing into one central, easy to access online hub. MyOperon communicates with audiences on an individual basis by aggregating the information they want and delivering it in the format they use most for an online community that is not only relevant, but also groundbreaking.

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Posted in FDA, Internet, Pharma Marketing | No Comments »

Dressed to the Nines for Launch

Wednesday, September 9th, 2009

Like many, 09-09-09 is a special day for us. And we’ve dressed up our site for the occasion. Part of what makes the date so special is that good things come in threes. Threes are easy to remember. That’s why today, 09-09-09, you’re seeing plenty of new launches and announcements. In that respect, AIR Health Group is no different than other smart marketers launching new advances today, like Apple’s new iPod or The Beatles. But the promise the company is bringing to pharma marketing is. And here are three ways we are doing it:

  • Power – Through the strength of Accentrx TM —our powerful suite of analytics and modeling tools—you will have the ability to understand, segment and target the physicians unlike never before.
  • Preference – With the customized MyOperon physician portal you will now know how physicians prefer to be communicated with, what they want to have communicated to them and when they are seeking that information. Being able to communicate on a more personal level, based on areas of specialization, patient population and personal preferences is more engaging for the physician and more effective for you.
  • Performance – At the end of 09-09-09 or any other day, it’s all about results. AIR Health Group’s analytics-based, preference-driven marketing approach has proven itself repeatedly in other industries and today we’re ready to begin doing it for you.

So enjoy this special day as so many others are. And if the power of threes hasn’t left its mark on you yet, here’s one more set of three you should really remember:

Analytics + Imagination = Results.

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Posted in AIR Health, AIR Marketing, Pharma Marketing | No Comments »

Advanced Analytic Marketing Application

Wednesday, September 9th, 2009

Today, we bring an exciting new marketing solution to pharmaceutical marketing through our unique experience and expertise. Over the past few weeks, we’ve been discussing the power of "customer preference" marketing, consolidating disparate data sources across the brand, improving messaging through segmentation and other related ROI-building ideas. Well, today, we bring to you not an idea or a concept, but an actual product. We introduce a solution set in answer to the challenges facing pharmaceutical marketing." We bring you a methodology and a system to help you dramatically improve ROI. We bring you AIR Health.

Who is AIR Health?

AIR Health LLC is a new division of AIR Marketing specifically targeted to pharmaceutical marketing. AIR is the nation’s leading data-driven, analytical marketing services company, built on the promise to measure and deliver ROI on each and every client program. Our philosophy is in the AIR name: Analytics, Imagination, and Results.

What is AIR Offering?

Building upon AIR Marketing’s expertise and its proprietary analytics technology called CycloneTM , AIR Health has developed two advanced marketing solutions for the pharmaceutical industry.

AccentrxTM: A powerful analytical model designed to aggregate across your brand(s), all relevant physician preferences, as well as all sales and marketing interactions at the individual physician level. The result is a "single view" of each of your physician targets. In short, Accentrx creates an EMR-Electronic Marketing Record-for each physician.

Once the physician profile is aggregated, the power of intelligence is unleashed through Accentrx.

  • Optimized Messaging - On an individual physician level, Accentrx gives you the ability to optimize and tailor messaging for each target physician based on his or her practice behavior, communications preferences and market dynamics (plan formularies, etc).
  • Preferred Marketing Channels - Analyzing individual physician interactions across your various marketing programs (internally and across all your third-party marketing vendors), Accentrx provides you with a Preferred Communication Channel profile for each of your target physicians. This profile sets up real-time benchmarking for individual marketing channel utilization and ROI metrics.
  • Individualized Target MD Communication Plan & Metrics - Accentrx provides you with an optimized message and tactical communication plan across your entire brand’s marketing programs. This preference-driven plan serves as the cornerstone when implementing most of your marketing programs across all sales and marketing channels, working from a single optimized database. Accentrx continues to capture and monitor all sales and marketing interactions across the brand, providing you with real-time longitudinal reporting and ROI analysis.

MyOperon

AIR Health further optimizes your marketing by taking all the intelligence derived from Accentrx on each of your target physicians and creating a pURL (personalized website and URL) for each of your physicians, called MyOperon. These individual pURLs provide a platform for your optimized message across all channels predicted by Accentrx and indicated as the preferred channels by the physician (medical representatives, live e-details, all Med-Ed activities, sample procurement, etc).

Each MD’s MyOperon pURL dynamically changes and adapts as the physician interacts with the site. As the physician clicks on one of your programs, other related marketing and education opportunities are presented in a prioritized fashion based on the physician’s profile and channel preferences. All of these preferences are stored and then leveraged to create an increasingly valuable experience for the physician.

These exciting offerings from AIR Health are based on over a decade of AIR experience and performance developing cutting edge analytical marketing programs for major Blue Chip Fortune 200 companies, including HealthNet, Hershey Entertainment & Resorts and others. You can find some of their stories on our website .

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Posted in AIR Health, AIR Marketing, Pharma Marketing, Return on Investment | No Comments »

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