Multichannel Relationship Marketing

Transcription

1 Multichannel Relationship Marketing A Special Collection of Reprints Published by: VirSci Corporation PO Box 760 Newtown, PA 18940

2 Contents Introduction... i Is Your Marketing Head in the Cloud?... 1 Podcast: Is Your (Marketing) Head in the Cloud?... 6 Making Sense of Multichannel Marketing... 8 Multichannel Marketing: Easy to Brag About, But Difficult to Do Multichannel Marketing & Medical Reprints The Evolving Pharma-Physician Relationship Building the "New" Pharma Physician Marketing Model Evolve Your Brand Into a Relationship With Consumers and Physicians The Digital Life of Doctors Podcast: The Changing Pharma edetailing Landscape PHARMA MARKETING NEWS Published by VirSci Corp. PO Box 760 Newtown, PA is an independent periodic electronic newsletter focused on issues of importance to pharmaceutical marketing executives. It is a service of the Pharma Marketing Network The First Forum for Pharmaceutical Marketing Experts which brings together pharmaceutical marketing professionals from manufacturers, communications companies, and marketing service providers for wide ranging discussions and education on a multitude of current topics. Each issue of is packed with facts, opinions, and case studies based upon interviews with experts in the field of pharmaceutical marketing. Highlights of presentations from industry conferences, contact lists for experts consulted, and links to references help subscribers keep up to date on best practices and network with their peers. Pharma Marketing Network & provide executive-level content coupled with permission-based e-marketing opportunities. Subscribe: Advertising information: VirSci Corporation ( All rights reserved.

3 Introduction Written by John Mack, Editor 2012 VirSci Corporation ( All rights reserved. i

4 M ultichannel pharma marketing is conceptually relatively simple to understand, but incredibly difficult in practice," says Len Starnes, former Head of Digital Marketing & Sales, General Medicine at Bayer Schering Pharma. "That said, multichannel is not a transient phenomenon, it s here to stay." This collection of reprints focuses mainly on issues related to multichannel marketing to physicians. What Exactly Is Multichannel Marketing? Proponents of MCM recognize that it is common for pharmaceutical company customers (consumers, patients, and physicians) to use different channels (print, TV, web, mobile, social media, etc.) at different stages of their decision cycles. Multichannel pharma marketing uses multiple synchronized communication channels to reach consumers, patients, and physicians with marketing communications or information at the appropriate point in their decision cycles. These days, pharma marketers cannot rely solely on reaching physician clients via sales reps and print journal ads. Digital channels including the Web, social media, and mobile are increasingly being used by physicians to access information about pharma brands. To successfully practice multichannel marketing to physicians, therefore, pharma marketers must master the digital channel and understand how physicians live online. Kantar Health s 2011 Digital Life survey provides a closer look at pharma s digital customers (see The Digital Life of Doctors ; page 39). Monique Levy, VP Research at Manhattan Research, reveals some details from Manhattan Research's 2011 epharma Physician market research study that the online promotion landscape changed, and which types of programs garner the largest audience (see Podcast: The Changing Pharma edetailing Landscape ; page 46). Data-driven Marketing To effectively implement MCM, it is necessary to collect data about the target audience such as channel preferences and other segmentation data. Marketing via digital channels adds a new dimension of available data. Multichannel marketers must operate in a new way, one that is more complex, technology-based and data-driven. Yet in many cases marketers do not have the tools they need to see an integrated view of their data, coordinate the customer experience across channels, and optimize campaigns in real-time to drive return on investment. Marketers have to be equipped with the tools to operate effectively in the new, more data-driven multichannel environment, says Bob Harrell, VP of Marketing for Appature, Inc. (see Is Your Marketing Head in the Cloud? ; page 1). Multichannel is really a tactic that is part of a relationship marketing strategy, which uses various interactive media to develop, maintain, and foster a relationship with a current and prospective customers to maximize need satisfaction, share of mind and budget, and nurture loyalty and, ultimately, advocacy of the brand of a product or service. Many experts agree that Relationship Marketing should be a natural for the pharmaceutical industry, which needs to support the long-term use of their products and help patients remain compliant with their treatment regime. But not many pharmaceutical marketers understand what relationship marketing is and how it differs from other forms of marketing that they traditionally employ. "Relationship marketing is permission-based, noted Keli Bennett, former Consumer Marketing Director at Abbott Laboratories. Communications are anticipated and relevant instead of random. Every communication asks for dialogue with respect. When permission is obtained, it creates a positive brand experience at every touch point (see Evolve Your Brand Into a Relationship with Consumers & Physicians ; page 35). Relationship building requires a multichannel approach and that is why I have entitled this collection of articles. I hope this collection provides you with a good introduction to the topic. John Mack, Publisher & Editor 2012 VirSci Corporation ( All rights reserved. ii

5 Chapter 1 Is Your Marketing Head in the Cloud? The Appature Nexus Marketing Cloud Software Platform This article originally appeared in the October 23, 2012, issue of (Reprint #PMN-11901) Written by John Mack, Editor 2012 VirSci Corporation ( All rights reserved. p. 1

6 A s the average pharma sales rep spends less time with physicians, healthcare marketers are becoming more pressured to seek other ways to drive effective marketing programs. Marketers must operate in a new way, one that is more complex, technology-based and data-driven. Yet in many cases marketers do not have the tools they need to see an integrated view of their data, coordinate the customer experience across channels, and optimize campaigns in real-time to drive return on investment (ROI). Appature, a unique software-as-a-service provider, sees this as an immense opportunity to couple the vast amount of data available to healthcare marketers with relationship marketing technology to discover new methods to personalize and optimize campaigns to both consumers and healthcare professionals. Trend Toward Technology Marketing has historically been one of the most underserved areas in the enterprise in terms of technology, said Bob Harrell, VP of Marketing for Appature, Inc. Much of the capability investment has focused on sales force with limited support for the broader marketing function, said Harrell. That trend is now shifting based on the growing prominence of other channels. Marketers have to be equipped with the tools to operate effectively in the new, more data-driven multi-channel environment. And that s where Bob Harrell Appature Nexus comes in. Appature Nexus is a Marketing Cloud software platform that drives sales growth through an integrated marketing database, campaign management tool and reporting/ analytics engine. Nexus is: Designed exclusively for the life sciences industry Surprisingly simple to use Enables you to choose the best service provider Can be rapidly implemented so you experience value quickly Nexus enables marketers to take an informed marketing approach that applies knowledge of their customers to marketing, sales or customer support decisions. Be in Command of Your Marketing Appature is on the cutting-edge of three key trends: the cloud, the transformation of pharma marketing model and increased investment in marketing software versus sales software, said Harrell. The focus on marketing software is so significant that Gartner recently noted that CMOs will spend more on technology than CIOs within the next 5 years. One of the key advantages of Appature Nexus is that it enables marketing to ramp up these capabilities quickly due to its cloud-based design. Clients have a subscription to the software and services are delivered through the browser rather than a large server-based IT infrastructure, thereby eliminating a huge investment of time, money and staff in software and servers housed on-site at the client s location. Continues Figure 1: Features of Appature Nexus Nexus 360 includes: Customer Segmentation Customer profile Nexus Touch includes: Channel Integration, Automated Campaigns, and Mobile Messages, Website Integration & Surveys; Nexus Insight includes: Operational Reports Insight Builder 2012 VirSci Corporation ( All rights reserved. p. 2

7 Nexus 360 Customer data that was once siloed web activity, metrics, mobile programs, sales force automation data, Rx data, tactics sent by third party vendors, etc. is fed into Nexus 360. Two key components in Nexus 360 are: 1. Rich customer profiles. Our goal is to provide marketers access to every commercially relevant data point, in one visual, easy to understand profile screen; and 2. An incredibly robust segmentation engine that is super easy to use. You don t need to know how to write any SQL Queries you are literally logging into a web browser and dragging and dropping attributes and entities to create your own customer segments on the fly. Nexus Touch Next is Nexus Touch, which includes a whole host of functionality that lets you reach out to your customers, design and coordinate the customer experience, customize messages, schedule and automate campaigns, and directly deploy both and mobile messages directly from the system. Nexus Insight Lastly, Nexus Insight provides business intelligence reports and data visualization tools that help you understand overall campaign performance and what s happening in your market to know what s working and what s not. What s really exciting about all of this is as you use this platform the system is getting smarter over time, automatically, says Harrell. Your ability to make intelligent decisions gets better with each touch point whether the customer responded to a campaign or not so you can use that to make decisions about what channels, messages, offers etc., to use for particular customers and segments. Simple and Secure Finally, to make ALL this truly surprisingly simple, Appature Nexus has highly configurable views. You might want to have a view to provide to your senior management with all of the reporting around performance and maybe some market segmentation. But you want your team or your agency to have the power of creating and launching the campaigns, and maybe you only want one particular user to be able to hit the big red button and launch a campaign. That is all possible and very easy with Appature Nexus. Appature Nexus is designed with the stringent security and data storage requirements of the healthcare industry in mind. Each installation of Appature Nexus resides in its own isolated data cluster providing physical separation of data, protected storage, reliable data redundancy, and full 128-bit encryption for all data transmitted over the wire. Appature Nexus installations are housed in a SAS 70 Type II certified state-of-the-art co-location facility with biometric security and videocamera surveillance. Located on a major Internet backbone, rapid response times and high availability are of important consideration to both Appature and to our customers. The following is an edited podcast interview of Bob Harrell who explained how Appature Nexus fits in to the new commercial model: John Mack: Talking about the new commercial model that pharma is going through, can you explain what you mean by that? Because I think different people have different ideas of what the new commercial model is. Bob Harrell: One way to look at it is by looking at the change in the marketing approach in other industries. If you look at financial services, for example, they don t make the same kind of margins that we do in pharma. So when they make a credit card offer to you, they have to be really savvy and sophisticated about how they make that offer, how they optimize their marketing. Compare that to the way we ve approached it in pharma for the last 34 years, which is sales reps fully loaded, costs that are very expensive, one-on-one conversations with doctors, etc. It s not just moving to a more multichannel approach or just moving to more optimization. It s a whole different process of marketing that other industries have evolved to over the last 50 years. One that involves technology capabilities, multiple channels, and types of measurement and optimization that the pharma industry is not accustomed to doing. Financial services or consumer package goods like P&G did TV in the 1940s. By the 1980s, they were doing fairly sophisticated direct mail. Then by the 1990s they were doing pretty effective data driven multichannel marketing and of course became very savvy on the web early on and now have an entire engine behind campaign management optimization, changing the offer made to you versus the offer to your next door neighbor. Move Up to Informed Marketing Well, the pharma industry is pretty much in the place where these other industries were between the 80s and the 90s. Now that we re moving more into the place that other industries already addressed i.e., tougher business environment as well as more complex channels we re going to have to move along that maturity curve in the same that they have. We just got a lot more catching up to do and we re going to have to do it faster. Continues 2012 VirSci Corporation ( All rights reserved. p. 3

8 JM: Now you just mentioned this maturity curve. Can you tell me a little more about what you mean by that? BH: Imagine two axes one axis is the pressure on margins and ROI. On the other, is the complexity of the customer, the different types of customers you re trying to reach, the different types of channels (see Figure 2, below). As you move to a greater pressure on ROI and greater customer and channel complexity, your marketing sophistication or maturity has to increase. At the bottom of the curve is traditional mass push marketing, which is the old way we ve done marketing. As you move up the curve, you get data integration and a 360 view of the customer requiring more planning around the customer experience and integrating channels. At the top right of the curve is what we call informed marketing. Informed marketing means not only do you have a view of your customers, but you understand every offer and activity that you re making. At this point you optimize your marketing on a daily or weekly basis, getting the most out of your marketing dollars. You can t get to the informed marketing portion of the curve overnight. To get to that point, you need a set of skills, processes, and capabilities that just weren t required or available in the past. Get Your Head in the Cloud JM: I have an impression that pharmaceutical companies know a lot about what their sales reps are doing. That s just one channel though. So when you re talking about multi channels, it really amplifies the skills and capabilities that you need and the data that you re getting. But can you tell us how the cloud concept fits in with this? What does that bring to the table here? BH: First, I agree with your point about having visibility and understanding of what the sales reps are doing. I think of it almost as if you had one arm that you re working out for 20 years and you ve got these massive biceps on your right arm and your other arm is going to atrophy. It s a little bit like the balance of the marketing and sales arms in our business. You have the sales arm shrinking a little bit and people now need to work out the marketing arm in a way that they haven t had to before. I d say it s still not caught up. We don t have like symmetry yet in our two arms. We re looking at the full customer experience across all these different channels and that s the new way of thinking about it for our industry. Regarding your question about the cloud the cloud is really just a technology that Appature uses to deliver Continues Figure 2: Marketing Maturity Curve 2012 VirSci Corporation ( All rights reserved. p. 4

9 software. Instead of maintaining software from many sources on enterprise servers and hiring a full-time staff to look after it, in the cloud model you just have a subscription. The software is available through the magic of the web and you access it through a browser. You can have very sophisticated capabilities that sit somewhere else that you can access through the cloud. You pay a monthly subscription and you get this really efficient, highly secure access to the technology and the data. Amazon s cloud-based server service is a good example. You rent space from them or you can host your websites or your data with them and you just pay them a monthly fee. Now obviously, there s a location where Amazon has all these servers and their whole infrastructure, but they make it really easy for you. You sign up just like you would for a utility and you pay them a monthly fee and the electricity comes to your house. We build marketing software and marketing technology and provide it to brand managers and marketing operations and commercial operations groups on a subscription basis. Pharma companies have a huge investment in sales force technology and have been building the marketing equivalent of that for the last five years, but it s all enterprise server-based stuff. Not to get too technical about it, but there s customer management software like Siperian customer master and a data warehouse built on top of that. Then, added to that are campaign management software like Unica and business reporting objects on top of that. Companies stitch that whole thing together into some sort of Frankenstein system hosted on multiple servers. The bottom line is it s too expensive for most companies to access, very hard to upgrade, very complex and you also have to have this infrastructure and staff to support it. Appature was specifically built to (a) be focused on life sciences, (b) provide an end-to-end marketing technology platform, and (c) enable people to just subscribe to it like a utility through the cloud. Surprisingly Simple JM: Is that what you mean by being surprisingly simple? Just having access to all this information in one place integrated in a browser-based dashboard look at things making it simple for marketers who might be data challenged? BH: Yes, but there s a couple of layers to what we mean by simple. One is how simple and quick is it to get the service. Instead of spending twelve months to build all these server racks and all the software that has to be stitched together to make it work, you can just order it from Appature and in a matter of weeks or short months, it will be implemented and ready for use. So that s one aspect of simple. The other aspect of simple is once you have the service, you don t need to be a Unica programmer to launch a campaign, or be an analytics programmer and expert to be able to access the reporting tool. Appature created not only a cloud-based subscription approach, but also a simple user interface. We can train people in a half day or a day how to use the entire system as opposed to other marketing automation approaches and marketing technologies that rely on a lot of complex manipulation and skills that are difficult and time-consuming to learn. The last aspect of simple is access to data. If a marketer wants to see how a campaign is performing, he or she can go to a laptop or an ipad and pull up the desired information and directly ask intelligent questions from the data without calling a techie to run a query and then waiting three weeks for the result. Listen to the Podcast Harrell had much more to say about Appature s Nexus product suite or, as he calls it, marketing power grid. To hear it all, please listen to the podcast here: or visit the Appature website here: VirSci Corporation ( All rights reserved. p. 5

10 Chapter 1A Podcast: Is Your (Marketing) Head in the Cloud? A chat with Bob Harrell about exploring the new commercial model based on "informed," data-driven relationship marketing and technology This podcast originally aired August 21, VirSci Corporation ( All rights reserved. p. 6

11 A conversation with Bob Harrell, VP of Marketing at Appature. Harrell discusses the transformation currently underway in the pharma commercial model, as well as his company's "surprisingly simple" cloud-based marketing software platform for pharma and medical device companies. As the average pharma sales rep spends less time with physicians, healthcare marketers are becoming more pressured to seek other ways to drive effective marketing programs. Appature's CEO, Kabir Shahani sees this as an immense opportunity to use the vast amount of data available to healthcare marketers coupled with relationship marketing technology to discover new methods to digitally personalize the healthcare professional experience. Some Questions/Topics Discussed: 1. What are the major changes you see happening in the industry right now with regard to physician promotion? 2. What gaps currently exist in pharma marketing teams or capabilities that may create risk in addressing the new commercial model? 3. Why have marketing organizations been slow to change over the past several years as the commercial model has been shifting around them? 4. What does it mean to be an "informed marketer"? 5. Why is marketing technology critical to achieving the next stage of evolution for pharma brand managers? Click on box above to listen to the podcast or Click here: VirSci Corporation ( All rights reserved. p. 7

12 Chapter 2 Making Sense of Multichannel Marketing Towards Achieving the "Holy Grail" of Marketing Effectiveness This article originally appeared in the October 23, 2012, issue of (Reprint #PMN-11902) Written by John Mack, Editor 2012 VirSci Corporation ( All rights reserved. p. 8

13 A s the average pharma sales rep spends less time ultichannel marketing (MCM) is considered the "holy grail" for many marketers in pharma and other industries. It has become a hot topic even though there is a huge amount of misunderstanding about what it really is. This issue has troubled Len Starnes, Former Global Head of Digital Sales and Marketing at Bayer, now an independent consultant who provides strategic social media and digital marketing services to the global pharma industry. Len Starnes When I spoke to marketers, said Starnes, from a conceptual standpoint they said multichannel marketing is easy to understand using multiple channel to target, motivate and engage your audience. Everyone seemed to understand that. But the second thing I discovered was that it was extremely difficult in practice. Starnes hosted a poll on LinkdedIn that asked, "Will pharma marketing become de facto multichannel marketing in future?" (see Figure 1, below). A more complete presentation of results from that poll as well as comments from Starnes and colleagues can be found in Chapter 3 (see Multichannel Marketing: Easy to Brag About, but Difficult to Do ; page 13). This article summarizes the discussion lead by Starnes during a recent MultiChannel Webinar hosted by eyeforpharma, which also hosted the 2nd Annual Multichannel and Mobile Strategy conference November, 2012, in London. Also speaking at the webinar was Tim White, Head of Digital Commercialization Europe for Novartis, Benedikt Hoffmann, Head of ebusiness, Janssen, and Morten Kamp Jorgensen, Director, Corporate Brand & Reputation, at Vestas, a company that specializes in wind power solutions. The following is an edited transcript of the eyeforpharma webinar. Listen to the webinar here: Len Starnes: The first question is a very simple one: What exactly is Multichannel? Is there one single definition that fits all? Tim White Tim White: Multichannel is a very complex topic. For me the most important thing to understand is that channels are just the ways that we communicate with our customers. Put that way, it sounds simple. But multichannel is really the strategy the business process that we use to approach our customers. Continues on page 11 Figure 1: Len Starnes LinkedIn MCM Poll Results 2012 VirSci Corporation ( All rights reserved. p. 9

14 Taking Multichannel Marketing To The Next Level From The Multichannel Maturity Mandate, Forrester Research ( There is no de facto standard definition of multichannel marketing. Forrester explores the practice by describing four levels of multichannel maturity, identifying the key characteristics of each level (see Figure 2, below). The four levels are: Channel entropy. Non-integrated channel operations are the baseline of the multichannel maturity model. Marketers in this category independently manage customer interactions within each channel. They may have multiple teams executing programs in the same channel. The business logic behind the customer engagement strategy is different in each channel. Companies operating at this stage maintain independent channel-specific data stores. No true cross-channel capabilities exist across the enterprise. Only 5% of the respondents in our survey fell into this category. Channel independence. Managed channel operation is the mode in the next stage in the maturity model. Marketers in this category still manage customer engagement independently within each channel. However, they have integrated the teams executing programs in the same channel. The lack of process and technology integration we discovered leads to the conclusion that more than 50% of the respondents in the commissioned Forrester survey, who characterized themselves as mature multichannel practitioners, fell into this category. Multichannel integration. Integrated, cross-channel visibility characterizes the third stage of maturity. Marketers operating at this level have a single view of customer data, interactions, and transactions across multiple channels, in near real time. The integrated view of the customer s multichannel interactions enables marketers to execute cross-channel campaigns and to analyze the results. However, this integration is at the data level, not the process level. Customers can, and usually do, have different experiences in different channels. Multichannel engagement. Holistic cross-channel customer engagement is the practice of the most mature multichannel marketers. Marketers operating at this level have a single view of customer data, interactions, and transactions across multiple channels. Processes are consistent across channel and user interfaces. Customer engagement in each channel is aware, and informed by, offers and interactions in other channels. Customers expect and receive consistent, reliable interactions with the company. Figure 2. MCM Must Evolve. Source: Starnes, SlideShare ( VirSci Corporation ( All rights reserved. p. 10

15 Going even further, we can talk about how we are getting information back from customers. The key, however, is that we are leveraging the field force, , Web, social, mobile any of these various ways that we can communicate it s the full package that drives a true multichannel strategy. Benedikt Hoffmann: When implementing multichannel marketing, sometimes you have to take some shortcuts and focus on certain channels. But as Tim said, it s really looking at the whole mix of channels. But when when you re trying to solve a specific challenge, you will have to focus on some channels to also prove the impact of what you are doing. Morten Kamp Jorgensen Morten Kamp Jorgensen: To me multichannel is about ensuring an integrated approach to the key audience and making sure that you actually hit them with targeted messages with the highest possible relevance and making it as convenient and valuable for them to engage with you. LS: Definitions are good but not always that useful. So let s move on and really get to the core of multichannel. What really are the essentials of true or good multichannel? I m stressing true and good here. What are the keys to executing really good multichannels? BH: You clearly have to define the objective what do you want to achieve and be pragmatic because you have to show the value of what you re doing quite quickly. Sometimes you try to do the whole market channel, but it takes too long to show the value. The approach we are using is to define specific challenges and then identify the channels we are going to use. Then we implement the campaign and make sure that we integrate all the data across the different channels. Afterwards can show the value in terms of cost saving but also in terms of sales impact. TW: Integration for me is absolutely key. We may be doing an campaign and also have reps out in the field with ipads. But in order to do true multichannel it s about setting that vision, setting that target and then working through the processes, working to set up the right integrated systems. That requires working with IT and other partners. Behind all that is a great deal of change management and being able to understand where our customers are and to be accessing them on their terms and getting them the right message at the right time. LS: Do you have any comments about the technology that is required? Do you have in-house technology or from the vendor side? TW: Personally, I am a big believer in subscriber software service [software as a service; SaaS]. I think SaaS gives conservative industries like pharma the ability to catch up quite quickly on the tech side and actually stay up to speed with the rest of the world. It s all about finding the right technology partner. But let s face it. Other industries are doing multichannel marketing very, very well as the technology exists. That s why I come back to the idea that this is an internal thing, this is within organizations. So let s go out there, let s find the right technology and then let s starts focusing on the business and the people in our organization and make it a reality. LS: I would like to move on now to channels. How do you select the right channels, bearing in mind we have so many channels today? BH: One approach I am using in Germany where we still have a pretty good access to physicians by the field force is to use the field force to capture channel preferences of our physician customers. The other is approach is to just use different channels like direct mailing, phone calls, etc. and see who is responding and who is not responding and thereby refine the channel preference of your physicians. So I think you just have to start and have a good CRM system in the back end to be able to improve the channel preference information you have. TW: You have to first look at the objectives and then go fish where the fish are. Over time you can let your customers self select their preferred channels. This is the concept of approaching your customers on their own terms. It requires marketers that understand their customers. At that point you are starting to get into service itself and not just some kind of multichannel one way marketing. LS: Is social media a channel suitable for pharma? TW: Typically, we think of Facebook, Twitter, LinkedIn, etc. as social media channels. But social media in itself is a concept that says content is shareable. We are listening and not just pushing out information via these channels. Not everything is going to have a share on Facebook button and or is going to be on Twitter because we obviously know the regulatory and other limitations the drug industry faces. Continues 2012 VirSci Corporation ( All rights reserved. p. 11

16 We can learn a lot of lessons from other companies that have approached social media from service perspective and also learn who are the influencers in our sector and what they do in social channels. LS: While multichannel marketing usually focuses on old marketing channels, most of your job titles refer to digital marketing. Does this mean that your focus is exclusively on digital channels or do you manage all channels? BH: Digital is our focus area, but we are integrating that with all the alternative channels from direct marketing to digital. Of course, we try to integrate what we are doing with our field force. So yes it says digital but it means multichannel and including a very closed loop with our field force. LS: Let s move on now to a question that I know a lot of people are interested in. How do you measure ROI or determine cross channel KPIs? BH: In the end you have to show senior management what is the sales impact or what is the return on investment. That s the ultimate goal. But of course you normally also define leading indicators that show you whether your project is running well and which channel might be the most effective one. If you have to show the value for the first time, you should define some pilots and say okay we are just using this approach in one region with one customer segment and then track the sales. That s one way to do it. LS: But do you try to determine common KPIs for each channel so you have some basis for comparison? BH: You can say okay we reached so many physicians by , so many opened and so many clicked through, but in the end it doesn t show you anything in terms of sales. So you can measure all those leading indicators and you can compare different campaigns by channel. But in the end you have to show the sales impact or the impact of cost savings. This you can only do if you really define areas or customer segments where you have a control group and where you have the group where you are implementing the certain campaign. LS: Tim, would you like to tell us what Novartis is doing on the ROI front? TW: ROI is a really hot topic. In countries where we can t subscribe to customer level data it s very hard to determine pure ROI on anything. We have different models that we use to try and get around this, but digital gives us a whole new set of metrics that we are able to wrap around these activities as well. So we can look at things like the amount of time we are actually spending with our customers and whether or not that is increasing. With digital, we now understand things we never knew before such as what type of content is actually being discussed and what conversations are having an effect on sales. There are certainly leading performance indicators, but the ability to then see where the different levers that you are pulling are having an effect on your sales is only going to come when you can understand as much as possible the full picture of the contact points you are having with your customers. It might sound like a broken record but it comes from integration, it comes from making sure your technology is all talking to itself and you have a 360 view of the customer. Then you look at the sales from there. Driving Change Management LS: Are you finding that marketers are willing to accept these types of leading indicators rather than hard ROI? How do your marketers feel about that? MKJ: I don t think the marketers are the problem here. I m more worried about executive management. It s difficult to argue against facts. So that s why we try and base all our efforts on the power of facts and create as much transparency around our activities as possible. We measure everything we do and that can actually take you quite far. To do that you need to develop a culture of professionalizing your business. So ultimately I would also argue this is the matter of change management as was mentioned earlier. LS: Regarding change management, do you have any advice for marketers that are used to traditional field force campaigns and not multichannel or integration? How have you driven change management? TW: My perspective on change management is that you have to set a vision. You have to paint a picture of where you want to go. Maybe that means we are not going to get there in one year or in maybe one project, but we are going to reshape the organization. Over time what happens is you can get people starting to actually believe in that and they can start to say this is why we are doing it and this is why my role fits into this puzzle. Also, find your milestones and say we ve got a lot of success out of this project and we saved X amount of millions of Euros or we grew share voice by 10% by implementing this. These are really good milestones but the real change management then comes in when you say we are going here, here is the vision, here is the picture and then everything starts to fall in place over time but it is a process it s not something that happens overnight VirSci Corporation ( All rights reserved. p. 12

17 Chapter 3 Multichannel Marketing Easy to Brag About, but Difficult to Do This article originally appeared in the July 26, 2012, issue of (Reprint #PMN-11703) Written by John Mack, Editor 2012 VirSci Corporation ( All rights reserved. p. 13

18 M ultichannel pharma marketing (MCM) is conceptually relatively simple to understand, but incredibly difficult in practice," says Len Starnes, former Head of Digital Marketing & Sales, General Medicine at Bayer Schering Pharma. "That said, multichannel is not a transient phenomenon, it's here to stay," according to Starnes. Starnes is well-known for his LinkedIn surveys, such as a 2009 survey that asked "Will doctors' social networks radically change pharma marketing & sales?" Thirty-one percent of respondents to that survey thought this would happen within 2 years (by 2011) and 38% said within 5 years (2014). For more on that, read "Socially Challenged Pharma" ( I think it hasn't happened yet, but multichannel marketing (MCM) to physicians these days must surely include social media "channels" and even more importantly mobile. But given the "incredible difficulty" of implementing MCM, Starnes is hosting another survey on LinkedIn (here), which asks "Will pharma marketing become de facto multichannel marketing in future?" The results to date are shown in the chart below (see Figure 1). There seems to be overwhelming sentiment that MCM will be de facto for pharma within 5 years. Starnes' survey also has generated a good number of comments, some of which are included below. My own opinion, however, has to do with the difficulty of implementation vs. the ease with which pharma marketers talk about MCM, which used to be called "Customer Relationship Marketing (CRM)." Continues Figure 1. Will pharma marketing become de facto multichannel marketing in the future? LinkedIn poll by Len Starnes. N=226. Survey ended August, VirSci Corporation ( All rights reserved. p. 14

19 MCM is the New CRM I've attended many pharma marketing conferences in the past that focused on "CRM." These days, however, I don't see any CRM presentations included in conference agendas, whereas there are conferences dedicateed to "Multichannel Marketing." More often than not, these conferences actually focus on digital marketing. The September, 2012, Pharma Marketing Show (Europe) is a good example. Its description includes this observation: "The pharmaceutical marketing sector is fast moving with new marketing techniques developing to meet the wider challenges of the industry. Over recent years, pharma has learnt what emerging technologies such as online and mobile can offer to a marketing campaign." There were some very interesting presentations on the agenda; even a couple that address the "difficult" part of MCM: data collection and management (propeller head stuff) such as: Managing and analysing vast amounts of data How can pharma utilise data to enhance strategic marketing? Using big data to integrate multiple sourced customer information and improve quality of customer engagement Bring in the Propeller Heads In my mind, pharma marketers are "old school", meaning they believe marketing is more of an art than a science (see, for example, "Are Marketers Artists or Mathematicians?"; When I talk to my nephew who sells digital media advertising, it's all about numbers and esoteric measurement terminology, which is way over my head. These numbers, I bet, cause many pharma marketers' eyes to glaze over. But for MCM to be successful, more pharma marketers must become "propeller heads" or hire, enable, and listen to them, IMHO. Here's a sampling of what experts are saying in relation to Len Starnes' LinkedIn survey: Sales Are Nowhere to be Seen Christopher Wade said: Len - good question! It's not surprising that the consensus is that MCM will become the norm - in terms of aspiration if not actual reality - over the next few years, but I suspect that like other tech-dependent initiatives it will remain the preserve of the few if it sits in the same marketing organisations that exist today. My opinion is that one of the key points on which pharma trips time and again is that sales are nowhere to be seen. Marketing's role as understanding the product / customer / need space and formulating tactics is no less important, but the group that has the information, resources and experience in executing complex activities is the sales force, or more specifically the SFE / SFO group. I would hope that marketing has access to a level of analyst support that helps them to identify key segments and understand their behaviour and preferences, but implementing is where sales excels - they just need to realise that their competence spans more than the rep/territory model. MCM Requires Two-way Dialogue Robert Nauman said: Excellent discussion. Thanks for asking the question. I honestly have to say no. My rational is born from the assumption that good Multichannel marketing requires some interaction on the part of the other party. We all suggest it is the marketing paradigm that has to change here. I am growing skeptical in my belief that will occur anytime soon on the patient or the HCP side, can industry create a real two way dialogue. And given the recent US case with GSK and there $3Billion whistleblower settlement, My opinion is that other entities (not supported by pharma dollars) will be producing the content that meets the needs of healthcare consumers and professionals today. And pharma marketing will not be paying for that content creation. I believe that if truly tested, pharma produced content scores very poorly to content produced via other healthcare entities. In terms of the multichannels, it adds a level of complexity that in the silo'd world of pharma marketing today, may not be operational. The grow of mobile and video's use in that channel is tremendous. And in developing nations, SMS messaging is making great strides in improving health care yet the industry is not leading in either of these approaches. It is sad, but I believe this is pushing marketers into similar roles that we see in the medical device industry today. Very few marketing dollars, very little innovation. MCM Requires Content with Value Paul Simms said: Great question, Len. You're good at these! Rob, hope you're well (haven't spoken in ages...) I wanted to respond to your point, which unfortunately saddened me. I see every industry in the world, with the exception of pharma, investing in 'content' as a way of engaging its audience - because it works.yet pharma still seems reluctant to engage those who can speak in the doctor's language (the medical affairs / liaison folks) fully as a communication device. These days we have simply moved from physician access to now worrying about payer access and soon it will be fretting over patient access. To me it feels like pharma continues to create the equivalent of a TV channel that plays only commercials - and that's never going to create high engagement or trust. Stuck on the one blaring channel, night and day. Yes, you are right, pharma is starting Continues 2012 VirSci Corporation ( All rights reserved. p. 15

20 from a difficult position and news like that from GSK doesn't help. But are you resigning us all to eternal oblivion? To me the only way to dig ourselves out of this rut is to begin to produce content of value (let alone services of value) and to build those bridges. Otherwise pharma, and by default, healthcare will never reach its true potential. It is possible for GSK et al to produce content of value and to build trust that way. As for multichannel, I can't believe we're talking about it like it's something revolutionary (yes I'm guilty of running events on the topic but that's only because it's what everyone tells me they want...). I'm personally astounded we're even bothering to distinguish between the channel at all. Indeed it's a gross manifestation of the focus on the medium rather than the message. As some have said, we should simply provide valuable wisdom in whatever convenient format our customers request, and use technology to adapt to multiple channels in a semi-automated fashion. Again, that's what other industries do. Can you imagine FMCG or other B2C industries having a big debate about multichannel??? Len Starnes: Reflecting on the comments from both Rob and Paul I am fully convinced that pharma is capable of providing "content", via whatever channel is necessary, and that HCPs want the industry to deliver it -- but it must be on their terms. Using Paul's TV analogy this would be a shift from airing commercials to running full-on documentaries. I state this having recently spoken to a leading doctors' social network here in Germany, Esanum, who's CEO confirmed that 80% of its 33,000 members want to access pharma "content" and engage with pharma peers (aka Medical Affairs, MLOs). This once again reconfirms my research with similar networks globally which indicates that the majority of community members welcome industry engagement of all types. What astounds me is that pharma largely continues to ignore these networks in its multichannel efforts -- snail mail and still appear to be brand managers' favourites. MCM Requires Resources and Experienced Marketers, Not Rookies Sandra Muzinich: Len, thanks for instigating a great MCM debate! Mmm are we becoming tired of hearing all about the wonderful world of MCM but seeing very little of it in practice in Pharma? I have hung my hat on 10 years...many of my reasons already clearly articulated by previous comments. It is inevitable but it will take turning Pharma marketing and its entire business model on its head - that's where it is getting stuck today...old familiar models, Sales in their DNA, product centric focus - maybe it's safer to do what we've always done? As Jonathan R. already mentioned, the mind set needs to shift to long term strategies which outlast the current short term tenure of a brand manager in post - with resources and expertise to match. Now we have to think beyond tactics and we can no longer give this job to a rookie marketer who just happens to be an ex- Sales Rep. MCM is a completely new way of looking at the Pharma business model and a truly multidisciplinary undertaking. Who is responsible for managing that kind of change in a company? I am very excited for the companies who recognise this and have the insight and commitment to their customers to truly adapt - these will be the companies that thrive...it's time to move on! MCM Is Expensive R. A. Bavasso: Defacto? Pharma has not even mastered single channel marketing, how will it master MCM? I think that vendors will be more proactive in promoting MCM strategies and tactics but in a multivendor per brand world, who will coordinate centralization? MCM, if done correctly, is expensive. Much more so than the single message, disjointed channel approach. I think part of the reluctance of Pharma to traverse MCM is the overwhelmingly cerebral undertaking it requires and the "not currently budgeted" costs to ensure success. All of us agree that MCM has a greater likelihood of success than traditional efforts but the long term timeframe required to realize those successes does not fit within the Pharma brand manager's traditional short term horizon (average term of brand manager is 18 months). It took 13 years for Pharma to adopt CLM with any vigor. Count on another years before you see true MCM adoption VirSci Corporation ( All rights reserved. p. 16

21 Chapter 4 Multichannel Marketing & Medical Reprints Putting Science on ipads, Apps, and HCP Websites This article originally appeared in the July 26, 2012, issue of (Reprint #PMN-11701) Written by John Mack, Editor 2012 VirSci Corporation ( All rights reserved. p. 17

22 T he distribution of medical reprints to healthcare professionals (HCPs) by sales reps is not only a logistical problem but a channel problem as well. Physicians these days are less and less likely to spend much time with sales reps and many are reluctant to open their doors to sales reps. On top of that, physicians are now very comfortable using mobile devices to access electronic versions of reprints (see What Do HCPs Really Want?, page 19). The good old paper reprint distribution world is a hassle these days, said Peter Derycz, President and CEO of Reprints Desk, during a recent Pharma Marketing Talk podcast. The logistical challenge of getting the reprints into the hands of your sales reps or delivered to the right conference at the right time is a Peter Derycz hassle in and of itself, said Derycz. Plus you have to deal with a variety of publishers regarding copyright payments and also make sure that you are in compliance with FDA regulations related to the distribution of reprints (for more on that topic, see FDA Finalizes Guidance on Distribution of Reprints ; PMN81-03; Reprints Desk ( helps life science companies and communications agencies deploy medical reprints as part of their multichannel marketing and sales efforts. For many of life science companies and healthcare agencies, Reprints Desk is a one-stop shop for quoting, licensing, and deployment of single e-prints and multi-article, multi-publisher e-print collections. Recently, Reprints Desk launched a product called Article Viewer, which allows life science companies and publishers to deploy copyrighted e-prints and other marketing materials via ipads and other tablets, or via their own apps and websites in a controlled manner (see box, right). The following is an edited transcript of an interview with Peter Derycz. You can listen to the full interview here: John Mack (JM): Pharmaceutical companies have always distributed reprints to physicians, even reprints of published studies on off-label use of drugs if the physician specifically asked for them. Is that primarily the role that Reprints Desk is involved in when it comes to pharmaceutical marketing? Peter Derycz (PD): Yes. Scientific, peer-reviewed reprints are a good way to communicate the effectiveness of a product or how it compares with other products. We try to assist in this scientific-based communication and marketing process. e-reprint Deployment Challenges JM: As mentioned in the introduction, there are significant challenges involved in the distribution of reprints by pharma companies, including copyright issues. Can you explain a little bit more what challenges pharma faces with regard to the distribution of reprints? Article Viewer Continues Article Viewer is a mobile/web application for deploying copyrighted medical reprints via ipads, your own app for mobile devices, product websites, and portals for healthcare professionals and patients. Reprints Desk specifically designed Article Viewer for use by companies in pharmaceuticals, biotechnology, medical devices and diagnostics, as well as scientific publishing. Article Viewer is powered by a content management console that enables authorized administrators to efficiently load and deploy article e-prints and to access on-demand usage analytics. Users with ipads can access the content they need by downloading the free Article Viewer mobile app from Apple's App Store, then load articles they have licensed for anytime and anywhere access. Users can also access article e-prints, both single e-prints and collections of e-prints, via a sleek interface on the web. Articles remain accessible according to license agreements secured with rights holders VirSci Corporation ( All rights reserved. p. 18