Moving Beyond Tactics: How to Create a Digital Conversation with Patients

 Today's guest post is by: Pete Mehr, PhD, Chief Strategy Officer, Merkle Life Sciences Are your marketing methods “typical”, or “transcending”? Are you utilizing the capabilities available that will drive patient engagement? Pharmaceutical marketers have developed and offered patient opt-in programs for many years. A standard approach to these programs is to spend money on advertising – websites, BRCs, in-office, in-pharmacy, etc. – in the hopes of motivating patients to opt in. Once a patient opts in, there is a pre-defined campaign that the patient receives. A typical campaign starts with a welcome message, followed by a series of messages delivered within a specified time period (e.g., 7 days after the welcome message the next message is sent, followed by a third message 10 days after that, etc.). Additionally, these campaigns last approximately 6 months, after which the frequency of communication with the patient is dramatically reduced or even stopped entirely. And the result? On average, only 5% - 10% of patients opt in. The vast majority of patients are getting their healthcare information elsewhere. Why do you think this is happening? From my experience in the pharma industry, I have seen certain trends - and patients now are demanding tailored information, delivered how and when they want it. Our industry, however, is offering uniform messaging across opt-ins delivered when pharma companies want to send it, using channels they choose. Our ...
Source: ePharma Summit - Category: Medical Marketing and PR Tags: 2013 epharma summit Digital Marketing for Pharma merkle life sciences Source Type: blogs