To reach HCPs, don’t try to be everywhere. Just be where they are.

“Omnichannel” – the marketing strategy buzzword that has pervaded the space in the last several years – literally means “in every channel”; in effect, making sure a brand or message is everywhere.

But trying to be everywhere isn’t the best way to go about executing an omnichannel strategy, according to a panel of experts who shared their thoughts on a recent pharmaphorum webinar, sponsored by Medscape.

“It really is about meeting [healthcare providers] where they are in the right moment and not necessarily just being everywhere you possibly can be,” said Liisa Caliendo, senior vice president of global product strategy and marketing at Medscape. “I think that leads to a lot of wastage and a lot of wasted time for a lot of people. You really should be focused on being efficient and being in the right place at the right moment.”

Understanding your audience

To succeed in that targeted approach, marketers first must understand where providers are spending their time online, both in general and for the specific HCPs a campaign is seeking to reach.

“One of the barriers that we run into is we have these changing shifts of consumer behaviour,” said Justin Freid, chief media and innovation officer at CMI Media Group. “An HCP is a consumer. They are listening to podcasts. They are watching short-form videos on social media. They are not always picking up a magazine or some type of scholarly article. So, it's important to understand those media consumption behaviours upfront and have the right creative to meet these people where they're at.”

Gathering the necessary data is a multifaceted prospect. Freid noted that, at CMI Media Group, they look at script-writing behaviour to understand which physicians are innovators and which are more conservative in how they prescribe. Michael Brandreth, Medscape’s senior vice president of global sales, mentioned that publisher partners can be key assets in this area.

“We sit on an awful lot of first-party data, all publishers do,” he said. “And that can help with the development of segments, personas, journey planning, and it's not something we would charge for. So, whichever partner you're working with, push them and see what data they have that can improve the eventual outcome of the campaign.”

However you’re collecting data, there are a few considerations to keep in mind, said Kelly Smith, chief executive of health sector services at Four.

“It's about getting those data points, understanding where people go and behave, but actually always link it back to the objective, which sometimes I think can get lost in the weeds of trying to be everywhere,” she said. She also added that it’s important to make sure to be constantly updating your data and your data-gathering methods.

But with the right insights and the right channels, in today’s world, no one is unreachable.

“I don't think anyone is hard to reach anymore if you get the right user journey,” Smith said. “There are so many touch points now where we can engage people that, if you get that right, there isn't anyone that you can't access.”

Building trust with HCPs

Reaching HCPs is one thing, but, for your message to land, it must also be trusted. Building trust with providers is a long-term, overarching goal that must be kept in mind even as marketers focus on their brand awareness and sales priorities.

“Over the past 30 years, our members have trusted us to bring them accurate, truthful, relevant information at every point in time where they've needed it,” said Caliendo. “And it's that reliability and accuracy that's allowed us to build our membership network and keep it. It's taken us 30 years to get where we are. It would only take a second for us to lose that trust if we over-saturated our users or if we gave them inaccurate information.”

Trust is especially important, and elusive, for smaller companies trying to break into established areas, Freid said.

“We know HCPs can be creatures of habit, and if they're used to prescribing, you know, oncology drugs from one of the top oncology companies across the globe, they have a lot of trust in those individuals,” he said. “But as we've seen over the past couple of years, there are lots of companies expanding, getting into GLP-1s, getting into oncology, getting into to where they can help patients the most. They have to build that trust as the parent company, not just with the brands.”

Brandreth says the key to building trust is to really prioritise the provider’s needs.

“I hear a lot about customer centricity, but I still see too much out there that  I would class as pharma-centric, what pharma wants that doctor to consume and where,” he said. “But I think, in any industry, if it's not on the audience's terms, then you're not going to drive the best outcome. So, I think it's incumbent on pharma to build that from a trusted relationship and that, for me, is through a fair and balanced exchange of value.”

Final takeaways

Each of the panellists left attendees with one key takeaway for reaching providers where they are effectively.

“Challenge and co-create with your third-party partners,” said Brandreth. “Everything we've talked about today, whether it's personalisation, segmentation, journey orchestration – they are all achievable now, and there shouldn't be any excuses. So, challenge us and talk to us.”

“Content, content, content,” said Freid. “You can't execute omnichannel campaigns and deliver the next best action well if you are serving the same ad over and over again […] The more content you create that is based on data, the better the engagement you're going to have with HCPs.”

“It doesn't have to be complicated to achieve your goals,” said Caliendo. “It doesn't have to be an hour long.  It doesn't have to be five pages long.  Sometimes clear, concise, simple, [and] very upfront really does win the game, especially when you're talking about an audience that is not time rich.”

“It's about making sure that, whatever we're doing, we're setting clear, actionable goals and not just creating more buzzwords,” said Smith. “I think it's about making sure that we're getting the data, we're telling good stories, and we're really tracking that these campaigns are supporting our ambitions.” 

About Medscape

Medscape, a division of WebMD, is the leading, online, global destination for physicians and healthcare professionals worldwide. Our mission is to improve patient care by providing physicians with easy access to comprehensive clinical information and resources essential to healthcare professionals, as well as facilitating communication between healthcare companies and our active membership.

For almost 30 years, Medscape has been providing education, medical news, expert perspectives, and essential point-of-care drug and disease information to support practice and clinical behaviour.

Our network of sites and services, seamlessly interconnected via single-sign on, ensures that HCPs can access the content required via their platform of choice throughout their daily clinical journey.