Engaging the disinterested customer

The WSJ recently ran a piece on the growth of digital marketing in American pharma.  As with so many of these articles it begins with dark portents of the death of the drug rep and then frantically rows back from there to conclude that reports of this death are greatly exaggerated.

All pharma companies now have some sort of 'digital' capability, however, the buzzword is too broad to be useful in dissecting industry trends.  Digital is employed by pharma in two broad ways: -

1. Shinier presentations on iPads given to reps
2. Websites for doctors to access information

Whilst the same eMarketing department / digital agency can handle either type of project, the underlying effect of each should not be confused: the former is an animated sales aid with an infinite number of pages whereas the latter requires the doctor to make the first click to succeed at all.  Digital is only as good as the people who see it.  A client of mine is deploring a subordinate's budget request for a medical journal (i.e. print) campaign to drive doctors towards their underused website; old media giving succour to the new.

Vast amounts of time and energy are being spent on luring doctors' eyeballs to pharma company sites, including novel and generally useful activities such as having a key opinion leader Twitter his impressions of a major congress in real time.  Yet as with any other online campaign getting potential customers to your site is a balancing act and compelling someone to visit you is rightly seen as obnoxious.  Pharma companies must be especially careful because the doctors they're trying to attract represent a relatively small and definitely finite population, pretty much all of which is valuable.  The 1% success model that drives the rest of eCommerce definitely does not apply.

The article quotes a German GP -

Christopher Luyken, a general practitioner near Cologne, Germany, says he exchanges views with other doctors online, but sees some of the industry’s online marketing as “spam.” He says he’d rather hear about new drugs from a sales rep he knows and trusts.

Online is certainly cheaper than reps; pharma sales teams are the most expensive comms channel in any form of marketing.  But reps are compelling in a way that websites can never be, especially with those customers who aren't especially interested in what you're trying to say in the first place.  Unlike markets where you really make your money just from those customers who want to buy from you, pharma success requires that everyone be aware of what your product does and for whom.  The uninterested doctor must be engaged with or patients get suboptimal care and a website cannot achieve this.

And what about all the sales reps that Dr Luyken doesn't really know or trust in the slightest?  For what is a rookie rep with a list of target doctors and a shiny new iPad if not spam incarnate?  Delicious to Polynesians but annoying to everyone else.