The daily life of the pharma sales reps involves spending a lot of time on non-selling activities; this includes struggling with 3 major challenges of pharma sales and marketing content creation and use.
Previously we discussed the types of content that healthcare providers (HCPs) desire from pharma sales and marketing. They are desperate for digital content, evidence-based information, and regulatory compliance. HCPs place a high value on authentic sources.
The 3 major pharma sales rep (PSR) challenges of creating and using pharma sales content are information complexity, geography, and industry regulations. Today’s article explores these hurdles and offers solutions to help improve the life of the pharmaceutical sales reps.
Information Complexity
Pharma sales and marketing teams gather and sort large quantities of evidence and data about their products across the entire life cycle.
This process is extremely complex, as pharma strives to improve their understanding of patient and disease needs, and are therefore regularly completing new research studies (Source: Eyeforpharma, 2015).
Pharma sales reps require constant training regarding updates in the healthcare industry and their company’s products (Source: PharmaExecutive, 2016). This can lead to an information overload.
Additionally, pharma sales reps are struggling with the decline in access to HCPs, which means that marketing teams have the complicated job of creating easily consumable content out of complex information.
Comprehensible and easily communicable insights must be drawn from complex data sets and evidence, including clinical trials, post-marketing safety surveillance, and real world data claims (Source: Deloitte, 2016).
Solution: By using a sales enablement platform marketing teams can quickly import content with product and disease updates, and they can conveniently send it out to all relevant members of the sales force. Plus, they can remove old content or set expiration dates for content, effectively reducing the risk of using out-dated information.
A sales enablement system keeps everyone informed about the latest research findings, and will help to reduce the information overload that many PSRs struggle with.
Geography
Where in the world are the healthcare providers? Geographic barriers act as a potential hurdle in the pharma industry.
Geography affects patient care patterns, evidence gathering, legal requirements, product regulations, environmental needs, and data access.
Many healthcare companies are using global regulatory content strategies in an effort to align communications, save money, and improve access to both HCPs and patients (Source: PharamaceuticalOnline, 2013). However, it is not always possible to use a global content strategy as procedures differ from one country to the next, leading to need for localized strategies.
An example of geographic differences is the evolution of the U.S. health system, which is transitioning from volume- to value-based care, focusing on reducing costs and improving patient outcomes (Source: Deloitte, 2016). This requires pharma sales and marketing teams to produce tailored digital sales content for a variety of value-based discussions across several of healthcare fields.
Solution: Marketing and sales teams must work together to improve the alignment of sales content and resources by organizing across geographic segments.
Co-browsing and secure document sharing are awesome sales enablement tools.
A sales enablement platform empowers PSRs and home-office marketing teams to create their own coordinated playlists and folders of relevant content for particular accounts or regions, meeting the local healthcare industry needs and regulations. Meanwhile advanced search and content tags help field sales reps easily find the right content during their brief visits with HCPs in-person, or during a remote digital sales presentation.
Industry Regulations
Pharma sales and marketing content contains healthcare and pharmaceutical information that is highly regulated by local governing agencies. For example, in some instances product approval will only be granted if local research samples are used (Source: PharmExec, 2016).
The growing challenge of regulatory compliance, especially with local needs, is increasing the level of transparency required by pharmaceutical companies. Previously there was limited visibility, or data silos, across healthcare organizations, but now metrics and evidence are being tracked for quality and outcomes throughout the entire product life cycle.
A lot of stress is placed on pharms sales reps, as they must adhere to complex regulatory compliance needs. Pharma sales and marketing teams must create and update content to match the local regulations, and somehow ease the amount of pressure on PSRs.
Solution: A digital content management solution enables the home-office with global asset management and regional content controls. As industry regulations change, a central office can focus on distribution and communication controls while the field sales teams focus on selling, rather than worrying about regulatory compliance.
We call this implicit and regulatory compliance. When using pharma sales enablement, console administrators can control the digital content being used during a sales presentation. They can create presentations so that sales reps must show compliance information before they are allowed to proceed with any other content. This ensures proper adherence during any healthcare interaction, making adherence an automated function for an entire global sales force.
If you’re experiencing these common pharma sales and marketing content challenges and need a solution for automated compliance, reduced geographic barriers, and information overload, request a demo below and let our sales specialists show you just how easy digital sales enablement can be.
