The healthcare industry is facing a digital divide. Many healthcare providers (HCP) and patients are moving to digital channels for interactions and information, meanwhile healthcare manufacturers are just starting to catch up.
This divide has left a gap in the type of communications that the industry is sending to HCPs, and those that HCPs desire.
Today’s article explores the types of content that HCPs want from their pharma sales and marketing counterparts.
This story continues a previous article about how digital sales engagement improves pharma sales and marketing.
The Challenge of Reaching Health Care Professionals
Pharma sales reps face a unique challenge in their sales process,
- The information needed to effectively communicate pharma products and services is becoming more complex; and
- Regulatory requirements governing HCP communications are steadily rising.
Therefore the sales process requires additional selling time in order to communicate the value and risks associated with any healthcare product.
Health Care Professionals are less Accessible,
Access to prescribers has been declining since 2009 with a near 50% decline in HCP accessibility, as noted by this longitudinal study (Source: ZSassociates, 2015).
(Image Source: ZSassociates, 2015)
Today, more than half of HCPs are considered inaccessible. This complicates the sales process and the challenges noted above.
Health Care Professionals are less Trusting,
Years of sales presentations where the objective was increasing consumption, not patient outcomes, has made HCPs distrustful of pharma sales reps (PSRs). Meanwhile direct-to-consumer communications have led to an increase in fearful patients concerned about rare side effects, requiring HCPs to lengthen explanations and time-per-patient (Source: Health Link Dimensions, 2016).
In 2015, 75% of physicians stated that they do not trust the information provided to them by pharma companies (Source: Deloitte, 2015).
This is a serious issue for everyone involved in the healthcare industry.
What do Health Care Professionals want from Pharma Sales and Marketing Content?
Types of Interactions
In our previous post we explored the ways digital sales interactions improves engagement, and we found that a majority of HCPs desire a digital sales approach that enables them to engage on their own time.
This is the same things we’ve see across the B2B and B2C sales process, where empowered buyers are pushing companies to use an inbound digital content marketing approach.
Most dislike traditional channels,
Consider these figures,
- 11% of HCPs preferred an in-person sales presentation approach; and
- Only 11% of HCPs preferred direct mail communications.
Most prefer digital sales channels,
Consider these figures,
- In 2015 – 68% preferred contact through email;
- In 2014 – 66% preferred contact through email; and
- In 2013 – 65% preferred contact through email.
(Source: ZSassociates, 2015)
Digital sales engagement works in healthcare because HCPs are empowered to learn on their own time with personalized information that is relevant to them.
Online and mobile content are highly desired, but not facilitated,
The majority of HCPs reported that they frequently access independent websites, and find them to be of ‘moderate’ or ‘significant’ value. Meanwhile, industry vendor websites are the least accessed, and are viewed as providing the least value and credibility.
HCPs reported that online medical content was most often accessed on their own time. The use of mobile devices showed the greatest increase over the last year. Fewer than half of industry vendors reported that all of their online content was mobile-optimized, or would be in the coming year (Source: PharmaPhorum, 2015).
Some even prefer social, but the majority don’t use it,
This is perhaps because they’re underdeveloped, or because content is restricted by regulatory concerns. A majority of HCPs indicated that they see the value of engagement through social channels, and plan to participate in the future.
However, only 3% currently use social media for this kind of engagement. There are big opportunities for digital presentations and relationship building through social media (Source: Health Link Dimensions, 2016).
Types of Communications
“If the communications don’t add value, the most highly targeted medical email campaigns will be futile.” - ZSassociates, 2015
When asked about the types of content desired by HCPs, the overwhelming response was for continuing medical educational material (CME)
(Image Source: Health Link Dimensions, 2015)
In fact, the top three cited categories of educational material included:
- Disease state information;
- Prescription information; and
- Medical device information.
Most HCPs want educational and diagnostic content,
A separate study in 2015 found that diagnostic tools were preferred over medical information, but both were highly desired by the HCP community. The vast majority stated that they accessed this kind of content at least once a month. Over half reported needing greater access to both types of content (Source: PharmaPhorum, 2015).
The majority dislike promotional material,
Perhaps most importantly, 83% of HCPs felt the industry was heavily focused on branded and promotional materials. 55% of HCPs stated that they ‘never’ or ‘rarely’ access this content, explaining that they do not need greater access to it.
We had comparable findings in our analysis of B2B sales content, where a similar proportion felt vendor content was overly promotional, too generic, or irrelevant.
Types of Relationships
The final step in HCP engagement is the relationship focus.
HCPs feel that the healthcare industry should play an active role in making providers’ lives easier, and they would like for health organizations to become valuable partners throughout the process of patient care (Source: Health Link Dimensions, 2016).
40% of HCPs desired more timely communications.
In an interesting twist, industry respondents believed that PSRs were the most significant channel for communication, compared to HCPs who felt that PSRs were of ‘no’ or ‘limited’ value to them as a source for medical information.
Mismatched communications and channels in other B2B fields negatively influenced the perceived usefulness of a sales rep. This is exactly the same thing we’re seeing in pharma.
How to Add Value to Health Care Professionals as a Pharma Sales Rep
Digital interactions are a 'must have' in the pharma sales and marketing value chain, and digital content plays an important role in successful communications.
Pharma sales enablement makes all content mobile-ready, and tracks engagement to let you know what actually works, and why.
We helped Urgo Laboratories innovate their sales content. Leaving their marketing team feeling like “kids in a candy shop when they realized how much information they could learn, and how targeted that information could be.” Download the case study to see what SKURA SFX can do for your HCP interactions.
The Trends Influencing HealthCare
Mobile, content marketing, and digital sales engagement are growing trends that are reshaping communications with HCPs. In our next articles we’ll explore upcoming trends that are poised to send ripples through the pharma sales industry:
Declining trust in healthcare & declining access to healthcare providers.
We also made an infographic visualizing the content in this article.
Interested in jumping right into pharma sales enablement? Request a demo and let our sales professionals show you just how easy digital engagement for pharma can be.
