Physician Engagement

In healthcare marketing, you’re always looking ahead. Learning from past strategies, whether successful or not, is crucial for ensuring the effectiveness of future programs. This is exactly what a panel of 19 marketing experts had in mind when they contributed to an infographic predicting what they believe to be the top concerns for brands in 2019.

Not surprisingly, the concept of customer experience (CX) rose to the top. Healthcare marketers are increasingly tuned in to the fact that the “end user,” be that a physician within your health system or a potential patient in your community, wants to be treated like a human—not an inbox. To up the ante, your target audience members also don’t want to be seen as a stranger; they need to believe you value their time and interests and will provide personalized content that fulfills that desire.

The key in achieving this level of human-to-human personalization—and resulting trust—lies in the quality and depth of your data.

What can you accomplish in just six seconds or less? Thanks to a few popular internet videos, you can apparently learn how to tie a Windsor knot, rearrange your roommate’s den, and strip a screw in this very brief timeframe.

As savvy healthcare marketers know firsthand, six seconds is also the length of time you have to engage healthcare professionals. You need to make every second count in order to be fully effective in your efforts.

In the marketing world, a “hand-raiser” can be summed up in a simple sentence: A person who identifies himself as a prospective customer, to a company, by volunteering contact information. For the marketer, receiving that interest is a choice position to be in.

Physicians who are viewing online job posts are, in a way, raising their hands. But, until recently, unless they took the extra step to hand over their personal information, you couldn’t know for sure which physicians were in the crowd. Rather, it was just a sea of hands—undeterminable through a foggy landscape of aggregate data.

In part 2 of our 4 part series, Leveraging the Email Channel Throughout the Pharma Brand Life Cycle, we consider how email marketing can be used to optimize the product launch and introduce a new indication.

The email channel plays a pivotal role throughout a pharma brand’s growth and maturation. This is never more critical than at launch, when the long-term success of the brand is at stake.

Think about the last time you purchased something new. Regardless of the price tag, new typically equates to “better” (and something worth celebrating!). If your previous car got good gas mileage, the replacement is likely even more economical. Your old pair of running shoes are worn down—causing some undesirable knee or shin pain—but this new pair will get you back to your nine-minute mile.

When facing any predicament, it often helps to dig deeper into the core issues at hand. In regards to waning physician retention, getting to the root of the matter involves identifying the underlying reasons physicians leave. Acknowledging the various needs of providers is of utmost importance, so you’re well-informed on how to enhance job satisfaction and thus reduce the costs involved in hiring and training new staff.

That last point cannot be ignored. How much of a financial burden is on the table?

One of the insights that arose from the 2018 JP Morgan Healthcare Conference was “You must operate as a health system, not just call yourself one.” That’s a difficult task, especially for large systems that are geographically dispersed across a state—even more so across the nation. It can be equally challenging for small- or mid-tier systems if their current communication strategy lacks key components.

What drives loyalty? If you Google that exact statement, results number over a million. From brand superiority to emotional investment, every “expert” on the topic will give you plenty of advice. While some believe brand devotion ultimately lies with the consumer, Forbes.com contributor Micah Solmon explains in this recent article that loyalty must be two-sided. When companies fail to recognize and embrace the “I’ll scratch your back if you scratch mine” mentality, allegiance falters.

A world that’s increasingly dependent on technology cannot exist without glitch. Remember when a scheduling snafu gave all American Airlines pilots Christmas day off? Or the Apple software issue that repeatedly rebooted certain iPhones for no apparent reason? Just last week, JPMorgan suffered through a nearly three-hour window of clients seeing a different customer's account after signing in.

Let’s not forget the administrative-based delivery debacle that forced over 600 Kentucky Fried Chicken stores to temporarily close in the UK and Ireland, resulting in widespread panic.

Did you know that the average person has up to 70,000 thoughts per day? That breaks down to approximately 50 unique cognitive functions every 60 seconds. Of course, most of them are useless and unimportant, passing through your brain at almost lightning speed. The human brain simply cannot process them all, at least without landing you in a straitjacket.

Modern society has only contributed to the rapid fire. CNN broke ground with its 24-hour news cycle back in June of 1980, which was only the beginning of the 24/7 trend. From social media and streaming content to virtual reality, there’s a lot going on.