Recently, I had the opportunity to speak at Indian Drug Manufacturing Association marketing seminars in Mumbai and Chennai on the topic ‘Digital Marketing in pharma’. There was a significant presence of industry employees in attendance, ranging from brand managers to marketing managers.

One thing is certain: There is immense curiosity about how the digital medium can be used by pharma, both in India and globally. Each person has his or her own unique understanding of digital and its platforms, and we can apply learnings in our own way.

The whole spectrum of ‘Digital Marketing in Pharma’ is indeed intriguing, and to wrap it all into an hour or so is not an easy task at all. I chose to give an overview and then take the audience  through a process of using this medium while simultaneously keeping ‘key marketing objectives’ in mind. With an explosion in technology and social media coupled with the high usage of mobile phones in India, the whole medium overwhelms any pharma marketer who is used to traditional and regulated ways of communication with their target audiences. It is like the story of an elephant and the blind men, where each one feels a different part of the elephant, but only one part; then compare notes and learn that they are in complete disagreement, leading to confusion. Such confusion can make matters worse when any company wishes to implement the use of a digital medium. To make matters worse, there is an additional lack of understanding of this medium by the senior management.

The fact is, our target audiences—be  it the doctor, the patient, the care-giver or the consumer in general—are  increasingly using the new technology and medium. If we do not utilize this medium to its fullest potential are we not then losing an opportunity staring at us in the face? Should the industry shy away from the newest technology just because they do not understand how to use it?

The opportunity is endless, but the problem usually is where to begin.

Rather than being overwhelmed by the different aspects of the medium and the new lingo that goes with it, one can follow a simple approach:

• Keep your target customer at the centre and think of what you wish to achieve.
• Check if this the new medium or platform provides any answers to achieve that objective.
• Each target customer set will need a different approach (eg, do you wish to address a doctor or a caregiver or a consumer?)
• Do not try to do everything all by yourself as you may not be an expert at it.
• Use the right service providers who understand both digital & pharma and their regulations as well.
• Frame your own key performance indicators for any particular project with detailed discussions with your service providers.
• Do look into the regional and cultural factors affecting healthcare.
• Customer behaviour differs from region to region, that needs to be understood.
• The manner in which a typical consumer thinks and behaves when he/she is going to make a decision about consuming medicines should govern the strategies employed.
• One-off creation of a mobile app or Facebook page may not serve any purpose unless weaved into the overall strategy.
• Use online and offline integration for best results– pharma has that wonderful advantage of having large field-forces.
• Use integrated communications – digital along with PR to amplify reach.
• Multiple language usage offers immense opportunity too, especially for a country like India.
• A brand can make use of social media listening to inform engagement depending on its regulatory status and what it wishes to achieve.
• Consider this as another medium to achieve your objective.
• Keep an open mind and a long-term view.

Currently, sales force e-reporting is being used by many companies and tablet detailing has only begun. Using the medium to its full potential still has a long way to go. In order to ensure this medium’s success, ‘strategy’ has to be centre-stage. Healthcare and medicine usage is a delicate subject bound by regulations, but that does not hinder the usage of this new digital medium…provided it is done with responsibility.

There is no doubt that a new era has begun offering a new set of opportunities with the potential to achieve many things. A new era that one could not operate within with the previous limitations set that we have  worked with for the past many decades.

The post Digital for Pharma in India: A Pro’s View appeared first on GLOBALHealthPR.

For our most recent initiative of tracking and scrutinizing online conversations in the spirit of improved public health, we focused on the issue of childhood obesity. In the U.S., experts say 42 percent of people will be obese by 2030. But many people don’t realize this isn’t just an American problem—it’s a problem across the world. Our team collaborated with our partners around the world on an exciting one-month survey of seven countries, looking at how the digital conversation on child obesity stacked up in Argentina, Australia, India, Portugal, the U.K., Mexico and the U.S.

Today, Spectrum and GLOBALHealthPR are thrilled to release an infographic chock-full of the data we found—and what it means for public health professionals, advocates and communicators. Here’s just a taste (pun intended) of our insights (full details can be found here):

• Given that child obesity is a preventable but widespread condition, we were surprised to find that the chatter around prevention and treatment is very low, compared to less common diseases with few or no treatment options.
  • For example, leukemia is connected with 7,813 times as many conversations as childhood obesity, despite the fact that leukemia affects fewer people per capita and is not preventable.
• Listening has shown there are enormous opportunities for growth around the childhood obesity conversation. Opportunity begins with simple steps, such as parents, health care providers and school leadership collaborating more closely within online communities, as well as engaging with outside online influencers to spread the word about successful fitness and nutrition initiatives.

Last year, during a first of its kind summit, health communicators within the GLOBALHealthPR network from across the globe convened to present data and reveal insight from a global listening program, which spanned 15 countries, assessing the impact and conversation around malaria, a true global health pandemic. The International Healthcare Social Media Summit team discussed the implications and insights into strategies for using digital tools to benefit national and international healthcare organizations.

The new infographic is available online and can be embedded on other sites with credit to GLOBALHealthPR.

The post Tackling a Weighty Issue: GLOBALHealthPR Alarmed by Childhood Obesity Findings appeared first on GLOBALHealthPR.

Spectrum’s own John Seng welcomed all attendees, virtual and physical, including GLOBALHealthPR partners from over seven countries and introduced the four panelists: Aurora PR‘s Neil Crump and Aaron Pond (UK) , PR Partners‘ Paola de la Barreda (Mexico) and Spectrum’s Anthony LaFauce.

Panelists presented data found in an 11 country, cross-cultural case study pertaining to the malaria pandemic and the evolving use of social media as an outreach resource. You can watch the event start to finish below.

Malaria and Health 2.0

The malaria case study data revealed a very sparse amount of interaction relating to social media and malaria.

Country-to-country

The United States saw a large number of posts in the blogosphere. Anthony LaFauce chalked the amount of posts up to ‘chatter’, a combination of repurposed press releases, a slew of automated ‘bots’ and a few arbitrary mentions, the quantity of blogs found pertaining to malaria are not of the quality in which would reflect a solid influencer community.

The United Kingdom and Spain saw much less ‘chatter’ more substance in blog and Twitter hits, with a stronger community of quality blogs talking about the malaria pandemic.

Two conversations, no overlap

Additional insights made by the IHSMS panelists included a trending pattern in which those individuals in a higher prevalence market revere the contraction of malaria similar to the common cold whereas in a low prevalence market the conversation is focused on disease epidemiology and science.

The overlap in conversation is therefore non-existent and information is not disseminated from country to country.

The communications solution

• Give malaria a face and create an emotional bond
• Have something interesting to say about scientific advancement and belief that the future of the disease can be improved
• Establish urgency and take action
• Encourage the sharing of experience in the social space

Social media: words from the wise

• Social media is about making connections. Facebook, Twitter, blogs and whatever else becomes popular are all just tools to help fortify those relationships
• Don’t pass your new media tools (aka messaging) off to someone that isn’t trained. This means, interns should not be tweeting without getting posts approved by someone who is well-versed in your company’s messaging and overall voice.
• Understand your audience: Twitter isn’t for everybody, sometimes it’s a letter via ‘snail mail’ that will give you the best ROI.

Some quick stats on the reach of the summit:

• Over 500 tweets including #IHSMS (two days leading up to 72-hour period), from the U.S., UK, Spain, Portugal, Japan, Singapore, India and Australia.
• 130 unique participants in webcast
• 50 participants in Lisbon, 50 in Madrid, and 40 in Washington, D.C.

Did you miss IHSMS?

Check out the video via LiveStream to view IHSMS presentation video and slides.

The post The Malaria Conversation on a Global Scale & What it Means for Communicators appeared first on GLOBALHealthPR.