Another conference more obvious insights

About the Author

Richard Meyer is a passionate Internet DTC marketer with over 15 years of progressive experience in consumer marketing who`s worked on top pharmaceutical brands like Cialis, Prozac and Sarafem, as well as two years with Medtronic Diabetes. He is currently consulting for his own company, Online Strategic Solutions, and writes a DTC column for PM 360 magazine and blogs for Eye for Pharma in addition to his own blog, World of DTC Marketing.

It’s become fun to hear the speakers promote, I mean present insights to pharma marketers about how to market in an era of empowered patients. Today’s insights? Pharma needs more people who grew up digital, social media means learning to listen and physicians want materials they can give to patients after diagnosis. The obvious is that which is never seen until someone expresses it simply.

Growing up digitally

I have been shouting, via this BLOG, for pharma to hire more eMarketing people and give them the tools and budgets they need to make an impact within the organization. The issue seems to be that most Internet marketing people are within DTC teams and get scraps rather than the dollars they need to make a difference. Even when I was on the Cialis team and clearly showed that my online marketing initiatives were exceeding brand objectives my dollars were stripped away for TV.

Way to many DTC marketing people believe that you can implement anything on the Web with a minimum budget and one person sitting in front of a computer. The don’t believe in usability studies and testing and validation or A vs. B testing of home pages or rotating home pages based on segmentation via keywords or ads. Pharma is not going to attract the talent it needs unless a LOT changes as people want a job today where they can make a difference not be told “it can’t be done” and “the budget drives the strategy”.

Social Media means listening

Wow, watch out for this insight it’s really bright !

The problem is obviously that pharma is not prepared to listen or to talk to patients or consumers because they forgot that patients come first and they would spend weeks and months trying to figure out how we measure ROI for listening to consumers via social media.

Physicians want materials they can print

When I was at Eli Lilly I proposed a customized patient materials that could be printed at the physicians office with the patients name integrated within the materials as well as list of online resources. I had meeting after meeting only to be told it was too expensive to implement. Today this is so easy to do and implement and could be far more successful than a salespersons call with free tissue boxes.