Regardless of polls spending on "e" by pharma will be anemic
Apr/25/2008 05:34 Filed in: Internet
& DTC Marketing
It came as quite a surprise to me when I read surveys that indicated that pharma was going to increase spending online but when I examined the numbers more closely they are still only planning to spend 5% of their budgets online and most of that money will go into wasteful search engine optimization that has little to do brand objectives.
Pharma marketers waste millions of dollars on Google stock and invest in keywords purchases because they have been sold a bill of goods. Yes people will start their health searches on the Web but if your site is correctly done it will show up first in organic search. Manhattan Research has consistently shown that people are now smart enough to go to product.com to get information on your product and if your brand has high awareness than any money you throw at Google for search engine keywords is money that is wasted.
Another area where pharma lacks innovation is the development of product websites. When I originally developed Cialis.com I conducted qualitative and quantitative testing with my target audience along with user testing in three markets. The result? The top site, at the time, for RX conversion and a 20% increase in intent to ask physicians for an Rx after coming to the site. I was not surprised to learn from colleagues that most do not do user testing or any research to determine how their website should be laid out for users. Typical of pharma marketers to spend money testing and retesting messages for TV but ignoring the Web sites effectiveness.
Why does this happen so much? Well first very few pharma organizations have dedicated eMarketing people. Some eMarketers are wearing 2-3 hats and only have time to manage their agency while they build the Website. At Lilly the people I worked with who propelled Lilly's eMarketing to new levels have all either left the company or moved onto other jobs within the company. Hint to senior managers: it takes a long time to gain expertise in "e" and when someone if doing a great job the last thing you want to do is move them to another position.
Then there is the lack of analytical insight. Anyone can get clicks, visitors and time on the site but while most consumer packaged companies are adding departments for Web analytics pharma is buying software like Webtrends in hope that access to the program once a week will tell a story of ROI. Well that isn't going to happen and anyone that thinks it will needs a long vacation. Web analytics at its best can tell you a story of how you target is gathering information, what is important to them while making their decision and where they are going to gather all their information. Oh...that's right you don't have time for that because you're too busy measuring the impact of TV so you can get more dollars to keep your ads on the air and go with your ad agency to great locations for a "shoot" and dinners with lots of wine.
Reports from Datamonitor, Forrester, and eMarketer say it all....pharma marketers are stuck in the past when it comes to "e". I see no indication that anything is going to change anytime soon.
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