Social media and pharma
Mar/01/2008 02:37 Filed in: Web 2.0 ?
People,
your customers, have a hell of a lot to say and they
are screaming to be more engaged with your brand and
company. The new goal of marketing is to build
relationships between your brand and your customers
and marketers are now aggregators to get people
talking about your brand. "Well what if they say
negative things about our brand" someone asked? Well
the reality is that the control of information is
shifting from marketers to consumers and you are not
in control of your message anymore. Our job as
marketers is to get people talking about our products
or brands and listen to what they are saying.
The real challenge for marketers has been to deploy social media marketing tactics while under constant pressure to measure and improve the ROI to the brand. How do you go to management and explain your program as it relates to meeting business objectives? The answer to this question is that in reality there is no one program that can deliver on the business objectives but rather an integrated effort working in unison to drive business. Ignoring social media can have a dramatic effect on business just ask Pfizer about the impact social media had on Exubera ?
The first thing that marketers have to acknowledge is that media clutter is worse now then every before. There are over 70 cable channels, millions of websites, satellite radio, and thousands of new products all fighting for a share of voice. Mass marketing is dead and rolling out a $100 or $50 million TV campaign could be the biggest waste of marketing dollars in the marketing budget. This is especially true in pharmaceutical products because there has been so much media buzz around the issues facing pharma. Does anyone in DTC marketing really believe that people believe their messages more now then before?
There are many paths to chose when looking at social media strategy but the one factor that is common to all social media platforms is that marketers have to engage with their customers. And please don't make the mistake of hiring "buzz agents" to act as fronts for your brand. Buzz agents are people who are employed by agencies to go onto social website and say nice things about your brand or product. People usually see through that in a moment and it can wind up doing your brand a lot of harm. The key is to engage with people while being transparent. That means asking people hard questions like "why don't you believe that our product helped people in clinical trials?" and then following up with them to send them information that could turn them in a brand advocate.
Almost every industry is starting to take a dive into social media except pharma. As I told the audience at my recent presentation "don't give me the excuse that we are a regulated industry" because that doesn't fly. The FDA has not even determined the rules for search marketing terms for pharma yet more or less social media so what are marketers supposed to do in an era of decreasing budgets?
I would be more then willing to share my presentation on social media with my readers just drop me an eMail. Normally I would come to speak with your people but the goal here is to get the word out so that DTC marketing can be respected for both meeting business needs and improving peoples lives. There is just too much at stake here..
The real challenge for marketers has been to deploy social media marketing tactics while under constant pressure to measure and improve the ROI to the brand. How do you go to management and explain your program as it relates to meeting business objectives? The answer to this question is that in reality there is no one program that can deliver on the business objectives but rather an integrated effort working in unison to drive business. Ignoring social media can have a dramatic effect on business just ask Pfizer about the impact social media had on Exubera ?
The first thing that marketers have to acknowledge is that media clutter is worse now then every before. There are over 70 cable channels, millions of websites, satellite radio, and thousands of new products all fighting for a share of voice. Mass marketing is dead and rolling out a $100 or $50 million TV campaign could be the biggest waste of marketing dollars in the marketing budget. This is especially true in pharmaceutical products because there has been so much media buzz around the issues facing pharma. Does anyone in DTC marketing really believe that people believe their messages more now then before?
There are many paths to chose when looking at social media strategy but the one factor that is common to all social media platforms is that marketers have to engage with their customers. And please don't make the mistake of hiring "buzz agents" to act as fronts for your brand. Buzz agents are people who are employed by agencies to go onto social website and say nice things about your brand or product. People usually see through that in a moment and it can wind up doing your brand a lot of harm. The key is to engage with people while being transparent. That means asking people hard questions like "why don't you believe that our product helped people in clinical trials?" and then following up with them to send them information that could turn them in a brand advocate.
Almost every industry is starting to take a dive into social media except pharma. As I told the audience at my recent presentation "don't give me the excuse that we are a regulated industry" because that doesn't fly. The FDA has not even determined the rules for search marketing terms for pharma yet more or less social media so what are marketers supposed to do in an era of decreasing budgets?
I would be more then willing to share my presentation on social media with my readers just drop me an eMail. Normally I would come to speak with your people but the goal here is to get the word out so that DTC marketing can be respected for both meeting business needs and improving peoples lives. There is just too much at stake here..
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