Achieving Speed & Transparency in Pharma Marketing

Content is one of the most important ways in which healthcare companies can create direct relationships with the consumer, making its accurate and relevant production key to successful healthcare marketing.

  1. chevron left iconAchieving Speed & Transparency in Pharma Marketing
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Lucy Campbell-WoodwardFebruary 1, 2023
  • Content Management
  • Digital Marketing

Healthcare companies understand the power of marketing to reach their end users. Between 2017 and 2018, marketing budgets in healthcare companies grew significantly. Although many end users are not consumers in the typical sense of the word – outside the US, regulations largely prevent direct-to-consumer advertising of the type that might be used by, for example, FMCG companies.

But there are ways in which healthcare companies can create direct relationships with the consumer, and content is one of the most important. This is what makes the production of accurate, regular, relevant, and timely information of heightened importance in successful healthcare marketing strategies.

End Users Look Online for Guidance

Accurate, up to date digital content is vital for healthcare companies to communicate with end users. Patients are increasingly using the internet as a first port of call for information about ailments and possible medication. Since 2015, the number of users looking online for information is up 12 percentage points, from 60% to 72%, and a further 53% report having tried treatments they found on the internet.

As more and more patients feel empowered to take control of their own care, global healthcare providers need to take account of the fact that consumers have a “heightened demand for transparency, convenience, access and personalized products and services”, according to a recent report from Deloitte.

But consumers are looking not just for information, but messages that they can trust. With many conflicting sources, the onus is on healthcare providers to remain compliant with significant regulation while providing comprehensive, up to date, and timely information.

Staying On Message, On Brand, and Within Regulation

Regulation in this industry often governs the what, the how, the where, and even the when of a variety of brand, marketing and sales elements, from dictating what product information must appear on packaging, to where and how a product may be marketed, and to whom.

Take one of the most universal digital marketing platforms – Google. While it is a resource that breaks down borders, used in almost every country from Australia to Zambia, how it handles healthcare marketing varies widely from territory to territory, product to product, and audience to audience.

For example, despite its wide availability and no need for a prescription, the platform does not allow ads for CBD oil (a cannabinoid derivative). Only drugs available on prescription can be advertised in Canada, New Zealand and the US, while online pharmacies can only advertise in 20 countries. Wording of ads must also meet strict Google criteria, and should appear precisely phrased, not just in the ad but also on the landing page of the healthcare organization’s website.

Not only this, but healthcare providers need to be mindful of the wide range of stakeholders – they have to carefully tailor messages to healthcare providers as well as end users, making sure the right message reaches the right audience at the right time. In many cases, regulation also covers how information is collated, stored, personalized, approved and distributed.

All this can be at odds with the speed with which both organizations and their consumers want information and content to be made available and communicated.

Asset Centralization for Regulatory Transparency and Marketing Efficiency

As many healthcare companies enjoy large portfolios and a global reach, keeping control and regulatory approval of product information and digital assets is, understandably, both a significant cause for concern and a high priority. Translations, multiple variants, marketing materials that have to adhere to regulations with varying levels of stringency and more all need to be created, approved and issued by the organization, as well as its regulator, with a high degree of confidence.

Companies like URSAPHARM have taken the step of implementing a centralized content management system for both its digital marketing content and product information to keep a tight control of their assets, marketing their products in over 80 countries worldwide. Who accesses the information and what they can do with it also has to be tightly controlled – no mean feat when the company has more than 700 employees in its Zaarbrucken, Germany, headquarters alone, not to mention partner companies around the globe.

By using censhare’s Digital Asset Management (DAM) and Product Information Management (PIM) platform, stakeholders can find, create, manage and approve all the brand, product information and content assets, allowing the company to dramatically speed up the approvals process while losing none of the traceability or accuracy. It reduced the approval cycle from one week to one day while more than tripling its content output. Using censhare’s content management system has given URSAPHARM what the company calls a ‘Turbo Boost’ to its marketing efforts.

There are some serious business results being gained here, and a few key learnings can be taken away, a significant one being that the centralization of content into a single system, can act as both an anchor for confidence, and a catalyst for faster, more efficient content production lines. And all in within an extremely strict regulatory environment.

Hear more about how URSAPHARM and healthcare providers like it can sharpen their healthcare marketing strategies using a centralized solution in this customer success story.

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Lucy Campbell-Woodward
Lucy is Head of Marketing for censhare, and leads the global team in the aligned planning and implementation of censhare's marekting strategy. Having joined the team in 2017, Lucy has played a pivotal role in the censhare Marketing team for a good few years now, and stepped up into a leadership role in 2022.

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