A Gift for Pharma Marketers

Ellen Hoenig Carlson pulled off a Christmas miracle!

Ellen is a pharma and healthcare marketing leader, fellow blogger, and founding partner of AdvanceMarketWorx consultancy. (She was also featured in a past post celebrating the pharma women of Twitter.)

Her vision was to pull together a collection of blog-style articles from industry thought leaders that address the question:

On which 2 -3 key areas of learning should Pharma marketers focus in 2010?

She wanted to pull them all together in an ebook, and she only had a few weeks to do it!

But here it is - an ebook collection of advice - called Best Learning Strategies For Pharma and Healthcare Marketers in 2010.

I was honored that Ellen invited me to participate, and truly hope the advice in this collection is one that pharma and healthcare marketers will find valuable. Ellen points out six major themes that emerged from the piece:

1) e-Patients are at the center and critical to learning and design.
2) Authenticity isn’t a ‘nice to do’, but a ‘must have.'
3) Don’t’ get distracted by ‘bells and whistles’—remember the basics and keep your brand core strong.
4) The marketing cycle of life is going through unprecedented change requiring all marketers and communications people to unlearn much—the movement from paid marketing to earned marketing requires a different mindset and skills.
5) New marketing requires new ROI thinking…the ROI of connection, authenticity and compassion.
6) Effective marketing and engagement will require new kinds of leadership skills.

She also pointed out to me that the three agency contributors (myself included) focused not on social media, but on more of a "back-to-the-basics" approach to (digital) marketing. I found that extremely interesting given all the recent discussion around social media. Perhaps, while there is a lot of discussion around social media within (social media) venues such as Twitter, blogs, forums, etc. ... the reality that pharma marketers face every day is much more broad.

Anyway, I won't go into my contribution here, but invite you to read the entire eBook. And perhaps we can all set some New Year's resolutions for new learning in the new year.

Happy, happy holidays to you and yours!

Pharma, Don’t Be Shy about Social Media

So the hullabaloo over the FDA hearing on regulated industries’ use of the Internet and social media is dying down a bit. It’s been a month, so I guess that’s normal.

I got caught up in other stuff and didn’t get a chance to do a wrap-up, but that’s okay, because about 3,467 other people did. Just visit http://www.fdasm.com/ or search Twitter for hashtag #fdasm and you’ll have more reading, reports, and recaps than you’ll know what to do with.

The noise is dying down. But it’s not over. Not even close.

As you’re securing budgets, reviewing your 2010 plans, and wondering if you’ll have to put any social media on hold, think again.

Don’t be paralyzed. There’s still plenty pharma can do with social media in the current environment.

Frustrated that it may be a year or more before FDA issues guidelines? There are still some rules that have set precedent, still rules we can follow, even if they are a bit unclear and more restrictive than we’d like. And we’re lucky enough that many industry trailblazers have participated in social media already with plenty of good examples to follow (see Dose of Digital's Wiki for examples).

The Rules as We Know Them
Like it or not, here are the rules we have to work with today:

1. Same rules apply. The same rules apply for the Internet as do for print, TV, direct mail, and other offline mediums. Virtually all warning letters issued to date for any online efforts were due to misrepresentation of claims, risk information, and fair balance. It wasn’t because of the medium itself. And to date, there has not been one warning letter I’m aware of that has been issued for a social media effort.
2. At least for now, space restrictions are real. For now, if there’s not enough space to communicate fair balance and risk information when it needs to be there, FDA has made it clear they’re not going to make exceptions. This would apply to branded search engine marketing as well as short-form communications such as Twitter and SMS.

So what can a pharma marketer do? If it makes sense for your brand, you can still be a part of social media. But yes, you still have to play it safe. Here’s how:

"Doing" Social Media in Today's Environment

1. Make sure you’ve laid the foundation. Do you have a cross-functional social media task force in place? Are they working on – or have they published – a social media policy for your company? If not, what are you waiting for? If FDA opens up the social media doors by clarifying what can and can’t be done, don’t you want to be ready?
2. Listen in. I’ve been thrilled to see a heightened interest from our clients in social media listening. My company, Intouch Solutions, offers workshops on social media listening and conducts Social Media Audits for brands as well. Even if your regulatory folks aren’t yet comfortable joining the conversation, at least you’ll know what’s being said behind your back. Not to mention other benefits of listening such as:
   >> Brand affinity/sentiment measurement – How do people feel about your brand currently? Set a benchmark and, as you launch new initiatives, see how the needle has moved.
   >> Identify the influencers – who’s talking about this condition, your brand, and your competitors, and how much influence do they have?
   >> Measuring message spread – Are your messages spreading, and are they resonating?
   >> Public relations monitoring – How well are your PR efforts permeating the space?
   >> And so much more …
3. Set up shop. While many argue it’s not “pure” social media, take a look at the social media channels such as YouTube that allow some level of control over content. It could be a good idea because (a) At least you’ll be there, in some capacity, if your customers are searching for you, and (b) You’ll have that much more of a leg up over competitors if FDA announces guidelines that will open up features like comments. As always, I recommend not looking at a bag of tactics but seeing what best fits your objectives, but options that might fit this “conscientiously controlled” channel include:
   >> YouTube channels
   >> Facebook pages and apps (with special controls and moderation in place)
   >> Twitter – To be safe, it probably needs to be unbranded for now. For example, we recently launched an iPhone App for sanofi-aventis called GoMeals, and we supplement that effort with a Twitter account that serves in a customer service capacity. It’s been a big hit.
4. Claim your space. Make sure you’ve at least secured your name and accounts on properties such as Twitter, LinkedIn, YouTube, and Flickr (kind of like securing URLs for your company or brand or campaign). Also, consider – if you’re allowed to – officially claiming your Google Sidewiki space.

So as the noise dies down and fades away following the FDA hearings, I ask you this: Is there really any excuse, given the above, to let your social media efforts fade away as well?