Test and Learn

I’ve blogged in the past about the myriad of reasons why pharma marketers don't measure their marketing results. Several years and a full recession later, it still floors me how many marketers don’t review website analytics, email open rates, and the like. Or they might glance at a report, but not even pretend to act on the findings. Forget about actually tying program results to prescription data.

We had a planning meeting with a client yesterday and we talked a lot about optimizing the website. Let’s be honest -- these conversations aren’t sexy or exciting to most people. Discussions around improving registration forms for higher conversion rates or A/B testing of home page designs make many marketers’ eyes glaze over. Clients are often more likely to pay attention to the dog-and-pony presentations with The Big Idea. And that’s a shame.  

Learn more about the "3 P's of Web Optimization and Testing"

With all the talk of social media, the absence of DDMAC Intranet guidelines, and the emergence of mobile, it’s easy to forget there are still a plethora of digital basics that can be safely deployed and shrewdly optimized for extremely cost-efficient results.

So you’ve recently launched your website, email campaign, online advertising, mobile app, or other digital initiative. Hooray for you! After all that work and likely many rounds of legal, medical, and regulatory review, you and your team are exhausted. Time to move on to the next project, right? Not exactly ...

"Don’t believe anyone that launches your digital program and tells you it’s the best it can be."

Don’t believe anyone that launches your digital program and tells you it’s the best it can be. No website is ever the best it can be at launch. There are too many unknowns. Every situation, every disease state, every product, every audience, every initiative is vastly different from the others, and with infinite variables.

Are you testing different creative executions? Reviewing and adjusting your SEO and pay-per-click campaigns? Analyzing pathways? Actively striving for optimal user experience? Comparing ROI?  

If a consumer or healthcare professional reaches your website to actively learn about what it is you have to offer, don’t you want that experience to be the best it can be?

Life is a series of lessons. Don’t miss out on the ones your digital initiatives can teach you.