Turbocharging Pharma Marketing through Doctor Networks

Product managers and marketers in the pharma industry have spent huge amounts of resources over email marketing, AdSense, and Facebook marketing with an objective to bring doctors to their website. Some have also launched mobile apps and propriety websites only to abandon them midway in absence of any traction between the doctors’ community. A majority, if not all, have struggled to align their digital initiatives with their offline practices for a long-term gain. Is there an alternative that works?

There are primarily two main issues related to success of such initiatives:

1. First, digital marketing may be a new focus are for the Pharma it is outside the realm of their core expertise which is discovery and development of lifesaving drugs.
2. Secondly, doctors are reluctant to install multiple apps on their smartphone all coming from different sources. They don’t perceive content available on proprietary pharma websites unbiased and trustworthy.

Closed and dedicated online social network for Doctors like MedSynapse is a great alternative to inhouse apps and website and gets the desired outcome quickly. In this insights article, we discuss why brand managers in pharma should leverage doctor networks for HCP engagement and marketing activities.

Understand Why Doctors Trust Independent Social Network over Propriety Pharma Websites

Doctor networking platform like MedSynapse has its hundreds of thousands of member doctors spread across specialty and geography and that vibrant community makes it so valuable. MedSynapse has around 200,000+ doctors across Middle East and South East Asia in less than one year. The platform is growing bigger every day.  The main reasons for its explosive growth are the values they offer to its member doctors. They can be summarised as follows:

1. It offers them the Unbiased Access to Information from Various Sources: Unlike dedicated brand sites from Pharma companies, these network act like aggregators of unbiased information from different sources. Based on the value doctors find in such information, they engage and interact with the information available. A more engaged content automatically gains traction on the platform and many doctors get learning out of it. Such networks are similar to aggregators like Amazon, where sellers compete, and users decide what to buy.
2. It Offers them the Flexibility to Learn from Anywhere and Anytime: With a smartphone and internet connection, the doctors can interact with the app to learn and earn their CPD points from the comfort of their home and they can choose a convenient time for it.
3. It Offers them the Opportunity to Collaborate with Peers: Members of doctor networks can collaborate on clinical cases and access real-time advice on patient cases not only from their own specialty but also from other related disciplines. Such medical crowdsourcing can contribute to not only the patient outcome but also their learning.
4. It Helps Doctors Network with Colleagues – Online doctor communities bring busy doctors together from different specialty across the globe like never before. Similar to what it is in physical world, such networks offer a sense of belonging and connectedness.
5. It Allows Doctors to Build their Online Reputation: An active presence in the right network creates a much-coveted solid professional reputation. The online reputation built via these networks not only elevates the doctor’s status in the HCP community but also help them connect with patients who go to web searching additional information about doctors and disease.
6. Pharma Apps and Websites Fail to Offer required Customer Experience to the HCPs: As regulations are getting stricter and marketers are losing access to healthcare professionals, the product and brand itself is not enough for doctors to make their decision in prescription. Majority of the vanilla marketing are simply ignored by doctors these days. The doctors are looking for information and services that that helps them to better manage the health and clinical outcomes of their patients. HCPs increasingly want their experience with Pharma companies to be truly personalized, authentic, and built around their individual needs.

Understand Why Pharma Should Choose Doctor Network like MedSynapse as their Marketing Partners

• Doctor Communities Offer Advantage of Buying over Building: Discovery and marketing of drugs is the core competence of the Pharma companies. It is futile for them to build a Software and Digital marketing companies within their company. It is a better choice both strategically and financially to partner with doctor networks like MedSynapse. These networks provide access to the doctors from day one, they already have larges install base of their app and marketers can focus on what they are good at: marketing.

• Doctor Communities are Vibrant and Growing on their own: The major problem any social network face is to gather the critical mass. Once that mass is reached, the community thrives and grows by itself. Member doctors contribute the content and clinical cases and invite their colleagues to the platform. The ratio of member-generated content to the one created in-house improves over time and help realise the network’s true potential. By accessing the doctor network, marketers can immediately tap into power of the network.

200+ new doctors join MedSynapse every day. Over 3,000 doctors spend more than 5 minutes on MedSynapse every day, 2/3rd of whom engage with content sponsored by Pharma.

• Doctor Communities Forge Partnerships and Alliances with Medical Societies: It’s widely established fact that KOLs and medical bodies have influence on doctors’ prescription behaviour. They also shape consensus of the doctor’s community on the latest products and procedures. As the network like MedSynapse have existing partnership and alliances with medical associations, pharma marketers can leverage these associations to help shape general consensus on their offerings.

MedSynapse has partnered with multiple medical bodies like MMA / Malaysian Medical Association, NUS, PSEDM. It has also engaged with 100+ KOLs through Masterclass and Web Events series.

• They Provide End to End Services: The activities involving any marketing initiative are medical content creation, media and creative asset creation, recruitment of speakers/KOLs, identifying and reaching out to potential target audience, running digital marketing campaign, moderation, pharmacovigilance and finally doing analytics to optimise it on regular basis. While there may be some inhouse capabilities within the pharma to do it inhouse, having a partner who can provide all these services as single point of contact greatly improves orchestration and project management. This vastly improves chances of a successful marketing campaign.

MedSynapse offers comprehensive end to end services to its clients. We offer medical content creation, moderation and pharmacovigilance services, digital campaign management, KOL identification and liaison and analytics services. Our services help marketers drive their messages successfully in the doctors’ community and bring about a notable change in doctors’ perceptions.

MedSynapse works with its clients in Pharmaceutical Industry to manage the customer experience of doctors for product marketing with its innovative CXCenter offering. By mapping the doctor journey for a brand and effectively customizing the digital content marketing at each stage, CXCenter offers a unique and new approach to get the desired outcome.

More than 81% Doctors on MedSynapse Appreciate Pharmaceutical Content if it is Relevant to their Practice

Majority of our medical community members regularly access molecule/drug specific information shared by Pharma companies. To achieve this, MedSynapse works with its clients in Pharmaceutical Industry to design and implement communication plan to engage with the doctors by providing them with relevant and insightful information.