
It's no secret that the healthcare industry is changing. The general public are now more empowered than ever before, and they expect to be able to interact with their healthcare providers (HCPs) in the way that best suits them, making their lives increasingly complex. To support HCPs in this change, pharmaceutical companies must have a robust omni-channel strategy in place if they want to stay relevant and in touch with their customers.
But what does a best-in class omni-channel strategy look like? More importantly, how can you develop and implement one tailored specifically for your HCPs? In this article, we'll examine both questions and show you how Twist Health can help.
The Need For An Omni-channel Strategy
Pharmaceutical companies have been trying new ways to support HCPs, but can they go back to their old retail model and follow up communication with a simple email? The answer is no.
According to a recent study by Accenture, 78% of HCPs said they would like to see pharma companies provide more health tech through the use of various digital tools.
HCPs expect more, and rightly so. They are under more pressure than ever to deliver better patient outcomes and need all the help they can get. This means that pharmaceutical companies have to meet them where they are, which is increasingly in the online world.
The Need For An Omni-channel Strategy
With traditional channels like face-to-face meetings and events being increasingly replaced by digital ones, it's clear that an omni-channel strategy is needed.
With a multi-stage approach, here are the main stages to consider:
Understanding Your Audience
One of the most important (and first) stages is understanding your audience. This means not only segmenting them into different groups based on their needs and preferences, but really understanding all aspects of their personalities, who they are and what motivates them. We need to push beyond traditional internal segmentation and look to accurately understand and personify our HCPs beyond the numbers.
Understanding where your customers are, what makes them tick, what motivates and challenges them as well as how they want to be contacted is critical to the success of your omni-channel strategy.
The Value You Can Provide
Next up is knowing what they need to hear from you. Pharma is not right to solve every problem. So, identifying where there is a clear exchange of value between your customers and your brand is critical.
This is where we need to think about the overall customer journey, aligned to our understanding of the customers themselves and how you can support them at each stage. For example, what would motivate that HCP to want to initiate a conversation with you in the first place? And then how do we keep that HCP engaged? Answering with an eDetail and a generic email alone is unlikely to work!
Choosing The Right Communication Channels
The third crucial factor is knowing how they need to receive the right message. With so many different channels available, it can be tricky to know which ones to use. Again, this comes back to understanding your audience and segmenting them accordingly. Do you really know where HCPs go to find information, or what influences them? This should all be understood at the outset so a clear and measurable communications plan can be implemented.
How Twist Health Can Help
At Twist Health, we have a proven team of award-winning experts that can help you develop and implement a data-driven, robust omni-channel strategy tailored to your HCPs.
From strategy to innovation, marketing, insight, and research, we will help you every step of the way to ensure that your strategy is a success. Get in touch with us today to find out more about our omni-channel recommendations engine and how it can support you and your team to deliver a robust omni-channel strategy.
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