Can the drug industry really embrace transparency ?
Internet marketing is moving at the speed of sound today. Theres always a lot happening but for pharma marketers there is not always a lot they can do. A lot of pharma companies tend to have Internet marketing people that act as agencies and have to sell the brand on what they can do but is it the most effective way to leverage the Web to meet brand objectives ?
To me the most import quality of a good emarketing person is his/her ability to completely understand the challenges of the brand including the barriers to conversion. I was able to develop a great online experience for Cialis because I was part of the DTC marketing team and attended most of the research as well as discussions with agencies on what he had learned. That couples with my consumers marketing background allowed me to clearly articulate and define what I needed to do to meet brand objectives.
The problem, however, with using people outside the team is that they often do not have the deep knowledge of the brand and its target audience. They can listen to what the brand wants to do but then usually all they can do is offer a menu of items to the brand team and prioritize the best approaches. In addition when you take the approach of were your in house agency you often have to spend a lot of time selling your recommended approaches when you should be developing creative strategies for implementing online marketing initiatives.
Another problem with the in house agency approach is that you are probably fighting for budget leftovers. As part of the brand team you can work with people who control the budgets to ensure that your dollar needs are adequately represented. You can also meet with medical and healthcare marketing people to better understand ways to help them exceed their business objectives online.
Im not a big fan of the were your in house agency because today the Internet is too important to spend a lot of time selling what people should already know. In addition in order to keep up with the changing marketing environment online you need to spend a lot of time using a lot of tools to see what others are doing and what patients and consumers really want and need.
I believe every brand team should have a dedicated Internet marketing person assigned to them. This person would be the resident expert on Internet marketing & the latest trends in FDA enforcement , how consumers and patients are using the Web. However the greatest asset is that when this person is part of the brand team they can develop a deep understanding of their target audience and thus develop better online marketing programs that can be measured to ensure they provide a good ROI.