From Endemic to POC: The Journey Pharma Marketers Need to Tread

Thomas Shea
Chief revenue officer
Doceree

The dynamic healthcare landscape today continues to present challenges and huge opportunities to pharma marketers. The core transition from traditional endemic marketing to point-of-care (POC) advertising is being driven by innovation in engagement, precision, and outcomes. Industry reports show a growth of 15% per year in POC advertising, which really means that it has become essential. These changes are bound to lead a nuanced marketer toward gaining strategic foresight and a deeper understanding of the digital ecosystem.

Embracing the Digital Shift

Healthcare has historically relied on endemic advertising – where the target is placed in environments meant for health practitioners, medical journals or professional websites. This practice has been effective, as it can reach an HCP's professional ecosystem and make sure that content is relevant and credible. But if endemic advertising ensures focused reach, it fails in terms of engagement and real-time interaction.

What the digital revolution has done is bring more efficient ways to reach and touch HCPs. Through the use of advanced analytics, programmatic advertising permits hyper-targeting and real-time interaction with both endemic and POC platforms. By applying programmatic tactics, pharma marketers could further extend their outreach to engage desired audiences across endemic, niche, and POC landscapes and deliver a precise message at the moment of greatest impact to secure more effective results.

Operationalized big data-driven programmatic advertising, in fact, ranks as one of the most effective methods to enable the much-sought after precision when it comes to targeting and personalization. The power of precision being delivered today—a far-off dream just some years back—can now let marketers target HCPs based on behavior, preferences, and even the time of day when they are most likely to engage. Such focused efforts obviously deliver great impact, leading to more effective and efficient marketing campaigns.

A few case studies highlight this effectiveness within healthcare. For instance, one recent digital marketing campaign, targeted at oncologists, found a 40% uplift in engagement and 25% in prescriptions using bespoke content—the role of digital marketing, therefore, should be seen as strategic far beyond mere visibility. In fact, the delivery of the right message, to the right HCP, at the right time, has made the pharma marketing landscape an efficient and outcome-oriented industry as it shifts towards a more digital landscape.

The Rise of Point-of-Care Advertising

POC advertising is taking the digital shift one step further by placing relevant information on platforms where HCPs make their most critical decisions. In simple terms, from the waiting room to the hospital ward or the pharmacy counter, the HCP is exposed to the information during a time frame when it is timely and pertinent for patient care. This is a strategic placement for message impact where HCPs are most receptive to and need this information.

A POC message that would illustrate this potential might be tied into an electronic health record and provide clinical decision support. For example, when a physician logs in to a patient's electronic health record, a point-of-care message for some new, available, appropriate-for-the-patient-condition therapy will automatically pop up. It is this flow of seamless integration with marketing and the clinical workflow in decision support that augments physician choices and patient outcomes.

Strategic Implementation for Success

Handling the shift from the endemic approach to POC advertising is very strategic. Some of the critical phases that pharma marketers need to go through are as follows:

1. Data-driven insights: The use of big data analytics will inform the knowledge of the HCP behaviors, preferences, and pain points; the output of which will go into building targeted, personalized campaigns. This entails synthesizing a multiplicity of sources of insights, including EHRs, social media, and professional networks, so pharma marketers can get a wholesome view of their target audience for better targeting.
2. Collaborative Partnerships: Engage with health technology providers to help integrate marketing activities with clinical workflow. Integration through collaboration with EHR and CDSS providers will ensure frictionless delivery of POC advertising. Such arrangements are to be made only to ensure that the marketing messages are supportive rather than being distractive to the clinical process.
3. Compliance and Privacy: Ensure that all advertisement campaigns follow the statutory regulatory requirements and respect patient privacy well. HIPAA and other regulations are to be observed as an obligation to maintain trust and reputation. This will take the form of an awareness of legal landscapes and, therefore, drive through the implementation of sound data security measures meant to protect patient information.
4. Continuous Optimization: Continue measuring how POC campaigns are performing and changing strategies on the fly based on feedback and analytics toward greater engagement and better results. Such an iterative learning process helps pharma marketers fine-tune their strategies over time so that they may remain practical and relevant within an ecosystem that evolves continuously.

Case Studies and Real-World Applications

Let's consider just a few real-world case studies that illustrate this potential. For example, one pharmaceutical used its point-of-care campaign to reach cardiologists by providing information about a new medication for the heart directly within the EHRs that that specialist was viewing during patient consultations. This campaign increased not only awareness of the medication but also the number of prescriptions. This showcases the power of timely information at the point of care.

Another example was a campaign to improve diabetes management. The campaign zeroed in on those at-risk patients in glycemic control through analytics and messaged from that insight to deliver new treatment guidelines and patient management strategies to endocrinologists. The results were impressive, showing better patient outcomes and adherence to treatment protocols.

These instances indicate the enormous changes that POC advertising can make in healthcare. Reaching HCPs with appropriate information when they need it most could influence clinical decision-making and, therefore, improve patient care.

The Road Ahead

Though the journey from endemic to POC advertising is far from easy, the rewards are immeasurable. Embracing digital transformation by harnessing the power of programmatic and POC advertising allows marketers in pharma to reach more people in more effective ways than previously possible.

This approach to marketing has been innovative and has provided unrivaled growth and improved patient outcomes. The future of pharma marketing depends on our ability to adapt, innovate, and deliver value at the place it matters the most, i.e., at the Point of Care.

This shift from endemic to POC advertising is, hence, a journey that every pharma marketer must undertake. One requires a strategic mindset, a commitment to data-driven insights, and a commitment to continuous improvement. That way, improved results for marketing objectives, health care delivery and patient care can be delivered.

Not only does adding POC advertising to the overall marketing mix make each campaign as effective as possible, but it also contributes to developing a cohesive and effective strategy for healthcare marketing. This potential for growth and improvement is virtually unlimited since there is constant innovation and strategy refinement. These steps ensure that marketing campaigns remain successful in the long term through the use of technology and the latest data analytics upgradation and alignment, thus ensuring that the goal of the entire exercise is "healthier lives all across the globe."