Pharma Marketer Report Predicts "Significant Shift" in Channel Spends

Indegene’s “Digital Savvy Pharma Marketer 2020” report, based on responses from over 100 pharma and bioscience companies, indicates that one-third of the pharma companies will be spending over 50% of their marketing budget on digital channels over the next three years. The shift is led by the emergence of new channels of communicating and engaging with the HCPs, content marketing and optimization, and advanced technology deployment, the company states.

According to Gaurav Kapoor, Executive Vice President, Indegene, “Pharma industry’s digital maturity journey is getting fast-tracked with a concomitant rise in digital adoption by HCPs and the need for personalization. Millennial HCPs with smart devices are adding a new dimension to the current channel set deployed by pharma companies. This signals an urgent need for investment in advanced technology and robust content strategy for better and more engaging customer journeys.”

On an average, the number of organizations that are already spending more than 20% of their budget on digital marketing channels is expected to increase by over 70% over the next six years. The budget increase pattern highlights how marketing organizations across the globe are undergoing a structural change. 

While brand portals, KOL webinars and social media are frequently used channels, third party websites and online journals in US and tele-detailing in Europe/Asia received the highest rating for whitespace marketing. 

Personalization emerged as the topmost effective content strategy for pharma marketers. Respondents confirmed that content personalization has generated maximum returns on digital investments, addressing the challenges of reduced facetime for sales reps. Besides personalization, geographical nuances of content strategy in US included retargeting and localization of content; European companies focused on adapting content to device compatibility and promotion of content through infographics while in Asia, repurposing content into videographics and content promotion through infographics remained an over arching priority.

Digital Analytics seemed to be the most popular technology choice among pharma marketers, with close to 65% stating that it has already been implemented within their marketing stack. Campaign Automation is the next most widely implemented technology, with over 60% respondents already using them within their organization. The companies however scored poorly on tools deployment for Social Listening, which has a significant bearing on collecting real-world data.

To see the report, click here.