Omnichannel strategies in pharma: the key to better engagement with physicians and patients. Why are they so important today?
Today’s pharma industry increasingly needs to communicate effectively with healthcare professionals, patients, and partners. With information overload and multiple communication channels, consistency and personalization of pharmaceutical communication is becoming the key to success. An omnichannel approach creates a unified customer journey, increasing engagement, trust and effective communication. So how does omnichannel help pharma businesses achieve their goals?
What is an omnichannel strategy, and how does it work in pharma?
Omnichannel in marketing is a method that ensures the integration of all channels of communication and interaction with customers. This integration creates a “seamless” customer experience at every touchpoint. For pharmaceutical companies, an omnichannel platform utilizes a variety of communication channels, including email newsletters, mobile apps, social media, calls, web chats, and messengers. This approach allows you to gather insights from everywhere, analyze them, and tailor them to the needs of a specific audience.
Basic principles of omnichannel strategies
The fundamental value of omnichannel is creating a unified and continuous customer experience that improves customer satisfaction, loyalty, and marketing efforts. This ultimately contributes to business growth and strengthens the company’s position in the market.
Successful realization of the set goals in the pharmaceutical industry, based on omnichannelization, implies the fulfillment of the following principles:
- Customer experience to ensure a consistent and continuous customer experience across all channels.
- Data collection and analysis to create a unified customer profile to understand customer needs and preferences better.
- Personalization, using the information collected to generate tailored offers that can appeal to that particular customer, thereby increasing customer satisfaction and loyalty.
- Channel coordination, harmonizing marketing messages and promotions across all platforms to avoid confusion and duplication.
- Ensure privacy and that legal requirements and security standards protect consumers’ personal information.
Why are omnichannel strategies essential in the pharmaceutical industry?
Pharmaceuticals is one of the most regulated and complex industries. Patients and physicians need accurate, timely, and science-based information.
Omnichannel strategies help to:
- reach audiences at their convenience;
- narrow the gap between scientific evidence and its perception by the target group;
- increase reach while maintaining high-quality pharmaceutical communication;
- increase customer engagement;
- optimize marketing costs;
- increase consumer loyalty;
- increase conversions;
- improve customer experience.
Benefits of omnichannel approach for pharmaceutical companies
In an era of digital transformation, pharmaceutical companies must adapt to changing audience needs and utilize new technologies for engagement. The omnichannel approach opens up opportunities to better understand consumers, increase consumer engagement, and improve communication outcomes in pharma. It is a strategic tool that helps companies operate more effectively, stay competitive, and build audience trust.
Effectiveness of customer communications
An omnichannel strategy allows you to build holistic and consistent communication. For example, a physician may receive an email newsletter with information about a new drug and then follow up with a medical representative through an online meeting. This approach reduces the likelihood of losing interest and improves brand perception.
Increased analytics accuracy
Pharmaceutical companies can better understand their target audience’s needs by collecting data from all channels. By analyzing physician and patient behavior, it is possible to:
- Identify the most effective touch points.
- Predict customer behavior.
- Adapt online marketing campaigns.
Increase customer engagement and loyalty
Consumers become more loyal when they feel that a company understands their needs. This is especially important in pharma as brand reputation directly affects its success. An omnichannel approach helps create a personalized customer experience that enhances audience engagement.
Challenges in implementing omnichannel strategies and how to overcome them
Omnichannel strategies in pharmaceuticals offer new opportunities to engage with customers and healthcare professionals. However, implementing such approaches comes with a number of challenges that can limit their effectiveness. What are the challenges encountered?
Typical obstacles
- Data silos, difficulty in integrating different communication channels. Pharmaceutical enterprises often face challenges in combining information from different sources. Lack of technical infrastructure and incompatible systems slow down processes and create additional team challenges.
- Regulatory constraints. Stringent patient and physician communication requirements limit the use of certain channels.
- Lack of competencies among staff. Physicians and company representatives may not have sufficient knowledge of digital tools.
- There are limited resources for employee training and onboarding. Transitioning employees to new systems and training them to use them takes time and effort. Without proper training, the effectiveness of omnichannel can be significantly reduced.
- Resistance to change. Implementing a new approach takes effort and time, which often causes resistance within the company.
- High technology implementation and support costs. Developing and maintaining complex communication systems often requires significant investment, which can be prohibitive for smaller pharmaceutical companies.
- Lack of personalization. It is difficult to deliver relevant interactions without accurate data analysis and audience segmentation. This reduces pharmacist and patient engagement, diminishing the effectiveness of omnichannel strategies.
- Data protection challenges. With stringent regulatory requirements and risks of data breaches, securing communications and data stores becomes a critical challenge.
How Proxima Cloud CRM helps mitigate these challenges
Proxima Cloud CRM is designed to overcome organizations’ key challenges when implementing omnichannel strategies. Through innovative approaches and technical capabilities, the solutions offered simplify and accelerate adoption, streamline processes, and minimize risk. What challenges does Proxima Research’s CRM for pharma help you address?
- Difficulties in connecting different communication channels. Proxima Cloud CRM provides seamless integration of traditional and digital channels.
- Lack of personalization. Proxima Cloud CRM’s omnichannel platform quickly adapts to unique business needs using a low-code architecture.
- Significant technology implementation and maintenance costs. Implementation and support require no significant investment. One-click, AWS-based rapid deployment saves time and resources while ensuring system reliability and scalability.
- Data Protection Challenges. Meeting strict ISO 27001:2022 and ISO 27701:2019 standards ensures data security, cyber threat resilience, and GDPR compliance.
- Lack of resources for employee training and onboarding. An intuitive admin panel ensures employees learn the functionality quickly without lengthy training. Having out-of-the-box modules for visit scheduling, territory management, and data analysis increases team productivity and reduces complex training needs.
- Omnichannel customer and employee engagement. Proxima Cloud CRM supports centralized management of all communication channels. This simplifies customer and patient interactions, increases communication transparency and consistency, and allows employees to work in real time.
Tips for successful omnichannel strategy implementation
.Implementing omnichannel requires careful preparation and a thoughtful approach, as its success depends on properly integrating technology, data, and teamwork. For pharmaceutical companies, omnichannel allows them to build more personalized and effective interactions with patients and healthcare professionals. Three key areas of focus will help.
Clear planning
Start by developing a strategy that includes:
- Analyzing current communication channels.
- Defining goals and objectives.
- Building customer pathways for each target group.
A clearly laid out plan will avoid mistakes and speed up implementation.
Employee Training
Investing in employee training is critical. It will help to:
- Increase digital literacy.
- Accelerate staff adaptation to new processes.
- Ensure consistency in communication at all levels.
Utilize modern CRM solutions
Modern CRM systems for pharmaceutical companies automate data collection and analysis and provide a personalized approach to each client. Integrating CRM with other systems and channels will improve cooperation with the audience.
It is also important to regularly analyze the effectiveness of omnichannel strategy, adapt communications to local requirements, consider the preferences of the target group, and collect feedback.
Successful experience with Proxima Research and implementation of the OCM module in the conducted business processes will ensure the effective achievement of marketing goals.
How does the OCM module from Proxima Cloud CRM contribute to realizing omnichannel strategies?
The OCM (Omnichannel Customer Management) module is an advanced omnichannel platform specifically designed for the pharmaceutical industry. Its use ensures consistent omnichannel communication with healthcare professionals (HCPs) and successful implementation of omnichannel strategies.
The platform:
- supports work across traditional and digital channels;
- provides healthcare professionals with relevant and personalized information;
- strengthens relationships with HCPs;
- facilitates the building of more meaningful and longer-term relationships.
Module functionality
What are the features of Proxima OCM? The module simplifies the work of marketing teams by allowing them to launch and track multi-channel campaigns that ensure brand engagement at every stage of the customer journey.
The OCM module is:
- Omnichannel communication with optimized interaction through messengers (WhatsApp, Viber, Telegram), email, SMS, Push notifications, and video calls to increase audience reach and engagement levels.
- Personalized communication with HCP segmentation based on individual KPIs, specialized content delivery, use of template,s and two-way messaging right from the healthcare professional’s profile.
- Integrated pharma analytics with visualization of HCP engagement data with Proxima BI, tracking interaction statuses and optimizing future campaigns to improve their effectiveness.
- Performance management with sales rep activity monitoring, including collecting and analyzing customer feedback.
- Real-time campaign implementation with instant audience engagement through process automation and data collection to improve communication effectiveness.
Example of successful application of omnichannel strategies: Natcofarma case study
Natcofarma, a rapidly growing pharmaceutical company, faced a challenge: to increase the participation of healthcare professionals (HCPs) in its events within the target audience at the largest medical congresses held in Brazil—Clinical Oncology (SBOC) and Hematology, Hemotherapy and Cell Therapy (HEMO). Natcofarma used the Proxima OCM module for the solution. The successful collaboration enabled personalized invitations to be sent via popular messengers.
Campaign results for HEMO
- Messages sent: 984
- Delivery rate: 70% (693 out of 984)
- Open rate: 38% (265 out of 693)
- Link clicks (CTR): 8% (52 of 265)
Campaign results for SBOC
- Messages sent: 733
- Delivery rate: 84% (616 of 733)
- Open rate: 39% (241 out of 616)
- Link clicks (CTR): 11% (68 of 616)
Thanks to Proxima OCM, Natcofarma reports a 30% increase in HCP engagement at the booth, indicating a significant increase in audience reach and the effectiveness of omnichannel communications.
Natcofarma’s case study demonstrates how an omnichannel strategy using the Proxima OCM platform helps to increase audience reach, increase engagement, and attract more healthcare professionals to events. The 30% increase in attendance underscores the importance of an integrated approach to engagement through personalized communications
Contact us if you want to implement an omnichannel strategy in your company and achieve similar or even better results. We can help you tailor solutions to your objectives, ensuring effective interaction with your target audience and strengthening your business’ position to maximize results.
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