HCPs, patients, and payers use digital channels to inspire and inform opinions and decisions. At the same time, they are overwhelmed with the magnitude of digital content pushed to them. Thus, it is NOT volume which will drive success, but rather focused, relevant, personalized, and localized content and communication with each stakeholder across the channels.
We call this the right simple.
Consequently, for all projects across Vertic Service Lines, we typically run through a 3-step process of 1. Insights, 2. Strategy and 3. Execution & Ongoing optimization.
Vertic’s digital observational landscaping study creates stakeholder insights to inform decisions on:
Customer engagement
Competitive positioning
Community relations
The shift towards living our lives online have with it created an ever-flowing stream of user- and company generated data. Specifically in healthcare, disease and scientific topics are discussed and searched for incessantly and thus constitute an outstanding potential for insights generation. Vertic’s core research competence lies in mining the ocean of activity data created by customers, competitors, and community members online and distilling it into insights.
Digital observational research is complementary to traditional market research techniques. From purely listening and observing, you get a uniquely unbiased view presented by your stakeholders. Not all research questions can however be answered through observations alone, and occasionally there is limited data available to observe. We therefore approach all projects with a mixed method mindset and construct a final research design that meets the needs of the brief.
The sales rep, congresses and medical journals have historically been the prioritized channels for marketing within Healthcare. However, the efficiency of those channels has waned over recent years, especially driven by the uptake of other, mostly digital, channels by HCPs, patients and payers alike.
Which channels should we be in; at which stage of the decision journey; with what content; and targeting who? The question calls for investigations into the channel preferences of different types of stakeholders; the influence and reach of different channels, and scrutiny of how different digital channels such as Display (Awareness stage), Owned website(s) (Consideration) and Search (Decision stage) have varied relevance across the respective decision journeys of the healthcare audiences.
Furthermore, such investigation should look further into studying the synergetic effects of the channels and how they are behaviorally linked for the HCPs, patients, caregivers, or payers. Therefore, a critical challenge in an omnichannel marketing strategy is the integration between the channels and the personalization of content based on context and timing.
Vertic has omnichannel strategy approach which allows healthcare brands to maximize the return on the marketing investment no matter whether the product:
is in pre-launch,
is facing launch,
is an “established product” in front of loss of exclusivity,
would benefit from increased disease awareness to drive uptake,
requires a revised treatment paradigm understanding to gain market share,
simply needs to create awareness of product efficacy, indication or safety attributes.
The road to launch is challenging. And a big part of the battle for launch success is to be won within marketing and communication.
In the launch of a prescription medicinal drug leveraging digital, 3 factors are key:
“early” preparation optimally starting 36 months before launch.
pre-launch digital activities focused on market shaping driven out of global and/or regional headquarters as affiliates are focused on earnings quarter to quarter.
a forceful promotional launch burst carefully timed around the provision of marketing authorization, determination of pricing & reimbursement and guidelines.
Differences between countries in terms of the regulatory, legal, market environment and business prioritization necessitates a modular approach to the digital road map, digital tactics, and content.
Vertic has been an integrated part of more than 5 global product launches in the healthcare industry in the last 3 years and have defined best practice processes for the healthcare product launch alongside an understanding of the critical success factors inherent in product launch excellence mindset.
The Vertic approach to campaigns, messaging, and content strategies combines a proven methodology, deep audience insight, and highly creative crafting of copy, design, motion graphics, and videography.
By employing a balance of strategy and creativity, we can produce digital campaigns, content, websites, digital congress activation, self detailers, banners, advertorials, scientific ads, digital medical education, email programs and other initiatives that are inspiring, engaging, and measurably meet business goals.
Our healthcare creative strategy development begins with a deep understanding of the physician or patient. We gain insights into our target audiences’ attitudes, beliefs, and behaviors through a mix of primary and secondary research methods.
With this understanding, we develop campaigns and messaging that resonate with the audience’s values, meet their information needs, and appeal to their interests and goals. An outside-in mindset is crucial in enabling us to earn the audience’s attention and to lead them through the decision journey – fulfilling the client’s communication and business goals.
We also craft content strategies that define an ecosystem of interconnected channels and content pieces that work together holistically, considering all touchpoints along the user journey. The result is an engaging narrative flow that overcomes audience barriers and moves them along a defined journey.
With a structured, insights-driven approach, we can craft highly creative and compelling campaigns, messaging, and content that can be evaluated based on KPIs and benchmarks and continually optimized over time.
Patient Support seeks to improve the patient experience from diagnosis to treatment to a “healthy” life with or without a disease. The provision of Patient Support may be can broken down to 3 objectives: 1) Help the individual patients to gain control of their disease and improve quality of life; 2) Improve patient reported outcomes and treatment adherence; 3) Gather real life evidence data (RWD) enabling patient centric innovation.
However, Patient Support is a challenging discipline. It is about behaviour change. And behaviour change is hard, if people would rather not change their behaviour than stay alive …just ask the one third of kidney transplant patients who don’t take their anti-rejection medications.* Non-compliance whether to the drug or to the “optimal” lifestyle is a testimony to the complexity of human psychology and the practical realities of our everyday life.
When developing a patient support program, we need to investigate the prevalence and impact of different and somewhat non-obvious types of barriers within the spheres of socio demography and psychology. To that end, Vertic applies a range of behavioural science tools and apply these to the conceptualization and development of Share of Life® founded Patient Support services.
Remuneration in Healthcare has almost exclusively been Output based and linked to the number of product prescriptions. As a corollary, Product Brands, with Block Buster brands leading the pack, have always been the undisputed brand heroes in healthcare companies.
However, the pharmaceutical companies’ value proposition is slowly, but surely, diversifying as the digital & industry transformation gains speed. New propositions such as digital therapeutics, direct patient support, impact validation for value pricing, corresponding HCP service renderings (e.g. diagnostic tools), frameworks for (data) collaboration with payer, providers, patients and pharma companies are all, at their core, not product specific.
Such value propositions continue to develop and proliferate as healthcare companies evolve from a transactional and product centric value model to a Share of Life® value model. These new and diverse value propositions require an umbrella brand to instill trust and build affinity with their target audiences. The corporate brand is a natural choice as such umbrella brand. In a digital world, the corporate website is the mainstay of the corporate brand and the digital front door for all stakeholders.
See how healthcare industry ranks on Global Corporate Website Index.
Head of Client Engagement,
Vertic EMEA
We would love to discuss your business and innovate intelligent healthcare solutions together.