Digital Marketing to Physicians: How to Capture the Attention of Today’s Time-Constrained HCPs
It is true that sales teams across the healthcare industry are facing a crises when it comes to reaching physicans and healthcare providers (HCPs). But, haven’t HCPs always been difficult to reach? Everyone wants to connect with them, however, it sad but true that they are less open to sales and marketing techniques. This coupled with the onset of COVID-19, it is clear that securing time with physicians is becoming a mountain tasks for the sales force. So, how will do their job? Well, the answer is by joining hands with their digital marketing counterparts.
Yes, you heard that right! While sales enablement has been around for a while, the medical device and pharmaceutical companies must now maximise their digital efforts to support their sales team. You may assist your sales staff in establishing strong, productive relationships with physicians by utilising today’s leading B2B digital marketing methods. So, how you can achieve it? In this article, we are going to discuss some of the most effective ways through which you can reach HCPs with the help of digital marketing.
Here’s How you can Reach HCPs with Digital Marketing:
There are different ways through which you can effectively target digital communications to HCPs. One should include a mix of email, automation, content, and digital advertising.
Email Marketing : As per the Health Link Dimensions survey, 65% of HCPs prefer email to any other medium including conference exhibits (12%), in-person rep visits (11%), and direct mail (7%). This proves that email is the best way to reach them. As per a report by Get Response, 21% of emails sent are opened within the first hour, making it one of the fastest ways to send information to physicians.
Email marketing to physicians is effective, HCPs prefer it, and it may reach individuals in a variety of ways. Today, email allows you to target specific specializations, hospitals or practices, group sizes, regions, sex, age, and title to your top prospects.
Considering Database Enhancement: Of course, most pharmaceutical and device companies have developed extensive HCP databases tailored to their respective brands. These databases can include NPI numbers, CPT codes, prescribing data, and more in addition to basic demographic data and email addresses. You can utilise this and expand your email reach and enhance your data. This can be done through licensing from reputable data providers. Depending on your goals, the listing company may deploy emails for you, or you may licence the lists to deploy on your own. Ensure that data is “opt-in” verified, authenticated, and maintained. Of course, you need to be absolutely sure that your email campaigns are fully compliant.
Invest in Marketing Automation: Marketing automation software also plays a pivotal role in segmenting, nurturing, and convincing HCPs to establish relationships with your sales team. Marketing automation has a lot to offer. It helps you to score leads that will help prioritise HCPs based on your data and engagement with your online content. It will also alert sales teams when HCPs become active with your content.
Creating Educational Content That Is Required By HCPs: HCPs basically want information tailored to their experience, knowledge level, and more. Physicians want ‘trusted and unbiased’ information. They want information tailored to their knowledge level, experience, and lack of time. They want reliable information that does not take up too much of their time. But what types of information do they want? They are interested in “continuing education programmes and product approvals.” They also value patient education materials; 75% of physicians said they use patient education materials when they are provided to them.
But, how does this support your sales team? Well, the answer is pretty simple. Physicians who find the information credible on your website will have higher chances of establishing a relationship with your sales forces. So, there are a few content types that you market to physicians.
- Blog posts
- White papers
- Case studies
- Infographics
- Webinars
- E-books
- Podcasts
- Videos
Using social media and programmatic digital advertising: Social media has become an integral part of our lives. The platforms like LinkedIn, Facebook, Twitter, and more have become a successful way to communicate with your audiences and patients. Interestingly, most of the HCPs use social media to create communities with their peers and they also use it to communicate with patients and educate the public. This is where you can help them with all the credible information they want to share with their peers or the public. One can use a mix of organic and paid strategies to get maximum engagement on their social media posts.
How to Create Captivating Content for HCPs
Build an Editorial Calendar: Before you can create quality content for HCPs, you’ll need an editorial calendar to keep everyone on track. Editorial calendars aid marketers in maintaining consistency. They also help marketing teams maintain quality by better preparing the material they intend to deliver. Developing an editorial calendar that corresponds with your brand’s strategy and offers relevant content is a must. Your material can include evergreen content, newsworthy items, and editorial pieces.
Be Mindful and Strategic with Messaging: Although physicians are often overworked and overburdened, they are still humans. Today’s finest content employs a message that is infused with empathy and a thorough understanding of the target audience. So to create mindful messaging, one should try and create appropriate identities for HCPs. This is where you and your sales team may collaborate. Learn more about the HCPs you want to target, such as their pain points and how your product/services can help them solve their difficulties. It is also critical to evaluate the physician’s journey in the same way. The goal is to present a persuasive argument demonstrating how your organization or brand can help their patients or practice.
Different Stages of Content You Can Use: Awareness: If you want establish a relationship with HCPs, you focus on creating content that generates traffic. These might includes articles, blog posts, partnership content, features, and PR collateral. Consideration: The second stage is the stage of consideration, which is also one of the crucial stages. This where you can demonstrate your value marketing to physicians. This stage basically includes leadership pieces, industry publications, how-tos, tips, and educational resources. Analysis and Decision: this is the last stage where the HCPs gives the final verdict about your product. During this stage, the physicians might look for clinical data, case studies, testimonials, and high-profile or industry-leading endorsements.
B2B Email Best Practices: Once you have created and finalised the message, it is now time to ensure that it gets the maximum reach. In order to do that, you need email marketing. Here are some ways through which you should kep in mind:
- Consider rich text emails in addition to formatted HTML
- Optimize frequency and timing
- Keep it short
- Use direct response.
- Test everything
As a pharma or medical device brand, you need to provide full support to your sales team. With right tactics, you can leverage digital marketing to establish long-term relationships with HCPs.