When Google announced its intention to withdraw support for third party cookies from its own Chrome browser, it understandably sent shockwaves through the marketing business. Following hot on the heels of iOS and Firefox making it so users must explicitly opt into cookies and far more stringent regulations brought about by geopolitical developments such as the EU and UK’s GDPR, and the California Privacy Bill. Facing a future without third party cookies means marketers are having to reconsider how they gather data on their existing and potential customers – both healthcare providers and patients – and deliver the kind of experience the contemporary market demands. How then can pharma brands switch to new models and plan and execute strategies on collecting first-party data through patient-direct channels?
We hear about omnichannel marketing and services in the customer goods industry all the time as retailers seek ways to leverage the best parts of online and physical shopping to create better experiences for customers and drive increased revenue for their businesses. That’s all well and good, but the pharma industry is also going through an omnichannel evolution right now and brands the world over are innovating and creating new levels of value through the intelligent meshing of the online and offline worlds. However, due to the severely differing natures of the pharma and customer goods sectors, the process of moving to an omnichannel mindset is a wildly different prospect for those selling medicines and treatments. How then can the pharma industry effectively make the leap from a multi-channel business model to omnichannel and reap the benefits of the results?
There’s no arguing that the global COVID-19 crisis has transformed many aspects of our industry. There is also little doubt that many of the changes the pandemic has brought to our lives and businesses are here to stay. Not only this, but the landscape continues to evolve as we emerge from [hopefully] the worst days of the pandemic. Practices which were generating traction in 2019 may no longer be relevant or their position in our working lives may have turned down a different path. Predictive analytics is just one of the fields which has been forced to evolve due to the COVID-19 crisis with many companies forced to start over as we enter the so-called "new normal” and figure out or place within it.
We have heard no end regarding the challenges the pharma and biotech industry has been facing of late. The COVID-19 crisis has pulled a sharp focus on the manufacturing and logistics of pharma and biotech as companies such as Pfizer and AstraZeneca rushed to bring their life-saving vaccines to the people of the world. However, this means that other elements of the pharma and biotech business, such as digital marketing, have understandably fallen by the wayside in our consideration. With that in mind, here are five challenges facing digital marketers in the pharma and biotech space and some suggestions as to how they might be addressed.