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Why Healthcare Marketers Should Own Swine Flu

 

Swine Flu Up Close

I didn’t want to write this post, but too many people have now asked, “where can I read your take on the swine flu?” Just to be different, I’ve refused to write anything, but now I’ve got to. Two things that won’t surprise you: I’m a big advocate of Twitter and I’m always looking for ways for healthcare marketers to improve what they do. Today the two met up in a big way. 

I read a great NPR article today about how Twitter is really causing more harm than good when it comes to swine flu. Unlike many other real-time issues where Twitter’s been helpful (like when terrorists attacked Mumbai), it’s causing more hysteria than real facts. In the case of the Mumbai terrorist attacks, the information found on Twitter was more up to date and accurate than the traditional news outlets. The feedback was immediate, like having thousands of reporters on top of the story. Misinformation was minimal. This information probably saved some lives. When it comes to swine flu, it’s a whole different story.

The NPR article pulled a few tweets related to the swine flu. These are a good representation of what’s happening on Twitter:

  • I’m concerned about the swine flu outbreak in us and mexico could it be germ warfare?
  • In the pandemic Spanish Flu of 1918-19, my Grandfather said bodies were piled like wood in our local town….SWINE FLU = DANGER
  • Good grief this swine flu thing is getting serious. 8/9 specimens tested were prelim positive in NYC. so that’s Tx, Mexico and now Nyc.
  • Short Ribs! How long before the Swine Flu hysteria crashes the pork market? 2 hours? 3?
  • be careful of the swine flu!!!! (may lead to global epidemic) Outbreak in Mexico. 62 deaths so far!! Don’t eat pork from Mexico!!
  • Swine flu? Wow. All that pork infecting people….beef and chicken have always been meats of choice
  • SIMPLE CURE FOR THE NEW BHS (BIRD/HUMAN/SWINE FLU) AS REPORTED ON TV LAST NIGHT IS THE DRUG TAMIFLU….ALREADY A PRESCRIPTION ON THE MARKET
  • Be careful…Swine Flu is not only in Mexico now. 8 cases in the States. Pig = Don’t eat

Quite a bit less valuable than the information coming real-time during the Mumbai attacks. The above tweets instead represent general hysteria. That’s always going to happen, right?

So, what’s different about this hysteria? Pharma is taking a drubbing because of the swine flu. Why? Well, here are a few select tweets that give a pretty good picture:

  • Hello. My name is Big Pharma. Times are tough, our revenues are down. We need a stimulus package. Introducing…swine flu!
  • Wonder how much money the pharma companies will make off thisswine flu deal..
  • Swine flu don’t exist. Fake from pharma industry. Why are people so dumb to believe every word the media writes ?!?!
  • US economy in bad shape. Pharma companies too. Swine Flu – solution US made vaccine and medicine! Go figure out!
  • We do not know the outcome of swine flu however we do know millions of Americans will DIE each year because of Big Pharma.

My favorite is the last one. Basically is says, “I know nothing about this swine flu, but I’ll take this moment to hammer the industry.” Nice. Pharma’s PR problems get worse every day.

So, what’s a healthcare company to do? Why did I title this post, “Why Healthcare Marketers Should Own Swine Flu”? I don’t mean what a lot of the above tweets implied, that pharma should take credit for the swine flu. I’ll leave that to those “tweeps.” Instead, I mean that healthcare should own and help control the conversation. If they can do it right, they’ll immediately improve their standing in the community.

In times of uncertainty, as we have with this swine flu, people want definitive answers. They want answers from authorities they trust. I admit that many people don’t trust healthcare (particularly pharma) companies, but that’s all right. Keep in mind that millions of people visit pharma websites every year. They do turn to them for information.

Let me remind you of a previous post on email marketing where I talked about  a recent study by Epsilon that showed that people are open to hearing from pharma companies. Here is the relevant chart for this discussion:
Perception of pharma companies that send email

Here’s what I said in my post about this chart:

“What?!? One of pharma’s biggest issues is an overall negative perception of the industry, right? Turns out you can improve this with email marketing. Read the question again: “I have a more favorable opinion of the pharmaceutical companies that send me email because of the communications I receive.” Looking for a simple way to improve your company’s public perception? Here’s a place to start. One caveat, the “because of the communications I receive” is an important part of this, so make sure you’re sending quality content that’s meaningful to patients.”

What would be more meaningful than real-time information about the swine flu right now? What about sending it directly to your consumers’ email addresses? I would certainly say that this would be classified as “quality content that’s meaningful to patients.” 

If you’re worried about people not trusting the information from you, here are some facts: the “extremists” that I highlighted in this post will never, ever listen to you no matter what your source or what you say. So, forget about them. Your appealing to your average person who already has a good opinion of you. I’m talking about the people you already communicate with. Those in your CRM programs and those visiting your sites. They do trust you. If they didn’t they would have never given you their email address and they would have never visited your site. You’re talking to them. Forget about everyone else for now.

You don’t have to create the content. In fact, it might be better if you don’t. Get information ultra-credible sources, like the CDC, and aggregate it. Use their information to create a “truth and myth” section with citations from authorities. You can add a small call out on every site you have and send the information in an email to everyone. Your message is simple:

Dear Consumer,

You look to us for valuable, accurate, and timely information about various healthcare conditions. As we looked at the news available for the recent swine flu outbreak, we found that  much of the information is the opposite of what you expect. We see it as our obligation to help supply you with accurate information not just about our products, but about your health in general. 

Using the latest information from the CDC and other sources, we’ve compiled a up-to-the-second website (<insert URL>) that tracks the latest news regarding the outbreak, dispels rumors, and supplies you with all the background information you’ll need. We see this as an important service that our resources allow us to bring you and we hope that it helps you stay on top of the latest developments.

Best,

Your Friendly Neighborhood Healthcare Company

 

Who doesn’t benefit from that? It would require minimal effort and could be launched in hours (I’ll do it for you). It would also do wonders for any healthcare company’s standing in the community and could be a wonderful PR effort if done right. Done right means that it isn’t promotional. It’s just providing what consumers need. They’ll pay you back later with their loyalty if you do it right. This is Marketing with Meaning in action.

Why are you still sitting there?

Healthcare Marketing Needs Some Digital Natives

 

 

Kids and Parents and The Internet

Many of you know what I’m talking about in the title of this post. Many of you don’t. This post is for you. I had an epiphany today that provided a simple solution to help get healthcare marketing to move faster towards digital technologies. Read on.

First off, what’s a Digital Native and what’s the counterpart, the Digital Immigrant? Marc Prensky coined these terms to help explain a phenomenon he was seeing in the education system (download the overview here). Basically, there were two groups, students and teachers. For many years, there was always a bit of a disconnect between these two groups simply because of age and maturity (?). However, all in all, there wasn’t much of a difference as the students eventually grew to be very similar and behave similarly to their teachers. But, at some point, this changed. Students and teachers suddenly had a much bigger gap between them. The cause? Digital technologies.

Kids who grew up starting in the early-90s were born with all of the digital technologies that us “older” folks had to learn. To them, there’s always been email, the Internet always existed, and everyone always had a mobile phone. I didn’t have any of this stuff as a kid. So, now mix these kids who are Digital Natives and have used these technologies all their lives with Digital Immigrants (their teachers) who have not. What do you get? Two groups of people talking a completely different language. Two groups who work differently and solve problems in unique ways.

So why should you care about all this? Well, I think one of the major reasons why pharma hasn’t embraced digital is because it’s completely made up of Digital Immigrants. Set aside all the regulatory issues, all the measurement questions, and every other objection you can come up with. In the end, I realized it comes back to one thing. You’re all Immigrants.

How can you tell if you’re a Digital Immigrant? Marc gave some good examples in his review, so if you’ve done any of these, you’re a Digital Immigrant:

  • Printed out your email (or had your administrative assistant print it out for you–even worse)
  • You need to print out a document written on the computer in order to edit it (rather than just editing on the screen)
  • You’ve brought people physically into your office to see an interesting web site (rather than just sending them the URL). 
  • The “Did you get my email?” phone call

I could add to Marc’s list forever, but you get the idea. I think we can stipulate that the vast majority of the readers of this blog are Digital Immigrants. So, I applaud your efforts to learn more and to reduce, as Marc puts it, your “accent.” From my personal experience working in pharma, I can tell you that your average brand manager and even associate brand managers are all Digital Immigrants simply based on when they grew up. This is not to mention the senior managers who are the parents and grandparents of the first Digital Natives.

I’m technically a Digital Immigrant. I also know that I was among the youngest Brand Leaders at AstraZeneca when I was there meaning that there weren’t any Digital Natives around. Why is this a problem? I’ve said many times before (most recently in my presentation on Social Media Principles) that one critical step necessary to really understanding which digital platforms make sense for a marketing campaign is understanding the options. Not knowing the options. Understanding the options. It’s one thing to know what Twitter is, but it’s another to really understand how it works. It’s the finer points that often make these platforms most valuable. Digital Immigrants don’t inherently understand digital platforms. They have to learn them and this take a lot of time and effort. Time that most healthcare brand managers don’t have and effort that they simply can’t spare. I get it. 

I’ve got a solution. Hire some natives. Now’s a great time of year for this. College graduates are looking for jobs and students are looking for internships. Hire them. Hire them as your “translator” to convert digital to your language. Hire them to explain the finer points to you. Hire them to develop the completely fresh ideas that utilize digital that you simply can’t imagine. Don’t let them run off unsupervised. In fact, pair them with someone experienced and let them both learn from each other. Give your new staff of Digital Natives one instruction when they start…”Tell us what we’re missing.” Forget that they don’t have healthcare experience. They’ve got other experience that you can never have.

If you want to learn more about Digital Natives before you go out and hire anyone, Harvard has an entire project dedicated to just this. If you want to simply “rent” some Digital Natives, we’ve got some available here at Bridge Worldwide. Just contact me and we’ll send some over.

A Simple Treatment for Your Ailing Healthcare Website

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You spent a lot of money on your brand’s website, probably hundreds of thousands and possibly a million or more. But do you feel your site is performing as it should? If not, you aren’t alone. I talk with healthcare marketers all the time who tell me this. Not enough traffic, not enough people clicking an offer, not enough people joining the CRM program. There are always going to be things about your site that you aren’t satisfied with.

 

So, what are you doing about it?

If you’re not satisfied with the performance of your site (however you define it), you really only have three choices.

  1. Scrap the website. Who’s using these Interwebs anyway?
  2. Redo it from scratch. Hey, money’s no object.
  3. Fix it.

I’m thinking that choice one isn’t much of a choice. Yes, you could decide to do an “un-website,” as I call Skittles latest creation. Instead of creating the content and site themselves, they’re letting you do the work by pulling in various social media discussions of the brand to make up the bulk of the site’s content. I’m going to answer for you and say, no, this isn’t for you.

That leaves choices two and three. Choice two could be an option, but as I said earlier you’ve already probably spent a small marketing fortune on the site. Should you just trash the whole thing? In some cases, the answer is yes. If your site is terrible looking, outdated, has a poor user experience, has outdated content, and may or may not have at least one animated GIF like a dancing baby, it’s time to say goodbye.

Dancing Baby Animated GIF

If that’s you, then start from scratch. That’s probably not many of you though. Chances are you have a pretty decent site, but one that needs a little help to reach your goals. If so, it’s time to optimize. I’m not talking about search engine optimization (a topic for a future post). I’m talking about improving what you have to make sure it’s working optimally, that is, working hardest for you.

Let’s say that you aren’t happy with the number of enrollments in your CRM program. You have data that shows that patients who sign up for your program are more likely to get a prescription and more likely to stay on the product when they do. Great. You’ve got an amazing program, but no one’s joining (at least not at the levels you’d like). Let’s assume that you’re getting plenty of traffic from the right sources and people are checking out a few pages on your site, but they just aren’t signing up. So, what’s next?

In the past, I’ve discussed the importance of having previews of what people get before they turn over their personal information. This means showing them a little bit of what they’ll get when they enroll. Maybe you show last quarter’s email newsletter. People who know what they’re getting are more likely to trade their personal information for it. But, let’s assume this isn’t your problem. You’ve already got some good previews so people know what they’re getting. Where to now? Let’s look at the path people must take to enroll in your program. Is it clear? Are their proper callouts for the program so people know it exists? In other words, are you sure it’s easy enough to find your program on your site? I know you can find it and it’s obvious to you, but is it obvious to everyone else?

There’s a simple and highly cost-effective approach you can take to figure out the problem. Thanks to the folks at Google, you can conduct some simple tests to figure out what works and what doesn’t. It’s called the Google Website Optimizer. A catchy name it ain’t, but its a powerful tool (and it’s free). We’ve used this for several clients to determine the best location of buttons, whether lists should be expanded by default or by click only, whether a link is better suited on the right or left side of a page, if content should be above or below the “foldl,” and many, many other details. It’s all these little details that together have a big impact on your site’s performance and whether or not your customers are, in our example, signing up for your program.

What Google Website Optimizer does it very simple. It allows you to create multiple versions of the same page and determine which is most likely to give the desired effect. You can do a simple A/B test or a more complex multivariate analysis that considers multiple options working together. All you need to do (or have your digital agency do) is create the different combinations and include the tracking codes provided by Google. Then, sit back and watch the results come in.

To make this a little more clear, here’s an actual example from one of our clients. We wanted to improve the number of people who clicked a link (in the form of a button) that lead to a certain product information page. The conversion rate was good, but could have been better. We thought about different options, which mainly included resizing the button and its location on the page, but didn’t know which option was best. Enter Google. By using Google’s tool, we discovered that by simply changing the location of the button, we could improve conversions (the percent of people clicking on the button) by 50%. Here’s what the final report in Google Analytics looked like:

Google Website Optimizer Example

 

Here you can see the conversion rate of the original button placement (2.59%) and the conversion rates of the two test pages as well. In Combination 1, we put the button on the right side of the screen, above the “fold.” In Combination 2, we put the button below some introductory text, which put it below the “fold.” The results were a bit surprising, as the test showed that putting the button below the fold was the best option. 50% better in fact. Thinking more about it, this makes sense. We were asking people to move to the next step without having all the information. They wanted to read some details to see if they needed to go any farther. Putting the button before the text (as was done in the original and Combination 1), didn’t give people the chance to learn before asking them to do something more. For those who ignored the button and then read text, when they got to the end of the text and were ready to take the next step, there was no button for them to click. Therefore, button after the text. Makes sense, right?

It may all sound like a lot of minutia, but these little things make all the difference when you’re trying to get people to follow your conversion path. Your ideal path isn’t necessarily theirs, so it’s essential that you try to understand their thinking when designing the user experience of your site. If you don’t get it right at first, you can always test and improve, as we did in the example above. Your site should never be static and unchanging. You should always be looking for ways to make it better for your users and for your performance metrics.

This may appear to be just a bunch of tiny details…it is. But, that’s what oftentimes makes the difference. Let’s look at it with some numbers. Let’s say that a certain conversion might be worth $20 according to your data (PS: pretty low by healthcare industry standards). Your previous rate was 2.59% (like in our example). You have 1000 visitors a day. You increase your conversion rate to 3.90%. Each day, that’s an extra $262. Each year, it’s an extra $94,320. Consider that it cost our client around $10,000 to do all the work necessary for this test and you’ve got a quick ~9 to 1 return on your money. As a pharma company, your conversion value is probably in the hundreds or thousands of dollars and your traffic numbers might be higher, so the $94,320 extra per year quickly becomes much, much more.

Here’s my point…you can improve what you’ve got already and see a major impact with very low investment. As you make more and more changes, they bring a cumulative effect until your site is working as it should and bringing the returns you expect. So, if your site’s results are a little sickly, don’t give up on the patient. There may just be a simple treatment that a skilled “doctor” can deliver.

Okay…you’ve come this far in this post, so here’s a special offer to all my dedicated readers. If you work for a pharma or healthcare company (sorry, no agencies), our company, Bridge Worldwide, will conduct one of these experiments for you at no charge. Here’s the fine print…so my company doesn’t go bankrupt, I’ve got to limit the free offer to the first five companies that ask. You can contact me here. The doctor is in.

Pharma and Healthcare Social Media Principles Presentation

Mini White Paper

I get this question all the time: “How should my company get started in social media?” Not a simple answer, so I created this presentation to answer it. If you’re looking for how you should start, you’ve come to the right place. These are the principles I believe every company (and not just those in healthcare) should follow in order to get off to a good start in social media. A compliant, effective, and meaningful start.

Here’s what to do and what not to do in order ensure you win over your customers instead of chasing them away.

Check out the presentation to find out more about the five principles:

  • Be Aware, Not Afraid
  • Monitor and Get Involved
  • All About E.V.E.
  • Prepare to Surrender Control
  • It’s Not About You

Feel free to share with others. Please leave your comments and suggestions for improvements as well. I’m happy to come speak at your company or conference on this topic, just contact me and let me know some more about it.

Pharma and Healthcare Social Media Principles

If you’d like a copy, you can download the latest version of this (slightly different from the above) that includes all of my speaking notes. Here’s the link:

Annotated Version of Healthcare and Social Media...Know the Rules (781 downloads)

Thanks and enjoy.

Pharma Friends: If You Like DTC TV, You’ll Love Social Media

Mini White Paper

I’ve been talking about pharma and social media for what seems like a long time now. I’m certainly far from the only one. A cursory glance at any healthcare marketing blogs (check out a few from my Blogroll) and publications will show you that it’s a hot topic. Despite all the talk, social media is still struggling to be adopted as a standard channel in the pharma marketer’s playbook. One reason is certainly the conservative nature of many pharma organizations and the potential regulatory issues that social media can create. Aside from the issue of adverse event reporting (which I’ve already discussed in detail), there’s a major issue around people talking about off label usage of a product as well. If you’re a pharma company hosting a branded social media site and someone posts some off label information about your product, it’s the same as you posting it. The FDA, of course, isn’t too keen on this. If you delete all comments or don’t allow them, well, it isn’t much of a social media program. It violates the Expected Visitor Experience (or E.V.E.). 

But what about an unbranded community? There are a number of them out there (see the Pharma and Healthcare Social Media Wiki for examples). Many are not sponsored or created by pharma companies, but quite a few are. However, I still see a lot of reluctance from companies to try this approach as well. Despite the fact that an unbranded community allows for more interaction and freer discussion among members, which translates to happier visitors and a more engaged community, many pharma companies are worried about missing an opportunity for a brand message. An unbranded, disease or condition-based community avoids many of the issues surrounding off-label promotion and might even decrease the already small number of reportable adverse events recorded on the site. But still, there’s this need to get in the product name.

So, today I’m going to try a different approach to persuade companies to change. I’m going to use pharma’s own words to show why an unbranded community should be considered among the standard marketing tactics. I’m going to compare direct-to-consumer TV with social media. Watch this.

Despite ongoing criticism from the public regarding DTC TV, pharma companies still spent over $4.3 billion on DTC advertising in 2008. This is not all DTC TV, but it is significant portion, certainly into the billions. Bottom line, a lot of money goes towards all those TV ads. The public criticizes these ads for numerous reasons, but chief among them (whether right or wrong) is that they drive up prices, waste money that could be spent on R&D, are misleading, and cause people to unnecessarily seek treatment. 

The pharma industry has tried to counter this with a few sets of stats. Pfizer has this to say on its website: “DTC advertising contributes to the public health by bringing important health information to patients and encouraging them to discuss their health with their health care providers.” They even have this chart, which shows that among patients who visited their doctor because of a DTC advertising, 25% receive a new diagnosis.

AstraZeneca quotes the same information on its website as well and add: “A FDA patient survey on DTC advertising also revealed that nearly one-in-five patients reported speaking to a doctor about a condition for the first time because of a DTC advertisement.” You can dowload, read, and interpret the FDA patient survey they reference for yourself here. 

The gist of the argument is simple. Without DTC advertising, including TV, many people who have a disease might not ever find out until it’s too late. I’m not here today to argue the merits of this statement. I’m just going to use this stance to show pharma companies why social media might be a better fit to help find people with undiagnosed conditions and get them to seek treatment.

There have been countless studies that show patients are seeking information online. I’m not going to try to list them all here, but this one from Pew is pretty representative. Bottom line: ~75% of people with access to the internet are using it to find healthcare information. I think everyone can agree that this is happening and that, according to one iCrossing study, patients are starting to go to the internet as their number one source for information even more than they go to their doctors.

Enough stats. Here’s my argument: if pharma companies say that the goal of DTC TV is to help people figure out they have diseases that would otherwise be undiagnosed, isn’t the internet really the ideal channel to help reach this goal?

Here’s why:

  • People are already online looking for healthcare information, so they are open to listening while they’re online and not while they’re watching TV
  • Because of the power of search engines, people with certain symptoms will quickly find that they might have a condition. In other words, you’re likely to find the right people at the right time. Compare this to TV, where reaching a person with a specific undiagnosed condition is a needle in a haystack-like search at best.
  • Digital technologies can reduce the number of people who unnecessarily seek treatment. The additional information that can be shared online and simple tools including symptom comparison guides can help ensure only those who really need treatment seek the treatment.
  • Oh yes, it all can be done at a fraction of the cost of offline DTC advertising especially TV.

I know that it’s naive to think that the only reason for DTC TV is that it reaches people with undiagnosed conditions. DTC TV appears to sell product. From the FDA surveys previously mentioned, here’s the quote that keeps money flowing towards DTC advertising: “In the consumer surveys we examined, the percentage of consumers who, in response to a DTC advertisement, requested and received a prescription from their physician for a drug they were not currently taking was generally about 5 percent (ranging from 2 percent to 10 percent). By our estimate, this means that about 8.5 million consumers received a prescription after viewing a DTC advertisement and asking their physician for the drug in 2000.” That’s a lot of prescriptions. For perspective, pharma spent $2.5 billion in DTC advertising in 2000 when these surveys were done. Some quick math tells me that this $2.5 billions spent for 8.5 million prescriptions means that each prescription would need to be worth $294 to break even. With more than half of people stopping their treatments after after 3-6 months (from Osterberg L, Blaschke T. Adherence to medication. N Engl J. Med 2005;353:487-97), $294 is a pretty high number to get to.

I’m not going to try to encourage pharma marketers to stop DTC TV today. All I’m saying is that a sliver of this budget might be better spent elsewhere. An unbranded community that helps people determine if they should seek treatment and then helps them once they start treatment can be an important tool for every healthcare marketer. All of this can be done in a compliant way that allows for real interaction among members and offers value to each patient opposite the shotgun approach of DTC TV. Talk only to those who need to hear your message. Everyone will thank you.

One final thing to consider…here at Bridge Worldwide, we’ve created something we call Marketing with Meaning. Essentially, the idea is that your marketing itself should add value to consumers’ lives, meaning that people will want to participate in your marketing. Think about it for a moment. Your advertising, your marketing, should be valuable. Not just your product, but the way you sell it. Many brands have successfully done this (read all about them on the Marketing with Meaning blog). One of the best examples for me is Nike+. With the online program for Nike+, you can track your progress, talk with other runners, set goals, enter challenges, and read more about running. The cost for the program is zero. Does it sell more Nike shoes? Absolutely. The marketing itself adds value to consumers’ lives and the brand benefits.

For me, healthcare is the ideal industry to adopt a strict Marketing with Meaning approach to selling their products. An unbranded community that educates and supports members is a perfect example of Marketing with Meaning.  People are tired of the interuptions, of ads that don’t apply to them, and of junk mail and telemarketers. While online, they can cut all this out with various blocking tools and by simply leaving your site. Isn’t that reason enough to look at new approaches? Finally, appropriate Marketing with Meaning also has the added benefit of improved perceptions for pharma among the public. Don’t we all know pharma can use a bit of that?

Healthcare and Pharma Social Media: It’s All About E.V.E.

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All About Eve

No, no, not the 1950 classic “All About Eve” starring Bette Davis. I mean “All About E.V.E.”

New term, new acronym to remember, but I promise this one will be worthwhile.

E.V.E. Expected Visitor Experience.

Some background. As many of you know, with your help I’ve been compiling the most complete list of pharma and healthcare social media programs out there (in wiki form). If you haven’t seen it yet, check it out. It’s sure to help you convince your management that you wouldn’t be the first to try something in the social media space. I give huge credit to the intrepid few companies that seem to be willing to stick their necks out just a little further in an effort to pioneer this space.  However, while all these programs and sites listed in the wiki are technically social media, almost every single one that is sponsored or controlled by a healthcare company lacks one thing. A proper E.V.E.

Briefly, E.V.E., Expected Visitor Experience,  is defined as the set of activities and functions that an average user would expect to find and use on a specific digital platform. That is, does it work like they expect it to work? Does it work like they’ve seen similar sites work?

Let’s take a look at a few examples to help me explain what E.V.E. is all about.

Twitter.

Twitter is all about interacting with others. It isn’t a medium to simply push out your message while completely ignoring what’s going on around you. The corollary would be someone at a cocktail party standing off to the side shouting out random bits of information about themselves. Despite the pleas of everyone else for them to stop and a few earnest invitations to help this person join a conversation, they continue to yell.

All but one (from my experience) of the pharma companies that currently tweet are “that guy.” Standing by themselves, happy to have someone listening, but annoying everyone and ignoring how a cocktail party is supposed to work. Two examples are Novartis and AstraZeneca. A quick glance down their tweet stream and you’ll notice not a single “@” symbol. This tells me they aren’t talking to anyone. Contrast this with Roche, who seems to be interested in at least having some dialogue (check out the wiki for the complete list of pharma Twitterers).

So, if you can’t commit to doing at least what Roche is doing on Twitter, forget about it. As a final check read this great article from AdAge with the simple title: “Top 10 Reasons Your Company Probably Shouldn’t Tweet.” If you come up with a “yes, that’s us” to more than two of these, come back next year.

Facebook.

Speaking of sites that have grown like crazy, Facebook now has over 200 million registered users. That’s a lot of status updates and a lot of potential customers. A few healthcare companies have established Facebook pages. The largest by far is for Gardisil and their mission: “Take a Stand Against Cervical Cancer.” This page has more than 104,ooo fans. By any standard, that’s a lot and it’s a huge amount on Facebook. Question is, does this mean anything? Gardisil has basically treated their Facebook page as an extension of the product site. It’s just information with few common Facebook features. However, their is no “Wall” function or discussion groups. Gardisil disabled these features. There’s no sharing of content with Gardisil, so people can’t pass along and post information related to cervical cancer or anything else.

So, what’s the E.V.E. for Facebook? People expect to interact with others. They share, they chat, they respond to comments and write “LOL.” Gardisil has taken this ability away. Once it’s gone, it’s not Facebook anymore, it’s your brand site. There are good regulatory reasons (probably) why Gardisil has disabled key features, but this still misses the point. If you’re on Facebook, behave like you are. Let people use the site the way they are used to using it. If you aren’t doing this, then I guarantee that people are visiting once and leaving. There’s no reason to come back…just like your brand website.

YouTube.

Yes, YouTube is all about the videos. Or is it? Several healthcare companies have started their own YouTube Channels. One of these is SanofiPasteur. It’s a decent page with a lot of what you’d expect. Company related, PR-ish videos, but the videos haven’t been viewed that often.

There’s a reason for this. E.V.E. Yes, she’s causing trouble again. I said earlier that YouTube is all about the videos, but it’s not. It’s also about the comments. It’s about the response videos that allow you to post a video in response to the one you just saw. It’s about the ratings. You give your two cents and see what other people thought. However, both commenting and ratings have been disabled. It’s simple to do when you upload your videos and many companies gladly take advantage of this. However, in doing so, you’re again pushing people away. You’ve likely gone through great trouble to get them to your page. After all, not everyone wants to go to a corporate healthcare YouTube page when there are so many other options. So, you have them there and quickly they see that you aren’t following “the rules” of YouTube. If they can’t comment or rate your video, you’ve taken away half the fun and they leave never to return.

Question: did that have a positive or negative effect for your brand? Would opening up comments and ratings (or at least one) quickly change your answer to the last question? I believe it would. Again, there are regulatory reasons why people disable these features. It’s the dreaded ADVERSE EVENT. I, of course, think adverse event reporting is somewhat of a myth (read all about it). But, what’s the regulatory issue with ratings? You can’t report an adverse event by selecting 1 to 5 stars. If you’re afraid that your videos aren’t good enough to get good ratings, change your videos. Don’t try to change YouTube.

Blogs.

Blogs are still up and coming a bit and very few healthcare companies have one. Notably, J&J has a vibrant corporate level blog. Centocor used to have one, but it’s since been stopped. These are potentially really strong PR tools and it’s a wonder more companies don’t have them. People actually want to hear from you. Consider this from a recent Manhattan Research study, “More than three-quarters of ePharma Consumers report that they “expect” online customer service from a pharmaceutical company.” You can start your customer service by communicating with a pretty basic blog.

Here’s the rub. You’re going to need to allow comments. If there’s no way to comment, then it ain’t a blog. Comments are an integral and expected part of any blog. People aren’t just reading to hear your opinion, they want to share theirs and hear the opinions of others who also read the same post. It’s expected. It’s E.V.E. It’s fine if you want to spell out your comment policy, as Centocor did. It’s a lengthy set of rules, but at least they are transparent and pretty reasonable in my opinion. The high points directly quoted from their comment policy:

  • We generally won’t post comments about products that are sold by Centocor. For product-related questions, you may call our Medical Affairs Information Line.
  • Opinions that are outside mainstream science or could be misleading or confusing will not be posted.
  • Comments disguised as sales pitches for products or services will not be permitted.
  • Comments that don’t directly relate to Centocor or to topics covered on the blog will not be posted.
  • Comments that pertain to ongoing legal matters or regulatory issues are unlikely to be posted.

Fair enough. No product discussions. No crazies. No legal questions. Got it. Frankly, every blog has a policy like this, but it may not be written out. I don’t post every comment that comes into this blog. The ones about “enhancement” products that don’t get caught by the spam filter don’t get approved. But if it’s from an actual person about the topic at hand, I post it. That’s me though. Make a rule and stick by it. Remember, comments should ALWAYS be moderated simply to ensure you aren’t posting a bunch of spam. Moderating means you get to approve it before it goes up. It doesn’t mean that you take out all the negative comments that otherwise adhere to your commenting policies. Publish the negative comments. E.V.E. tells us that if someone posts a reasonable comment, they expect to see it on the blog at some point. If it never appears, neither will they again. And the authenticity of the blog goes with them.

Online Communities

When I say “online community,” what do you think? I bet you’re thinking about a back and forth interaction with others, maybe an interaction back and forth with the brand. That’s the E.V.E. when it comes to the concepts of online communities. Recently, John Mack wrote about Crohn’s & Me, which its creator called a “Faux Community.” In fact, John said, “What CementWorks did was to create an unbranded disease awareness campaign called Crohn’s and Me. Its digital agency partner Heatbeat Digital created a website  that it calls a “faux community,” which “gives visitors a feeling of community without the risks of open-ended social networking” (I’m quoting from an article in the March 2009 issue of MedAdNews).”

So, the creators of the community, know that this isn’t a real community as their visitors might define it. You can’t talk with others. You can’t talk with the brand. Again, I’m sure the company cites regulatory rules when they decided on this approach. But what’s the real value? Is this really helping anyone? The content is good, as there are a lot of nice videos about patients, so why not just say that? Is it that important to lure people in with the term “community?” John put it this way,”The sense of “community” is heightened by using the phrase “community” as often as possible and inviting site visitors to “join the community” rather than saying “register.” And you MUST join in order to view most of the videos of “community” members who tell their stories.” I don’t have a problem with the fact that people can’t really engage with one another (I do, but not compared to other issues), but I do have a problem when you imply that they can. That’s what the term “community” means online. That’s the E.V.E.

It’s also a little misleading to make people register in order to view your basic content. I know the value getting people to register for future communications, but is it worth it when people don’t get what they expected in exchange for their personal information? I talked about this in a recent post about how to increase enrollments for your CRM program. People reluctantly give you their personal information when they sign up for your programs and they expect that you give them something of equal value in return. If they give you their information in exchange for a community, then you’d better give them a community. Far from getting them closer to using your product, you’ll only push them further away.

When it comes to selling a “community” online, better to underpromise and overdeliver versus the opposite.

So now you know that it’s All About E.V.E. Expected Visitor Experience. Take a look at what you have in the market today or what you’re planning. Does it deliver the appropriate E.V.E.? If not, it might be time to reevaluate. I understand regulations, but it might be better to do nothing at all then to not deliver what people are expecting. Consider that before your next foray into social media.

Pharma Can Leap Ahead with Augmented Reality

I’ve spent a lot of time explaining how pharma can catch up with what other industries are doing in digital. We’ve focused on some basic ideas and some more complex strategies that are all designed to get pharma to where other industries have been for years in digital and e-marketing. So, now it’s time for me to show you how pharma can leap ahead. We’re beyond iPhone apps (which we’ve already covered) and other now mainstream technology. We’re onto something that just a couple of  industries have only dabbled in. I’m going to demonstrate this today not so that pharma can simply try something new, but because I think it has a genuine purpose in healthcare that’s lacking in other industries. 

I’m talking about Augmented Reality. 

What is Augmented Reality? Simply put (for once) by Wikipedia: “Augmented Reality is a field of computer research which deals with the combination of real-world and computer-generated data (virtual reality), where computer graphics objects are blended into real footage in real time.” That is, you see the real world combined with computer generated images at the same time. Nevermind…how about a demo?

Pretty cool, eh? If you want to try it out for yourself, you can visit GE’s site and get everything you need. Essentially, as a marketer you create two things: simple web application and a unique image that is readable by a webcam. When the printed image is viewed through a webcam with your application active, the user sees on their screen a combination of real world (themselves and the printed image) with some added computer generated graphics. If you don’t learn anything further, at least I gave you something cool to impress your friends. 

But I do have something more, a way pharma can use this to market its products and educate patients and physicians.

Granted, the augmented reality demo on a desktop computer is pretty cool. But, many people have been asking “why?” Couldn’t the brand just build the same 3D animation on its site and skip the whole webcam thing? Yes, they could. Being able to see the 3D image on what was once a flat piece of paper adds quite a bit of “wow factor,” but not much else in my opinion.

However, what if this technology was available when you needed it, wherever you were? Like mobile. Nokia had a contest last year for the best mobile game and it happened to be an augmented reality game. Picture being able to activate your mobile phone’s video camera, look through the screen, and see images and video that exist only on your phone screen. Again, it combines the real world (your video) along with computer generated images and video. The winning game was called Ghostwire. If you have a phobia for ghosts, I’d skip the video.

Okay, so that’s a little disturbing, but now you can see a bit about how this technology might work in healthcare. No? Not yet?

Picture Jim who is asked to use a new blood glucose meter to manage his diabetes.  Like most patients, Jim has never injected anyone with anything nor done a test like this. He’s got the same concerns as everyone else who is about to do stick themselves with something. Besides the fear of the pain, Jim’s also concerned about testing in the wrong place. He’s thinking: “What if I hit a nerve or blood vessel?” or “Am I getting a pure sample?” Jim probably has the user guide for the device, but the pictures are a little too generic. The pictures are just drawings and don’t at all look like his hand.

What’s Jim to do? If the company that made his new meter had a simple mobile augmented reality application for his phone, things would be easy for Jim. He could point his phone’s video camera at his palm (one of the test sites) and, in real-time, he’ll see exactly from where he should take the sample…on his hand…in “real life.”

 

Pharma/Healthcare Mobile Augmented Reality

When the software on the phone recognizes Jim’s hand, it highlights the areas where it’s safe to take the blood sample (in red). Jim can visualize it on his own hand and not in some drawing that looks nothing like his own hand. Seeing it this way will surely give him more confidence and help ensure that he’s more compliant with his monitoring from day one. 

What about some other applications for this? Physicians who are training new doctors can point their phone at a part of a patient’s body and visualize what the internal organs might look like. This gives some reference points for where to begin a surgery or to see how different parts of the anatomy interact. Again, it would be the patient’s actual external anatomy with the internal organs visualized within this. How about a sales rep? He could get a volunteer during a demonstration with a doctor and show the effects acid can have on the esophagus. The esophagus would be in the anatomically correct position and the doctor can visualize where erosions are likely to occur. Bonus points for PPI marketers who then could show these erosions being healed. 

Overall, there are a ton of interactive applications for this technology that can help educate patients and physicians using technology that already exists. If you’re interested in creating something like this for your products or want to hear a bit more about how they work, contact us and we can do a quick demo for you. Alternatively, feel free to send a tweet to our resident expert on all things Augmented Reality, Jeff Busdieker.  

So instead of being years behind in digital, here’s your chance to jump years ahead pharma friends. The application of this technology is more relevant to healthcare, in my opinion, than anywhere else. In the beginning, you can use the “wow factor” of this technology to get people’s attention, but then use the value of the technology to educate people and make them your newest customers.

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