Up next, everyone’s favorite green robot. One thing is clear from going through this exercise: the industry has produced a lot of junk.
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Is Passbook the Future of Pharma CRM?
No offense to Android or Windows 8, but when it comes to healthcare, it’s still an iOS world. As the FDA announced today that it has approved the AliveCor iPhone based EKG monitor (http://ht.ly/fM1n2), I’m left to wonder about another recently announced technology, Apple’s Passbook. Is this the future of Consumer CRM for pharma?
For those of you that are unfamiliar, Passbook is Apple’s built in coupon and payment card organizer. Passbook enabled apps, like Starbucks and Fandango, allow purchases to be added to Passbook for later use. No printing tickets or getting cards in the mail any more. Have a $25.00 Starbucks card? Scan it into the app and it appears in Passbook. Just bought tickets online to Skyfall? Open Passbook and there they are. In practical terms, this solves an enormous problem for users, namely organization and integration into your mobile life. And that integration isn’t just about keeping everything in one place. As a system level app, Passbook interoperates with most of the other functions on the device. Let’s stick with the Fandango app for a second. Let’s say you bought tickets to a Friday night show. Not only are the tickets waiting in Passbook for scanning at the theater, but you can automatically add a reminder to your calendar and text friends the show times. With location based services activated, users can receive proximity based notifications about traffic conditions on the way to the show or be notified of offers as you walk into the theater. Given it’s relative infancy, it’s safe expect the Passbook’s feature set to get more sophisticated and more valuable for users and brands alike.
The holy grail for any digital marketing program is the often-touted, rarely-validated ROI calculation. I’ve seen ROI for programs touted all over the industry, but the dirty little secret is this: if you can’t tie any program back to a validated sale, you can’t truly calculate ROI. Brands correlate ROI all the time, but correlation isn’t a true indicator of actual sales. This is why redemption and coupon cards are so important, as they give marketers direct numbers that validate the performance of a program. Brands can talk engagement until they are blue in the face, but if digital is ever to be taken seriously as a business driver, ROI calculations must be accurate and proven.
It’s estimated that almost 50% Rx brands will have some form of coupon or discount card program by 2021. And why not? Even by modest calculations coupon programs typically generate a 4:1 return. So, why don’t all brands have discount card programs? The answer to that is a simple one. Discount card programs are insanely expensive.
Mobile In 2012: Do We Really Need Apps or Dedicated Mobile Sites?
One of the most interesting aspects of working in digital marketing is that the pace of innovation often overtakes conventional wisdom. By the time the white papers are written and an approach congeals across the industry, the recommendations therein may have been superseded by advances in technology. Nowhere is this more apparent than in the lemming-like rush to “mobile” that is migrating from consumer marketing into the pharma industry.
The conventional wisdom in this area is that there are two possible approaches: native apps and dedicated mobile-optimized websites. But there is a groundswell of contrary opinion (a contrariness to which I adhere) that either approach is largely a waste of our time and our clients’ money.
The best practice when considering technology recommendations is to examine the past, be sure to understand the present, and extrapolate from these two data points the future. As digital marketers in the highly regulated pharma industry, this extrapolation is especially important, as we must allow for legal, medical, and even federal regulatory approvals, all of which can contribute to a long lag time between any project’s approval and delivery. And in striving to future-proof our solutions, we must also allow for any post-launch updates.
3 Digital Solutions That Foster Healthier Living
The need for a strong commitment to health
The soaring healthcare costs that have been troubling our country in recent years are largely affected by the drastic increase in obesity rates we’ve seen over the last decade. This condition very commonly leads to additional costly health problems like diabetes, heart disease, stroke and many others. Promoting healthier behaviors and habits, particularly with the young people in our country, is a necessary and truly critical need if we want to decrease the obesity rates in our country and lessen the healthcare burden on our society.
Digital at the core of healthier living
In light of the large challenges we face with healthcare in our country, digital technology is allowing us to start putting smart, engaging and fun solutions at people’s fingertips. Healthier living is literally a few clicks away and the digital offerings popping up almost by the second are exciting to see and something everyone should start taking notice. These technologies address almost every aspect of health and I could probably devote a blog post to each one, but instead I’ll give a summary of several of my favorites for you to consider.