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10 Sneaky Marketing Tactics You Need to Avoid

Every once and a while, I get approached to write an article for a non-healthcare publication. I like to do these because they help ensure that I don’t get too narrowly focused on healthcare and pharma and lose track of everything else out there in digital marketing. When iMedia Connection asked me to write an article about deceptive digital marketing tactics, I knew it was right up my alley.

The article was just published today as an “In Focus” article, which they do twice a week. That means you can see my mugshot right on the homepage of iMedia Connection if you head over there right now. If you missed it, here’s what you missed…not too exciting, I know.

Jonathan Richman iMedia Connection Article

The article is entitled: “10 Sneaky Marketing Tactics You Need to Avoid.” Suffice it to say, if you work for a pharma or healthcare company and you’re doing any of these, you need to stop immediately. I think the industry is already lacking enough in the trust department that you don’t need anything else to cast you in a negative light. The 10 sneaky tactics include: AstroTurfing,lucky guesses, anonymous cleanup, image manipulation, trapping visitors, an inability to cancel, stealing credentials, bundling, pulling the switch and, crafty SEO. Clickthrough to the full article to see what all these mean and to ensure you’re not doing any of them: “10 Sneaky Marketing Tactics You Need to Avoid.”

Pharma Should Forget About Social Media Monitoring

Dose of Digital Mini White Paper

That Sham Wow Guy

<Play along and use your best infomercial voice to read this first paragraph.>

Do you find yourself frustrated that you can’t take action when you see something bad said about your product on Facebook? Do you find yourself secretly logging in at home to see what bloggers are saying about you? Do you fret that bad things are being said about your brand on WebMD, but you can’t go and check? Do you have a passing interest in Twitter, but don’t want to spend hours figuring out how it works? Well, then social media monitoring is NOT for you!

<Okay, you can stop the voice now.>

That’s right, for most pharma and healthcare marketers, you should just forget about social media monitoring. I know, I know. Didn’t I tell everyone that one of the principles of pharma and healthcare social media participation was “Monitor and Get Involved.” I did. I’ve had this in  presentations for a while, but now I’m wondering why. Why is it such a big deal to monitor social media?

I’m certainly not the first to suggest that monitoring is a good first step into social media. It’s included as the first step in so many lists, that I can’t include them all here. I know you’ve all heard it before in many different places, so it’s almost a rule. The first step to getting involved in social media is monitoring. Right?

Are you sure?

Of course, there are a lot of benefits to monitoring and the rationale for doing this as a first step appears pretty sound. While you’re trying to figure out how best to leverage a certain social media channel, say, Twitter, why not start just by seeing what others are saying? You can use this information to get a sense for how your brand is perceived in the market and what people are saying. Is it all good? Are they consistent? Are they actually saying anything or do they not care? Is there one thing that you didn’t know? Does it even really pertain to your brand or is incredibly general (e.g., just took my Lipitor)? You might find some informative information and you’ll get a little sense for what people say about you when they aren’t in a focus group saying what they think you want to hear. Great. At the same time, while your monitoring, you can also learn a bit of the etiquette of the channel. Using Twitter as an example, you’ll see how the @ works and what the # is and how to use it (and how not to).

There you go…two reasons to monitor just like that. So, why would I tell you to forget about monitoring? It’s simple really.

Since we’re talking about pharma and healthcare here, I thought I’d use this healthcare analogy. Doctors and other healthcare professionals have a pretty simple rule when it comes to ordering tests: do the test only if the results are capable of telling me to change my treatment decision. That is, if I’m thinking I should do surgery and I have one more test I could do, would the results of the test, no matter what they were, convince me not to do surgery? If the answer to that question is “no,” then why do the test? You already have done tests and some sort of examination that said surgery was the right choice, so why do another test if it’s not going to change your recommendation?

Social media monitoring in pharma is just like this last test. Is monitoring, namely what you find out, going to change what you do? Is it going to change your marketing approach? Is it going to spring you into action? Are you going to actively respond? The answer is probably “no.” So why subject your patient, I mean you, to an unnecessary (and potentially invasive) test?

“But wait,” you say, “we are going to do something different. This will give us some insights into our products and  it’ll give us a great marketing idea.” Really? Here’s how this could go wrong: you could actually do this this. Change your marketing plan based on something you see via your monitoring efforts. Let’s say for a moment that you notice time and time again that people are something as clear cut as, “I know they say that Drug X works really well, but I was shocked how inexpensive it was.” (I know, a stretch, but stay with me.) You notice this a few times in a few places. At what point do you see it enough to change your marketing message? At what point do you focus on the cost a bit more in your communications? 10 tweets? 100? 1,000? Maybe 50 Facebook updates? 15 blog posts? At what point do you know it’s something real and not some sort of anomaly?

You can’t. At least, you can’t by yourself. In order to actually use monitoring to inform you about marketing decisions such as brand messaging, you need something much more robust than you doing a Twitter search and making a few notes. It’s a big commitment. Still think you can do it alone? Great. Here’s what you need to collect:

  • number of brand mentions and the content of each (make sure to include links from the mentions)
  • the tone and sentiment of EVERY mention (positive, negative, or neutral)
  • context of the mention (you’ve got to filter out everything irrelevant like spam mentions)

Okay, that’s a good start. There are a few more, but let’s go with that. There’s still more to do. Do you like Excel? You’d better. Love statistics? You’ll learn to. Because now you’ve got to take all the information you gathered and start to look for patterns, trends over time, and where changes occurred. You then need to correlate this with market events and your brand communications. I’d use about a year’s worth of data to get started. Go ahead…I’ll wait.

If you chose to actually do this by yourself and now are coming back to read the rest of this post, it’s probably October 2010. Most of what you figured out is probably outdated. Sorry about that.

My point with all of this is to say that without a formal plan of what you’ll do with your monitoring efforts, it might just be a waste of time. There are a lot of companies out there that would be happy to help you with this. Some of these tools are free and some are very expensive. This is definitely a category where you get what you pay for. Most expensive isn’t necessarily best, but expect to pay big to do a robust analysis that is going to give you solutions and not just more mountains of data. You do have a budget for this, right?

One other reason why monitoring might not be for you…you’re not allowed. Your company may restrict the sites you can access at work and chances are these include some (if not all) social media sites. Why? I’m not sure, but two possible  reasons. First, they think that you’re going to waste your time all day playing with Facebook. They do this despite the fact that at least one study has shown an INCREASE in productivity when these sites aren’t blocked. Second, they don’t want to know. If you go out and look what other people are saying about your brand and uncover someone talking about an adverse event, you’ve got to report it to the FDA. If it’s not reported directly to you, then you’re not responsible for reporting it. That is, if someone posts an adverse event on WebMD, then you don’t have to regularly go through WebMD and report all of these. But if you see it, then that counts the same as if it were reported directly to you. I’m not implying that pharma companies are trying to sweep this information under the rug, but there’s a reason why more pharma companies aren’t using social media. Dealing with all these reports could be a major pain. For those adverse event mentions that don’t have all the criteria required for submission, you’ve got to try to find the other criteria. When you do have all the criteria, you’ve got to catalog, eliminate duplicates, prepare a submission, send it to the FDA, and prepare to answer their follow up questions (if they have any). There are processes already in place at companies to do this, but they’re not capable of handling this on a giant scale.

If your company doesn’t want you monitoring, then that’s a good indication that you shouldn’t. I’ve heard that a lot of pharma marketers simply log onto these sites at home where they have access to take a look. Of course, as an agent of the company, whether at home or not, they still have to report what they find. How much they’ll actually find is a matter of debate, but you’d should be prepared. Most adverse event mentions won’t have all four criteria (actually only 1 in 500 will), but each company has a different policy about whether they try to find the other two by attempting to contact the person who reported it or if they just gather it all and try to submit it as is. Either way, before you jump in, make sure you’re ready to handle what’s out there.

Just so you don’t feel alone, few companies actually permit social media monitoring according to a poll Len Starnes put together. The poll found that 29% of respondents said there was no internal policy. 7% said monitoring was strictly prohibited no matter what. The rest were shades of “yes” including “yes, but.” See the entire poll here.

The final reason why you shouldn’t monitor is because you might do more harm than good. You start a company Twitter account with the idea that you’re just going to see what people are saying, but you figured you may as well have an account too. Great. Now what happens when someone contacts you? They send you a DM or an @ and want an answer. Do you answer them? Are you allowed? What if you’re on WebMD looking through the forums and see a post that says something like: “If someone doesn’t tell me a way to get this drug for less, I can’t refill my prescription next month.” Now, you know from looking at the rest of the post that this person would be an ideal candidate for your assistance program and would probably get their drug for free. Do you say something? What if you do it anonymously?

If these are hard questions to answer, then you shouldn’t even be looking. When people discover that you’re online and available (and they will), they’re going to come to you looking for answers. If you ignore them, then you’ll do more harm than good, as people will only be annoyed with you.

Okay, so have I talked you out of monitoring yet? No? You’re still going forward. <Gulp> In that case, let’s set a few ground rules. You’ll have to agree to each of these in order to be allowed to monitor social media (on the honor system):

  • I will develop a plan of what to do with what I find BEFORE I monitor.
  • I won’t make any marketing decisions based on my own “analysis.” I’ll find an outside partner who will do this for me.
  • I’ll figure out if my company has a social media participation policy. If so, I’ll follow it, so I don’t get fired and blame this blog. If not, I’ll see if we have any rules about adverse events I may uncover and I’ll help fight to get some formal rules set up.
  • When I do participate, I’ll actually participate. I won’t just be a “lurker” on the sidelines, ignoring everyone that wants to talk with me.

Agree? Okay, good. Now go forth and monitor. Try the two below to get started…and be careful. There’s a lot you’ll find out there that will surprise, bewilder, delight, confuse, frustrate, and annoy you. That’s normal. No need for me to order another test. You’re just monitoring social media.

Emerging Media in Healthcare and Pharma White Paper

After my recent post where I shared my white paper on “The Future of Digital Relationship Marketing in Pharma,” many of you inquired if I had any similar papers. You’re in luck. I have one that’s a different topic, but I think related.

This one is called: “Emerging Media in Healthcare and Pharma.”

Here’s a brief summary:

“There are a significant number of emerging media areas that will affect healthcare and pharmaceutical marketing campaigns in the future. Some will have an enormous positive impact on current marketing practices, while others will have devastating negative consequences on these same practices. The good news is that there are alternatives to the way many current campaigns are conducted that leverage the best in consumer understanding, interactive technologies, and solid marketing strategy (all while staying within DDMAC rules).”

I identified eight emerging media trends that about which I think every healthcare and pharma marketer should be aware:

  • Medical Social Networking: Beyond Facebook and MySpace, patients are now connecting with one another online and taking each other’s advice, sometimes over their physician’s advice.
  • Live and (Almost) in Person: YouTube is fine for delivering content, but it is instantly outdated. Consumers want to use video to interact with a real person to get the freshest information all from the comfort of their homes. This includes their doctors.
  • Secure Communications: People will begin to trust more of their confidential information online, but will expect that it be protected through constantly secure channels.
  • Micro-targeting: Targeting consumers has evolved dramatically in the past 10 years to the point where it is possible to find and communicate with a small group of brand supporters in a highly cost effective manner.
  • Instant, Dynamic Content: Online content must now immediately change based on user inputs. Providing the same content for everyone regardless of what they do on your site is a losing proposition.
  • Mobile Grows Up: Typically seen as a marketing platform that could only reach teenagers, older users are beginning to adopt some of the same habits as younger consumers, opening up a range of new promotional options.
  • Managing and Leading Word of Mouth: Tracking down everything that someone says about your brand was impossible without Internet-based technologies. Now brands are expected to track, and where appropriate, join in the conversations that people are having about them.
  • Print Goes Interactive: Print isn’t dead, but it needs to leverage interactive technologies to stay relevant and match consumer behaviors.

If you want more information on each of these trends, then you can download my full white paper on this topic: Emerging Media in Healthcare and Pharma  (1687 downloads)

As an added bonus, I want to share a copy of an article I had published in Pharmaceutical Executive last year called “Exercising Your Brand.” This paper outlines these rules healthcare marketers must follow to help ensure a successful digital program. I’ll share the link with you via DM on Twitter if you send this tweet about today’s post (PS: make sure you’re following me, so I can DM you). Deal?

If you want to be informed of any new white papers I publish, just fill out the form below. Your information will only be used for this purpose and will never be shared under any circumstance.

Note: Stay tuned for an updated version of this paper in the coming months. Emerging media changes quickly, so it’s difficult to stay current no matter how often you’re updating.

What Pharma Can Learn from the Pizza Guy

Dose of Digital Mini White Paper

I just couldn’t resist this post title after the response I had to my post (both positive and negative) called: What Pharma Can Learn from Pringles. Without going into too much detail, the takeaway message was supposed to be simple. Pharma and healthcare can learn a lot about the approaches other industries take in their marketing. Yes, pharma in particular is heavily regulated and limited in what they can do or say, but too often the best practices of other industries are ignored instead of us figuring out how to apply what worked well elsewhere to what we’re doing in pharma. It’s a big missed opportunity that I’ve been working on fixing for a long time.

So, in keeping with this theme, I wanted to share a concept that we call “The Selfish Consumer.” It was created by our Chief Technology Officer, Michael Wilson, here at Bridge Worldwide. Here’s the basic idea:

“TiVo, iPod, and blogging have something more in common than the right technology at the right time. They provide the same old media in new and interesting ways. This not only changes consumer behavior, but forever shifts consumer attitude. Greedy for content and equipped with almost magical abilities to control media delivery, we have armed a very intelligent consumer.”

View Michael’s presentation on “The Selfish Consumer” here:

The Selfish Consumer

We’re not saying that your consumers are “selfish” in a bad way, but that digital technologies simply make it easy for them to be when it comes to digital content. As marketers, we need to accept this as the new reality. But what does it mean for us? There are actually three implications, which are all closely related:

  • Quality: We need to ensure that we’re creating great content and giving access to it in ways “The Selfish Consumer” demands
  • Competition: Everything online is potentially a competitor when we understand that we’re all competing for the same consumers’ time and attention
  • Expectation: What “The Selfish Consumer” gets from one industry when it comes to digital, he expects from every other

I’ve done a couple of presentations and blog posts about the first two: quality and competition. The most recent was my presentation “If You Build It, They Will Come…Or Will They?“, which addresses “Competition,” you can find on SlideShare. So, today, I’m going to address “Expectation.”

“Expectation” is a pretty simple concept. If a customer is used to getting a certain service from one company, he expects it from all that company’s competitors. This is why new innovations and special offers get duplicated so quickly and so readily. This happens within industries and it’s very common. However, it’s rare that a special offer from one industry gets carried over to another. Just because Subway is offering buy one, get one free sandwiches doesn’t mean the Hilton down the street is offering buy one, get one free rooms. When it comes to digital technologies, it’s a whole different story.

If one industry offers a certain digital technology, then “The Selfish Consumer” expects every industry to offer it. This concept (and example) was first explained to me by my colleague Bob Gilbreath, Chief Marketing Strategist here at Bridge Worldwide. What Bob pointed out is that if people now can track their package online thanks to FedEx and UPS, they expect this same thing in other industries including those industries that have nothing to do with packages. So, here’s what “The Selfish Consumer” says: “If I can track my package online, then I should be able to track my pizza online too.” And, thanks to Domino’s, now you can.

Dominos Pizza Tracker

Yikes. If you’re bringing something to “The Selfish Consumer,” there had better be a way for them to track it. That’s now the standard…the expectation. What does this all mean for pharma? It means that pharma needs to look at what digital technologies and tools its consumers are getting from other industries. Once you know what they are, take a look and see which might translate well to pharma. Need a hand?

Nike+

If I can track my exercise progress thanks to my shoe company, I should be able to do the same with my healthcare company. Of course, you can. There are quite a few trackers out there, so this is a perfect example of one industry’s lead moving over to pharma. No, Nike+ didn’t create the first health tracker, but neither did a pharma company (bonus points for anyone who knows who did). Nike+ is a health tracker in the end, so that’s not a big leap. But what’s next? Here are a few common digital tools and technologies that consumers get from other industries and might start demanding from pharma:

  • Product reviews — I’ve already talked about product reviews a lot (with more to come later this week). Consumers get them everywhere online now and use them to make purchase decisions on everything from very low to very high involvement items.
  • Online customer service –I wrote about this a while back in a post called “Providing Meaningful Customer Service in Healthcare.” According to a recent Manhattan Research study, “More than three-quarters of ePharma Consumers report that they “expect” online customer service from a pharmaceutical company.” EPharma Consumers are “those who use the Internet to research prescription drug information. In past five years alone this group has tripled to about 95 million U.S. adults.” Why? Because they get online customer service from every company they interact with online from shoes to books to vacations. Everything you can buy or think about buying has some form of online customer service. Why not pharma?
  • Privacy — Nothing is more private than someone’s health. Yet, we pharma marketers ask people to tell us an awful lot about themselves before we give them something of value. More and more other marketers are moving away from this and allowing people to register with limited or no information. They use technologies like OpenID, so that visitors don’t have to register (and give out more personal information) for yet another site in order to get access to a website. That means you don’t even have to share an email address to get access. Most marketers are also very careful with the information they capture online. For instance, if you’re not going to use someone’s home mailing address for a certain promotion, then you really shouldn’t be asking for it for two reasons. Number one, asking for less increases the chance that someone will complete the enrollment process. And number two, it’s none of your business. Yes, you might say that you’re going to use it later for something different. Well, that person didn’t register for “something different,” they registered for one particular thing. They gave you their information only for that purpose (PS: using fancy opt in choices with pre-checked boxes or double-negative language doesn’t really entitle you to use information later).
  • Aggregation and deferment – Two related ideas here. First, there are many sites out there that simply pull together all the content related to a specific topic and put it one place for you to review at your leisure. They are called aggregators (see: Netvibes or Pageflakes for an example). Pharma companies might just find that using aggregators is the simplest way to create a disease awareness portal that works the way “The Selfish Consumer” expects. The folks at S&R Communications Group just had a great post on this very topic. Today’s consumers can set up an iGoogle page with everything they want, why not every new piece of information about their disease on one page? Aggregators would pull content from the best sources, the leading experts, bringing together the best of the best information instead of relying on a single source (i.e., you).  Deferment is related to aggregation because it too involves turning to outside experts in the areas where you are not the expert. In the case of a pharma company, you might be the expert in high cholesterol since you make one (or more) products to treat this condition. A key part of the treatment for high cholesterol is diet and exercise management. However, a pharma company is not an expert in diet or exercise. There are plenty of people who are though and whose names and experience are far more credible than yours in this area. For example, perhaps you turn to the people from Weight Watchers for the diet portion of your content. They are recognized as experts in this area. This works for two reasons. First, it frees you up to focus on what you know best: high cholesterol. Second, it also tells your consumers that you have their best interest in mind. You’re not trying to do everything yourself, you know when someone might know more than you. You are essentially providing your consumers with referrals to other experts. This is the “Enlist” part of my four tenets for best in class digital strategy in healthcare.

While it may seem really challenging and a ton of extra work to connect with today’s “Selfish Consumer,” it’s worth the effort. First, and most basic, this is what your customers are demanding. If you remotely subscribe to the notion that “the customer is always right,” then you should get on board with this as well. Second, the most “selfish” of consumers aren’t selfish at all. In fact, they share…a lot. They share things they like and things they don’t. So, if you do your job with them, they’ll help spread the word for you about your product and company. If you don’t do your job, then they’ll still spread the word, but you won’t like what they have to say.

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