Indegene Pharma Marketer 2020 Report predicts significant shift in channel spends

Indegene, a global provider of healthcare solutions to life sciences and biotech companies, today unveiled its Pharma Marketer 2020 report predicting a significant shift in channel spends.

The report is based on responses from over 100 pharmaceutical and bioscience companies, and demonstrates that one-third of pharma companies will be spending over 50% of their marketing budget on digital channels over the next three years.

This shift is led by the emergence of new channels of communicating and engaging with HCPs, content marketing and optimisation and advanced technology deployment.

According to Gaurav Kapoor, executive vice president at Indegene, "the pharma industry's digital maturity journey is getting fast-tracked with a concomitant rise in digital adoption by HCPs and the need for personalisation".

"Millennial HCPs with smart devices are adding a new dimension to the current channel set deployed by pharma companies. This signals an urgent need for investment in advanced technology and robust content strategy for better and more engaging customer journeys,” he added.

On average, the number of organisations that are already spending more than 20% of their budget on digital marketing channels is expected to increase by over 70% over the next six years. The budget increase pattern highlights how marketing organisations across the globe are undergoing a structural change.

While brand portals, KOL webinars and social media are frequently used channels, third party websites and online journals in the US and tele-detailing in Europe/Asia received the highest rating for whitespace marketing.

Personalisation emerged as the top most effective content strategy for pharma marketers. Respondents confirmed that content personalisation has generated maximum returns on digital investments, addressing the challenges of reduced face time for sales reps.

Besides personalisation, geographical nuances of content strategy in the US included retargeting and localisation of content. European companies focused on adapting content to device compatibility and promotion of content through infographics, while in Asia repurposing content into videographics and content promotion through infographics remained an over arching priority.

Marketing organisations have built up a suite of automation and analytics tools to push content through various digital channels. However, based on survey results, these companies utilise what is now considered as ‘staple’ technology (such as campaign management).

Digital Analytics seemed to be the most popular technology choice among pharma marketers with close to 65% stating that it has already been implemented within their marketing stack.

Campaign Automation is the next most widely implemented technology, with over 60% respondents already using them within their organisation. The companies however scored poorly on tools deployment for Social Listening, which has a significant bearing on collecting real world data (RWD).