Data-driven omnichannel strategies boost brand performance

The Customer

The client is a leading biopharma company aiming to enhance engagement with healthcare professionals (HCPs). Their target market includes a diverse range of HCPs, from general practitioners to specialists across various therapeutic areas. The company’s primary goal was to increase the frequency and quality of interactions with HCPs, leveraging data-driven omnichannel strategies to deliver personalized and impactful communications. By doing so, they sought to improve brand awareness, drive product adoption, and ultimately, achieve better patient outcomes.

By applying data-driven segmentation, AI and ML-based technology IP, and agile omnichannel strategies, Indegene is helping this global, biopharma company engage more healthcare professionals (HCPs) and further its bold vision of stopping cardiovascular disease from being a leading cause of death.

This biopharma company's growth in the cardiovascular market was entering the post-launch growth phase, and the company needed to continue to drive growth in the face of 2+ new competitors. They also had a need to focus on improving profitability. Up until this point, the company had been promoting the product with a full footprint sales force promotion to both specialists and primary care physicians, and they only had light HQ-driven digital promotion.

The Challenge

The biopharma company faced significant barriers in engaging healthcare professionals (HCPs) effectively. Traditional engagement methods, such as in-person sales visits, were proving insufficient and inefficient, particularly in the face of increased digital communication preferences among HCPs. The company struggled to deliver timely, relevant, and personalized content through their existing channels, leading to low engagement rates and missed opportunities for influencing prescribing behaviors. Additionally, the fragmentation of data across multiple systems hindered their ability to gain actionable insights into HCP preferences and behaviors. These challenges not only impacted their ability to meet their engagement goals but also posed a risk to their overall business performance, necessitating a strategic overhaul of their engagement approach.

An omnichannel approach has the power to augment field sales force efforts and drive effectiveness and efficiency.

But changing their approach to reaching and engaging HCPs and leading with a digital first approach came with some challenges. How could this company be assured that their digital promotional efforts would prove to be as effective as the reach and frequency model they had been using successfully? And even if digital was the right path, how could they transition to a digital model quickly and efficiently and drive an improved customer experience based on HCP preferences?

Partnering with Indegene's Omnichannel Activation Solutions team was the answer. As a trusted commercialization partner focused on helping organizations make the most of both their field sales force and their digital strategies, Indegene's expertise was exactly what this company needed to transition to a more digital-first strategy.

The Solution: Data-driven Omnichannel Marketing Solution

To address the challenges faced by the biopharma company, Indegene implemented a comprehensive data-driven omnichannel marketing strategy. This approach combined advanced data analytics with tailored marketing techniques to create a cohesive and personalized engagement experience for healthcare professionals (HCPs). Key elements of the solution included:

Data Integration and Analysis: Indegene integrated data from multiple sources to create a unified view of HCP preferences and behaviors. Advanced analytics were applied to identify actionable insights and micro-segments within the target audience.

Omnichannel Activation: Leveraging the insights gained from data analysis, Indegene activated a well-orchestrated omnichannel campaign. This included personalized email marketing, targeted social media outreach, and strategic use of digital platforms to deliver relevant content and messages at the right time.

Digital Rep Equivalence: Indegene employed its innovative Digital Rep Equivalence model, which enabled the company to deliver comparable impact to traditional in-person interactions through digital means. This model ensured that HCPs received timely and meaningful engagements without the need for physical sales visits.

Continuous Optimization: The strategy involved ongoing monitoring and optimization of the campaigns based on real-time feedback and performance metrics. This agile approach allowed for continuous improvement and adaptation to changing HCP preferences and market conditions.

By implementing this data-driven omnichannel marketing strategy, Indegene successfully enhanced the biopharma company’s ability to engage HCPs more effectively, leading to increased engagement rates and improved business outcomes.

Indegene builds creative digital strategies to create unique customer journeys and reach customers with relevant messages through communication channels.

Armed with its proprietary IP powered by artificial intelligence (AI) and machine learning (ML) and its unique data sets containing over 1.8 million HCPs and NPI-level data, Indegene crafted an omnichannel strategy that solved their challenge to reach more HCPs, deliver a personalized message, and make near real-time adjustments based on HCP responses. In this way, Indegene was able to help expand their reach, activate more prescribers, and generate more prescriptions while rightsizing their field footprint and helping drive great efficiency and impact.

A digital-first approach opens opportunities to reach more physicians and amplify marketing efforts.

Locating additional physicians to target, however, was only the beginning. Using this highly targeted list, Indegene employed its unique micro-segmenting capabilities to determine the digital affinity of HCPs. And with its AI-driven tools and data sets, Indegene was able to highlight how these individual physicians interact with digital channels. They were also able to understand which channels were likely to be most effective and when during the day and week the physicians were most likely to engage with content on a particular channel.

An added benefit to this company was the fact that Indegene’s data set and proprietary algorithms are continually learning from HCP engagements. This application of machine learning to constantly refine insights about HCPs meant that they knew they were getting the most up-to-date information to drive engagement.

And while targeting physicians with the right message at the right time on the right channel was a key component of the omnichannel strategy, Indegene took the project a step further and segmented HCPs based on their likelihood to prescribe. The real power of Indegene’s offering came to the forefront when they overlayed these segmenting capabilities and targeted physicians who were both highly likely to engage on digital channels and highly likely to prescribe this drug.

But the segmentation did not stop there. To refine its segmenting for even more efficient targeting, Indegene applied managed care access data to find HCPs that were able to prescribe the product with minimal managed care challenges.

Targeting and focusing promotional efforts to the physicians that were identified by combining the company’s HCP target list with Indegene’s intelligence drove meaningful results. Using digital channels that appealed to each physician, Indegene created customized physician journeys based on digital preferences. These journeys meant that they delivered information about this cardiovascular drug using customized content on preferred channels at preferred times for many HCPs that were likely to prescribe.

With Indegene’s Digital Rep Equivalence, a proven machine learning model that predicts the most efficient path for activating a physician to prescribe, the company easily understood the direct impact of a digital strategy. By assigning a value to each physician interaction and optimizing the plan based on real customer level interactions, tracking interactions across the customer journey assured the company that a digital strategy deployment was comparable to and complimented field sales force efforts in an effective, efficient way.

With Digital Rep Equivalence, Indegene leveraged its proprietary data to augment the biopharma company's data and delivered actionable micro-segments. It also activated the market with well-orchestrated digital touchpoints to deliver comparable impact to an in-person interaction.

It's no surprise that adding a list of highly segmented target HCPs beyond the list this company was already targeting with their sales force led to increased sales. But the real success was the way that this omnichannel strategy not only moved the company into the future with a highly successful digital campaign but also significantly reduced its spend while still driving growth.

By deploying Indegene's omnichannel activation strategy, this company grew its prescribing base by 35% as it finally reached previously unreached physicians. Not only was the company able to maintain and grow total prescription (TRx) sales performance by 9% year over year, but it also reduced its sales force from 800 to approximately 300 reps. This transition to digital allowed the company to save over $100 million while still experiencing growth for a growth brand approaching LOE.

The Outcomes

The implementation of Indegene’s data-driven omnichannel marketing strategy led to significant improvements in HCP engagement and overall business performance for the biopharma company. Key outcomes included:

Increased HCP Engagement: The personalized and targeted approach resulted in a notable increase in engagement rates among HCPs. By delivering relevant content through preferred channels, the company was able to foster stronger relationships and more meaningful interactions.

Enhanced Brand Awareness and Adoption: The omnichannel strategy helped boost brand visibility and product awareness within the target market. This led to higher rates of product adoption and a more robust market presence.

Efficient Use of Resources: By leveraging the Digital Rep Equivalence model, the company was able to achieve comparable impact to in-person interactions through digital means, reducing the need for a large sales force and lowering operational costs.

Data-driven Insights: The integration and analysis of data provided valuable insights into HCP behaviors and preferences. This enabled the company to continually refine their strategies and optimize their marketing efforts for better results.

Improved Business Performance: The combined effect of increased engagement, enhanced brand awareness, and efficient resource use translated into significant business gains. The company reported higher sales performance and stronger market positioning as a direct result of the omnichannel marketing strategy.

Explore how Indegene's innovative Digital Rep Equivalence model played a pivotal role in driving remarkable growth for a mature drug, revolutionizing traditional approaches to pharmaceutical marketing and reshaping the landscape of digital engagement in the industry.

Moving into future-ready healthcare means different things for different companies, but for this company, taking the leap into digital promotion meant the difference between a declining drug and energizing its product in the market. Accessing physicians in whitespace not only opened a whole new audience for its promotions, but utilizing digital channels meant that its promotional efforts were no longer subject to the limitations of field sales force access. Leveraging the ability to connect 24/7 with physicians that were known to be digitally engaged and likely to prescribe meant that content was personalized.

This was a truly omnichannel strategy that deployed, not only multiple digital channels, but also augmented an existing field force. Observing how this omnichannel strategy boosted the performance of a growth brand points to the way that a well-designed omnichannel strategy can drive efficient and effective commercialization efforts across the lifecycle.

Using an omnichannel strategy is key for connecting with physicians regardless of geographic boundaries and engagement preferences. When we meet doctors where they want to meet us and we provide them with the content they want to have, there is no limit to the number of doctors we can reach and patients we can help.