Fueling omnichannel capabilities in life sciences with MarTech

Learn how organizations can achieve business objectives by harnessing the power of omnichannel marketing technology.

By Marc Babel, Kristen Rehnelt, and Megan Munson

Marketing technology (MarTech) platforms are on a fervent sprint towards bottling the lightning with buzzword capabilities like “artificial intelligence (AI),” “machine learning (ML),” and “360 customer view stitching.” But harnessing those buzzy innovations, or even maturing baseline digital capabilities into core platforms, has greatly impacted customer-facing operations in life sciences — specifically for digital marketers, field reps, sales teams, key opinion leaders (KOLs), healthcare providers (HCPs), and patients. Life sciences organizations are reducing their dependencies on traditional in-person marketing and field sales and attempting to leverage digital capabilities as technologies grow.

For the pharmaceutical industry, this brings about a new frontier. Building a MarTech stack with omnichannel capabilities — and an operation to support it — paves the way for true omnichannel marketing. In the process, the effort creates efficiencies, reduces operating costs, and delivers a seamless customer experience.

Let’s start simple; what is omnichannel marketing?

Omnichannel marketing is an approach to engage audiences by integrating various systems and digital channels to create a seamless, personalized, and consistent experience across all touchpoints. In the context of the pharmaceutical industry, this means using a combination of traditional and digital channels to engage with patients, HCPs, KOLs, and other stakeholders. Examples of channels include email, SMS, social media, mobile apps, websites, visual displays, and in-person interactions.

Why is omnichannel difficult to implement?

Digital-first customer expectations are growing agnostic of industry, and many pharmaceutical companies are playing catch up. This is to be expected considering the capabilities are complex and must operate within the context of a highly regulated environment.

Pharmaceutical organizations typically operate with legacy and digital systems that are often not configured to support omnichannel capabilities. The elements of a highly regulated environment that pose challenges include:

• FDA and GDPR: The pharmaceutical industry is governed by state and federal rules around the extent to which organizations can communicate and market to their audiences, especially as it relates to targeting audiences based on personal data and content. Specifically with the FDA, regulations are in place to ensure promotional content for HCPs is not targeted toward patients. Patients, providers, and other individuals are also legally protected with controls over how their personal and health information is used for marketing purposes, and this makes it difficult for organizations to leverage data from various sources and communicate within multiple channels.
• Data privacy: The pharmaceutical industry handles sensitive patient data, and strict regulations exist around the collection, storage, and usage of this data. This can make it challenging to implement omnichannel MarTech using patient data in a compliant way. Per the FDA Code of Federal Regulations, personally identifiable information (PII) and protected health information (PHI) are regulated and cannot be explicitly used together in marketing communications.
• Fragmented data: Pharmaceutical companies often have fragmented data across different business units and data systems. This can make it challenging to implement an effective omnichannel strategy relying on a unified view of the customer — and unified campaigns. The small window of time a pharmaceutical company must influence a customer makes real-time marketing fueled by comprehensive datasets difficult without the MarTech that supports it. Implementing a customer data platform (CDP) will aid in collecting, storing, and managing customer data across many channels to develop a singular customer view for personalized marketing. Typically for pharma, this might mean two CDPs; one to house and maintain HCP data and one for patient data.
• Organizational silos and outsourced resources: While large enterprises often have individual business units, vendors, and partner organizations responsible for different sets of geographies, products, channels, sales efforts, messages, and assets, in the pharmaceutical industry, this is especially pronounced with many human and data resources outsourced. Accountability and workflows can be tricky. The result is often operational silos without cross-functional workflows, making it impossible to implement omnichannel capabilities with any consistency.

Why is omnichannel MarTech important for pharma?

Since both patients and healthcare providers are gradually turning to digital channels for information and support, it becomes foundational to have MarTech capabilities in place to meet them where they are. And according to Adobe, 76% of patients perceive outcomes are better when they feel more engaged in their care.

For example, a patient may prefer to receive new information about medication via a mobile app, while another may prefer email. By using multiple channels to provide personalized content and support, pharmaceutical companies can help patients stay informed and adhere to their care plans. Other benefits of omnichannel communication include:

• Improved targeting: With the help of MarTech tools like customer relationship management (CRM) and marketing automation, pharmaceutical companies can segment audiences based on demographics, preferences, and behaviors. This allows for the delivery of more personalized and relevant content to each group. The existing dependencies on third-party data (i.e., rented or purchased lists) pose challenges for organizations to effectively target and optimize campaigns. To see improved ROI and KPIs, life sciences organizations should consider developing opt-in mechanisms to grow first-party data (i.e., company-acquired and owned data). This will be especially important as third-party cookies are deprecated in 2024, making marketing efforts more challenging and likely more expensive using third-party data.
• Compliance with regulations: MarTech can help pharmaceutical companies comply with regulatory requirements by providing a consistent and compliant message across all channels, automating the compliance process, and tracking all marketing activities. For example, organizations can use CRM records and report adverse events or marketing automations to ensure messaging does not include both PII and PHI together.
• Better measurement and optimization: MarTech tools like data analytics and tracking tools can help pharmaceutical organizations track the effectiveness of marketing campaigns and make data-driven decisions to optimize them. It provides the ability to use analytics tools to measure engagement, conversions, and other key metrics across all channels and use this information to refine acquisition and retention strategies over time. Moreover, these MarTech tools enable better measurement and optimization, resulting in increased ROI and minimization of wasted spend.
• Effective content and asset management: A content management system (CMS) and digital asset management (DAM) can enable organizations to save, leverage, and execute on content and digital assets. These platforms reduce manual internal dependencies and allow for an easy and effective source of truth with content and data across channels.

What is the best approach in the omnichannel transformation process?

To achieve success with omnichannel marketing, it takes more than data and technology — it takes a change in ways of working to make the most of MarTech platforms. Here are four ways to start today:

1. Find champions and action business wins that do not pose huge levels of effort or complexity. For example, leverage the engagement data in a repository and draw insights for the field reps. As the organization evolves, field reps could be empowered by real-time “propensity to buy” data that informs the next best sales action — boosting sales and preventing wasted sales efforts.
2. Make time for creativity. The content supply chain requires “out of the box” thinking to overcome stagnation and keep pace with customer needs. Lean on technology, automated tools, workflow management, and AI/ML to increase efficiency and avoid content creation back-and-forth.
3. Establish a culture comfortable with imperfection and ready to learn from experimentation. Foster conditions to test new ideas and prepare for the future of omnichannel.
4. Last but not least — start in small, actionable steps. Digital transformation is a marathon, not a sprint. Break down that race into mile markers and time parameters and chart success one stride at a time.

Slalom is a global consulting firm that helps people and organizations dream bigger, move faster, and build better tomorrows for all. Our healthcare and life sciences industry teams partner with healthcare, biotech, and pharmaceutical leaders to strengthen their organizations, improve their systems, and help with some of their most strategic business challenges.

For help in transforming and implementing omnichannel MarTech across your organization, contact Slalom today.