The Power of 360° Health Media Campaigns

Over the past few years, I have been hearing Pharma marketers talk about their desire to market to both sides of the health equation to educate these two very different audiences simultaneously along the health journey. The idea of a 360° approach to health marketing is truly amazing…in theory. The challenge, however, has always been the ability to coordinate the right type of messaging across these two audiences coupled with the execution at scale. Physicians & patients speak different languages when it comes to the health of a patient. To the physician, it is clinical and relies on science and data. To the patient, it is personal, very personal. After all, it is their health at stake.

Couple that challenge with multiple stakeholders at any given Pharma Company and their agency partners, the idea of the 360° has remained more of an idea than a true actionable plan. Fast forward to today and the fulfillment of the promise of what 360° can be has become a reality of both scope and scale.

The Informed Patient is Driving Patient-Physician Conversations

What we do know is that the desire to market this way has grown because access to information for both patients and physicians is readily available. Through audience research and a resulting white paper conducted by MedPage Today and Everyday Health, we found that the majority of HCPs and patients are bringing their online research into care discussions. 83% of HCPs report that their patients make them aware that they did their online research before their appointment. Additionally, nearly 7 in 10 consumers report that they’ve discussed health information found online with their HCP. This sharing of online health information by both consumers and HCPs presents pharma marketers with a unique opportunity to enhance these discussions with conversation topics.

Sorting Fact from Fiction in Health Research

It should also be noted that while health information can now be found at almost every turn across numerous websites and social media, not all the information is credible. Patients are looking to become more informed about their condition and potential treatment options as they know the information is a click away. That said, what a patient finds or is specifically looking for is out there, whether that information is right or wrong. In other words. nearly every drug or therapy will have advocates and adversaries. Physicians need to know what their patients are reading and thinking to achieve the best outcome. After all, the end goal is the same—the most positive result treatment can provide for the patient’s health moving forward.

Building 360° Connections for Better Outcomes

The Physician has a far different knowledge base than the patient as they understand or constantly seek to understand the different therapies available, the different dosing levels of the drugs available, the new efforts in clinical trials for that condition, and much more.

Done the right way, 360°-messaging will bring these two knowledge bases together in a way that both sides understand the core information such that the physician-patient conversation will be smoother and the path moving forward is clear. Pharma Marketers need to look for 360° solutions for doctors and patients – with a direct targeting complement to facilitate a deeper connection between these two key audiences. This comprehensive approach to healthcare communication integrates various media channels to provide holistic and consistent messaging—each tailored in tone & theme to the respective audience. The right partners will build a variety of modular program options, and program enhancement layers to allow flexibility to reach their KPIs and drive a successful program.

When 360° Messaging Gets It Right

In a recent 360° campaign, whereby the primary strategy was editorial collaboration to expose audiences to synergized content and Key Opinion Leaders, both audiences performed above program KPI benchmarks. On the HCP side, there was a 20% stronger average time on site and high re-engagement with top prescribers. As for the patient audiences, they spent over 11 minutes on the program and also had high re-engagement, exceeding the benchmark by 55%.

All told, 360° programs, when done properly, are very powerful for the brand and, more importantly, tremendous for the user experiences. These synergistic campaigns, running across both professional and consumer sites, reach both audiences with complimentary educational messaging designed to facilitate better HCP/patient dialogue in the right geographic areas and within the right content environments—all designed to drive Rx script lift for the brand with the final result of better patient outcomes.

Rich Russey is an industry leader within the health media industry, with a career spanning senior roles within MedPage Today, Meredith, WebMD & Time Inc amongst others.