DTC Healthcare Marketing and What it Tells B2B Marketers
Opinion: DTC healthcare marketing and what it tells B2B marketers.
In the majority of business sectors, you will find pockets of preconceived ideas about marketing that are outdated and invalid. We often find this in B2B pharmaceutical marketing. Lately, and due to COVID-19, things have been forced to change. But there is still some lag in the transformation.
To demonstrate what the sector could do more of, we only need to understand direct-to-consumer (DTC) behaviours in the healthcare sectors, and then compare them to its B2B counterpart.
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As healthcare became more accessible due to innovations in technology and distribution, to name a few, the industry as a whole became more consumer-driven, not to mention consumer-friendly. Advertising is everywhere. Self-service is a day-to-day occurrence. Prescriptions can be ordered and delivered by clicking a button.
This is certainly the case in the US where DTC marketing is common across all forms of marketing channels. But do we see this kind of accessibility in the B2B sectors? I’m not so sure we do. In this post, we’ll pick out some common practices, as well as trends, visible within HTC healthcare marketing with the view of understanding if things can be similar in B2B.
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1. Making people aware of their options
Of course, the DTC industry we speak of isn’t perfect. It has been criticised heavily for years and the marketing of drug products will continue to generate criticism as it promotes quick fixes as well as repeat use. That is, short term solutions to health problems rather than focus on long term lifestyle changes likely to be more effective overall.
This said DTC marketing does make consumers aware of the options available to them to relieve pain and discomfort. It helps make patients that are willing to research and find information aware of their treatment options, such as new drugs for a particular disease, and the risks and side effects that can be expected from taking the drug. On the flip side, adverts across platforms can also help raise awareness of diseases and disorders, that people may not have considered, ultimately promoting patients to seek healthcare when they may have thought unnecessary.
RX Comms conclude how awareness can help people by providing them with their options: “In short, patients become more motivated to take control of their healthcare and become more active partners in the patient-doctor relationship.” In the B2B world, we know suppliers are researched, potentially compared and assessed to others, and if B2B marketers can provide information about their products and services in abundance, just like DTC marketing, it will become on the radar of those looking, maybe even making a potential client aware of a service improvement or problem they didn’t think they had.
2. Transparency and trust (and costs)
An article appeared in MM&M a short while ago which identified a key area - drug pricing disclosure - pharma organisations could focus their marketing efforts on to increase transparency and trust, which is often considered absent in the sector. DTC may actually be the catalyst for reversing the damage previously done, which many still consider irreversible, by providing more information about the associated costs of healthcare.
The article identifies two surveys that support this lack of trust, with one conducted by research firm PatientView where just 9% of the patient groups said pharma as a whole was “Excellent” or “Good” at having fair pricing policies. “Being transparent about the cost of their products and services was noted as one of three top actions companies can take to keep and earn trust.”
So, as B2B marketers, are we transparent enough? Can trust be gained by disclosing costs and prices from the outset? The answer is likely not a straightforward one as products and services that are traded throughout the wider pharma supply chain are often bespoke and tailored for each order. But I have a suspicion that we can all be a little more transparent about what we are promoting, and the communication of costs may be the first place we can look to improve.
3. Regulation slow to increase
Spending in pharma, specifically related to the DTC marketing of prescription drugs, disease awareness, laboratory tests and health services, has grown consistently year by year for perhaps the last 30 years. We’ve previously touched upon the benefits, as well as some of the drawbacks, in section one. But what hasn’t grown in relation to this increased spending is regulation. Regulations and marketing ethics is always something we talk about in B2B pharma, but is it something we really focus on?
In an article recently published in the Journal of American Medical Association, researchers found the number of consumer and professional drug promotional materials which companies submitted for FDA review increased from 34,182 to 97,252. Yet, FDA violation letters for misleading drug marketing decreased from 156 to 11. The authors conclude: "Our findings highlight that there is a lot of room to be more active in regulating medical marketing. Enacting better oversight of product detailing or adding tables that quantify the benefits and adverse effects of drugs to advertising are two examples we cited in the paper, but there are many feasible steps that could be taken which could potentially improve the quality of health information and cut back on overprescribing and unnecessary medical spending."
4. Commitment to the marketing budget
The same Journal of American Medical Association study highlighted in section three is also the focus of a BioPharma Dive article, which focuses on the statistic that spending on most methods of medical marketing grew in the past two decades, but direct-to-consumer advertisements increased the fastest. For example, spending on US DTC advertising more than tripled, growing in importance to account for roughly one-third of all medical marketing at nearly $10 billion in 2016.
Source: BioPharma Dive
Our friends at Fierce also cover this study in detail and highlight DTC’s growing share of the market, which is also apparent in the budgets DTC marketing professionals manage. “There’s evidence when you reach out to consumers, they’re more likely to choose advertised drugs even when there are good effective lower-cost alternatives.”
“So it’s effective. It’s also a way to get around doctors, not just for drugs but for services, too” said study co-author Steven Woloshin, a physician and Dartmouth professor, which is key.
An (almost obvious) clue lies here, in that increased marketing spend can actually generate better commercial results for the organisation. Following the implications of COVID-19, we witnessed a number of clients and B2B pharma organisations cutting budgets and marketing staff which will likely have a long term detrimental effect within this sector. Lack of presence or a change in approach can raise concerns within a sector where relationships are common, working against the trust that you are looking to build - a commitment to the marketing budget is key and the reliance on the traditional sales representative to lead the commercial arm is all but absent meaning that this budget allocation is more important than ever.
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5. Complimenting other marketing tactics
In the B2B sectors we operate within as an agency, we often find clients who admittedly say that their marketing initiatives are sometimes disjointed, sporadic as well as lacking long term goals. The lack of an integrated plan, that takes omnichannel marketing into consideration, is likely the problem here. But this can be quickly changed via a well-built marketing plan that consists of marketing tactics and programs that complement each other.
An interview with a healthcare industry veteran and an expert in point-of-care (POC) marketing in DTC Perspectives highlights the importance of an integrated/omnichannel approach. “Adding POC to a plan will increase the ability to laser target reaching prospects and patients. This complements the efforts of other tactics within the plan. Secondly, POC offers a guaranteed ROI, which also enriches the promotional effectiveness of the overall marketing plan.”
Outside of events and trade shows, B2B marketers often don’t have the opportunity to directly place their products in front of their target audiences in the same way as to how POC works. But they can become more aware of the benefits of omnichannel marketing, as well as creating marketing plans and programmes which contain tactics that are complimentary, where messages can be repeated - promoting consistency across online and offline channels.
6. Err on the side of caution
So far the focus of this post has been on the benefits of increased marketing coverage, and as within the US, if you have the budget to expand your reach into other channels - such as TV where you might see drug advert after drug advert - can support your message and efforts. But some commentators will stipulate that DTC marketing hurts the healthcare industry: It can increase the costs of drugs with boring and unimaginative messages and communications. And consumers simply know that these pharmaceutical organisations are paying millions to get their products in front of them when that money can be better spent on lowering the cost of the drugs.
Even if the marketing messages are disease awareness-based, focussing on the condition rather than the product in a similar way you might focus on product and service benefit instead of features in the B2B world, you may be just doing the same as a competitor is doing, and may have been doing for some time to no avail - diseases still spread.
7. DTC healthcare marketing (and what it tells B2B marketers)
Healthcare management in the way we experience it today has of course created challenges, but it has also created a wealth of opportunities for DTC marketers, manufacturers, and service providers. It is also clear that DTC marketing - informing patients’ decision making via segmented, clear and comprehensible communications - leads to more productive encounters with HCPs.
At the heart of this innovation is customisation, and the ability to understand the needs of the consumers (sometimes before they even know it) and then deliver healthcare on a one-to-one basis. B2B pharma marketers (and other commercially-driven job functions) need to start thinking in this way. Creating infrastructures to capture real-time data and real-world evidence is likely how DTC marketing, as well as B2B pharma marketing, will develop further.
B2B marketers often base their campaign on what they think their customers want, rather than what they actually want. And they don’t know what their customers want because they haven’t asked and also don’t have the systems or sales-marketing alignment in place to be able to manage these needs. This is a lot of work for a sector that prefers tried and tested business models and approaches to innovation rather than trying to think about marketing in a different way. Very strange when you consider that the products being marketed and sold are amongst the most innovative in the world.
For more on strategic digital marketing approaches in the pharmaceutical sectors, and how we can help you, visit our section on web.