Non-Personal Selling Initiatives In Pharma
13 non-personal selling initiatives to try right now in pharma.
Non-personal selling (also referred to as non-personal promotion or NPP) was born out the possibilities presented to marketing and sales professionals by digital and become popular in pharma due to the downward trend in sales representative performance.
Pharma-based products have always been promoted via personal selling initiatives where sales representatives are sent out to meet customers and prospective customers with the aim of conducting business.
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In-person conversations this way still go on in both big pharma and further down the supply chain in the manufacturing and development sectors because they are still required. Non-personal selling initiatives, however, are now more apparent as marketers - rather than salespeople - are taking more of a leading role in engaging with prospects.
So rather than meetings at corporate offices and trade shows, a mix of traditional and digital channels are being adopted to build a relationship with those prospects to bring them closer to an organisation and its products and services before the sales rep enters the fold.
But there’s a trade-off in pharma.
Of course, B2B business environments need that face-to-face conversation to finalise certain deals. They are hugely valuable for relationship building. But at times, decision-makers or HCPs, for example, are unable to attend such meetings (due to busy schedules or restrictions for travel due to COVID-19 etc.) or may not have the time in the first instance, and therefore, non-personal selling (inbound and outbound/traditional and non-traditional/digital and physical) initiatives emerge.
NON-PERSONAL SELLING INITIATIVES IN PHARMA
In this post, we’ll list and review 13 of those non-personal selling initiatives in pharma which do not involve sales departments. Be advised that all of the ideas below should fall within an omnichannel marketing approach.
1. EDUCATIONAL MARKETING
I’ve personally sat with a sales representative who has continually tried to sell me a product, even after I state that we do not wish to pursue this product (as we have no need for the product at this time). It’s this approach of hard selling that people like myself, as well as HCPs and other decision-makers in pharma, do not appreciate. And if we show a hint of interest, our lives will be inundated by swarms of follow up emails and calls for the foreseeable future. Educating prospects, rather than pitching them, is far more efficient. The organisation can expect a more positive response every time. When prospects are educated and understand the quantity, quality and value of your product, when the time comes to make a purchase decision your offering is likely to be considered. A combination of complimentary webinars, whitepapers, and case studies/testimonials from existing customers will achieve this. Yes, this is a long game but you will see far greater results for your new non-personal selling initiatives, that can educate HCPs and build awareness throughout the year.
2. INBOUND AND CONTENT MARKETING
Inbound marketing is a non-personal selling initiative different from traditional marketing because it’s a more efficient way to create the experience that people are looking for instead of paying to interrupt one. Content, forms and workflow/nurturing emails will always be available to those looking for information, and accessed via a range of channels, predominantly on the website via search engines. Having marketing material available for the foreseeable future to educate the market is a huge advantage for pharmaceutical organisations. Inbound and content marketing offers a range of advantages, but the main advantage is its ability to generate business contacts and marketing leads that are more likely to become customers as the relationships start positively on the prospect’s own terms. Customers want more control in the sales process, especially with the content they consume, so to align with this requirement, inbound marketing is very much advantageous to organisations as a non-personal selling solution.
3. MAGAZINE/PRINT ADVERTISING AND COVER WRAPS
Whilst we will always recommend our partners use relevant digital channels, we will never recommend alienating traditional/print methods. As PharmaVOICE state: “Physician use of web and mobile technologies to access clinical information is growing, but print remains an essential component of their daily responsibilities and has less competition for attention within the channel than digital tactics.” Moving away from print just isn’t viable. Why would marketers turn their backs on a channel that is widely used by their target audiences? Albeit somewhat saturated, digital offers the ability to reach target audiences and creative solutions within print - such as cover wraps etc. - can significantly help the HCP (who can pick up a physical piece of marketing anytime her or her wishes) as well as the performance of an omnichannel initiative.
4. STAKEHOLDER GROUP ENGAGEMENT
Data from market research, patient pathways (depending on your product) or more importantly focus groups, will determine what you know about the market which will determine how you promote your product. Such groups of people can be highly valuable to your organisation in other ways, such as then be able to sell those products directly to those who helped shape them. Salespeople prefer to engage with prospects on a one-to-one basis, but staying true to the common theme in this post, we are now looking to do the opposite. Organisations can look to bring stakeholder groups together for targeted discussions, who chose to participate so they can engage with other practitioners like themselves - that help identify those prospects and also having that ability to speak face-to-face with that prospect often on home turf. Bringing your audiences together seems somewhat counter-intuitive, but so does the idea of not trying to sell your products directly. Which is why all forms of unconventional and non-intrusive tactics should be considered if a move away from personal selling is the aim.
5. PREFERENCE-BASED EMAIL MARKETING
Business executives and HCPs will require new information, and often - regardless of the supposedly poor engagement rates with email as a communications medium - email marketing is the preferred method of receiving this information. Email marketing has this poor reputation attached to it because marketers have abused the channel in the past by sending unsolicited emails in the masses without real consideration for the user. B2B email marketing can, however, be considered a non-personal selling initiative if it is done via a preference-based subscription system. So, users can actively choose (and change over time) the number of emails they can receive from an organisation, as well as the types of email content. Email contacts, once subscribed, can be segmented to enable targeted and timely campaigns so that the chances of the contacts doing what you want them to do with your emails are higher.
6. DATA MARKETING AND CRM INITIATIVES
I often encounter organisations in pharma who do not have a CRM system, or if they do, they do not use the data collected within the CRM to inform marketing activities. Marketers can build profiles on all of the contacts within the CRM that include a combination of basic personal information and data collected from previous campaigns and sales interactions. Key metrics can be defined, categorised and measured to trigger other relevant marketing activities. Lead scores or page interactions are good examples of this in practice, and how non-personal selling is overridden by more intelligent marketing. Offering meeting appointments off the back of these page triggers also work, allowing physicians to access your calendar at any time and book time with you to discuss a particular topic you know they are interested in. We’re still looking to create a personal connection, we’re just not using traditional approaches that had shown to push the prospect away, rather than pull him or her closer.
7. OWNED AND PAID SOCIAL MEDIA CAMPAIGNS
Each post I write that aims to peer into the future and understand what the organisation-prospect dialogue might look like for the better, as well as where it will take place, usually includes something on social media. PM360 has published an article solely on the reasons why: It is the ideal environment in which to combine the powers of targeted digital media with multichannel marketing while aligning to strategic brand imperatives, it results in deeper engagement that proves valuable and meaningful and it also offers the ability to initiate conversation among your targets or learn from the conversations that are occurring about your brand, its disease state, or other relevant clinical content. Organisations can direct content towards followers (owned media) as well as hand-pick audiences (paid media) to target their messages. And should salespeople align themselves with such social media strategy, they too can join the conversation. If the salesperson can evolve, identify the appropriate social media channel and align with marketing via comments or chat features, you are looking at a powerful non-personal selling initiative.
8. PERSONALISATION
Personalisation, although a simple concept – providing tailored content to site visitors – isn’t always easy to implement. It concerns technical complexities as well as implications relating to fully understanding the individual motivations of site visitors. Still, personalisation is possible with the appropriate systems and processes, and if done correctly, can emerge as a highly effective non-personal selling initiative. A website can remember the page a visitor has accessed and based on the data and the personalisation criteria/rules, it can serve similar or different content for the next visit. This is the most complex method on this list and should be dealt with caution. But those that get it correct can experience huge rewards, namely in the form of increased conversions.
When it comes to personalisation, email marketing is probably the first port of call, where subject lines and other email elements can be personalised with the recipient’s name. There are many other personalisation opportunities available though, such as dynamic content on landing pages, images, smart CTAs and forms as well as other digital display ads that may include similar personalisation elements in pharma.
9. MOBILE
Often, where target audiences spend long periods away from their desktops, the most appropriate channel among the educational tools that will be employed by pharma companies are mobile apps and messaging. We’ve seen mobile taking over in healthcare over the last few years and mobile apps quickly deliver info to patients about a condition and recommended therapy where physicians can also provide lifestyle and adherence plans through mobile technologies and track patients’ compliance. (More examples can be found here.) Why not use this medium to continue the conversation between the HCPs and the pharma organisation? Consider WhatsApp and other mobile-based applications first, before exploring other more innovative possibilities.
10. INTERACTIVE EXPERIENCES
Interactive content is a good place to start if the aim is to do something a little different with your campaigns - which is another example what needs to happen to move away from personal selling. This sort of content is appealing because it makes it easier to attract and educate potential customers, it gives people a reason to stay involved and interested, which can translate into shareable content. Interactive videos keep visitors engaged when there are lots of content to be delivered - the element of interactivity gives them something to do instead of dropping off the page or the website like they might normally. Interactive e-books are also suitable in pharma because it allows you to offer your customers lots of information that they can interact with. Just be sure their format includes interactive elements and not just a word document. Video is also a growing trend. People have said that video is the type of content they want to see to accompany (and counter) textual content with visual elements. A range of interactive marketing methods are available for your non-personal selling initiative, but not all will be suitable in B2B pharma. Test and experiment if you have not done so already.
11. LIVE VIRTUAL EVENTS AND FULFILMENT
There are several live event types and formats - such as workshops, forums, webinars and roundtables - which could be suitable to promote your organisation, products and services. Such events will be required within such B2B marketing initiatives at present. Klick Health suggests that one of the goals of a non-personal selling initiative should be to build and enhance relationships with your field force and company. “Therefore, if a target customer requests anything as a result of participating in an online promotional activity, why not have the rep deliver it personally? Given the ongoing access challenges faced by the sales force, these programs can serve as important door openers and relationship builders.”
12. PAVE THE WAY FOR SALES REP ACCESS
Okay, we do have one idea that involves the sales department. But that’s because all of the ideas above have the aim of building customer-organisation relationships to foster pharma sales rep access. This needs to happen for the transaction to move forward. Rest assured, the initiatives above are designed to begin the dialogue between organisation and prospect, building trust and promoting your services in the process. But at the end of the marketing funnel is the effective hand-over to sales so that when the prospect is ready, the salesperson can act. Any strategy or tactic that has worked for your organisation in the past - providing that it does not include any form of repetitive manual actions on the part of the salesperson - can be used to pave the way for access. Closed-loop marketing will achieve this in pharma - as integrated sales and marketing teams work towards the same goal using the same system.
13. VIRTUAL PERSONAL SELLING
PharmaLive, like many others in our industry, says that now is the time to consider evolving the sales representative to HCP experience. “Reps need a way in which they can detail the product info that may break out of the traditional mould of their script of slides that doctors have already seen. Finding a new way to deliver the messaging, over remote channels, with more meaningful data can result in more quality meetings. And if a live virtual detail isn’t possible, consider a cadenced representative video program. Representatives record approved presentations to send to their target lists in a cadenced way that reflects their pre-call planning for that physician.” Is now the time for conversational marketing interfaces to take off?
INCREASING PRESENCE IN A BUSY PHARMA SECTOR
bfw Life Sciences highlight a ZS study: In 2008, 80% of HCPs were considered accessible to pharmaceutical sales representatives, seeing at least 70% of reps that contacted them. By mid-2017, pharma sales rep access was down to 46%. It has likely dropped even further in 2020. This has spurred in an increase in non-personal selling and omnichannel marketing efforts.
And the benefits of omnichannel marketing initiatives are well documented. Organisations can promote themselves to wider audiences and provide material enabling the target audience to make purchasing decisions on their own channels and accord (without a pushy sales representative), demonstrating better ROI without sacrificing your brand image in the process.
Pharma and healthcare professionals - from the decision-making executives to the HCPs - are continually questioning the need for a sales call. But on the other hand, require information to conduct their jobs properly. It’s our role as marketers to appreciate this behavioural change and connect with those professionals in new and appreciative ways and ensure that the messages still reach the intended audience.
