Closing the gap between field force and digital channel

For many years medical representatives were the main link between pharma companies and HCPs. As digital communication has ultimately become the primary tool of promotion, engagement, and education, the place of medical reps within the new system changes as well. Performing the role of a vital link between digital marketing teams and HCPs, medical representatives have to become integrated into the modern omnichannel engagement systems as orchestrators or as it’s messengers. In such a way, representatives can provide marketers with essential data, collect consent for data collection, orchestrate and trigger their own customer journeys and contribute to the digital ones.

2 models of synchronizing Reps and digital channels

Depending on the company specifics and the global strategic view on the role of medical representatives, we can see them either as one of the messengers who supplement the omnichannel system or as skilled orchestrators, who also fulfille some of the digital marketing duties. Naturally, in the second case, when the medical representative also adopts some of the content manager and marketing duties, much more resources are required for training and talent acquisition. But let’s look at the pros and cons of both approaches to get a better understanding of what you get in either case.

Representative is one of the main channels

Pros

As the marketing automation processes prevail according to this approach, the company doesn’t need a big number of representatives and you don’t need to provide additional education for existing ones. One of the major benefits of this approach is that it is cheaper and it minimizes the risks of human error as well as personal relationships between HCPs and medical representatives.

Cons

Ironically, the absence of human interaction is also one of the most evident flows of the approach. The role of the emotional bond still can not be underestimated. Also, representatives are less included in the whole process and have less responsibility for the final results. In order to get the most out of this approach, a very powerful automated marketing system is required.

Representative is a core orchestrator

Pros

Within this model, the representative is responsible for the lion’s share of communication with HCPs. Not only the model relies more on face-to-face visits and their frequency, but also the brand representative acts as a well-informed promoter of the brand and, most importantly, its media channels.

Cons

The human factor is one of the major flaws as medical representatives are solely responsible for the majority of communication. Also, this approach requires time and resources to train the representatives and requires some additional control from supervisors.

Field force challenges

The are a number of challenges that medical representatives may stumble upon during the visit or even at a stage of planning. Here are some of the most widespread issues for medical representatives.

●??????Lack of reliable data - the data on HCPs is not consistent and in some regions, it may be harder to plan visits.

●??????Personal data protection legislation - HCPs have to sign consent for sharing their personal data, which is one of the smaller challenges.

●??????Limited access - in certain situations the access of doctors can be limited, for instance during a pandemic or war.

●??????Digital Gap - HCPs may require some additional guidance from medical representatives before they will be able to embrace all the benefits of digital channels.

●??????Price - a medical representative visit is one of the priciest methods of communication, so it can’t be used for every single HCP.

Omnichannel orchestration in pharma

Roughly speaking, omnichannel communication in pharma is built around two major core centers - medical representative CRM and enterprise-scale Marketing Automation Platform (MA). All the data concerning sales communication, face-to-face and remote visits as well as text communication is stored within the medical representative CRM which is connected to the MA, constantly providing it with field data. At its turn, MA serves as a headquarters that operates analytics, digital communication channels and provides medical representatives with valuable insights, statistics, and global vision.

How to build a Rep-triggered journey

Rep-triggered journeys are an excellent example of how the marketing team can cooperate with medical representatives for reaching better results. Here is an easy example of how the rep-triggered journey is planned and orchestrated.

Stage 1

Content and design for the journey are developed centrally in the MA Platform.

Stage 2

Selected journeys are made available for the reps.

Stage 3

The representative can choose which doctors and when to add to this journey.

Stage 4

Communication in MA is executed on behalf of the medical representative.