Do you have a good story to tell?

The pharmaceutical industry, as we well know, is highly regulated and restricted, facing an enormous challenge: health care consumers.

Pharmaceutical companies have always had to deal with challenges to attract patients’ attention, how to be their drug of choice by default in the face of so many barriers to demonstrate how good their product is, with advances in technology people have changed the way they approach their health. The pharmaceutical industry today focuses more on educating and raising patient awareness about diseases and how to prevent them than in the old healthcare marketing strategy focused in product-only .

Today’s pharmaceutical industries have become more personal with their patients, if your content does not attract the audience emotionally, you will lose their attention, the content must provide meaning and relevance.

Emotion as the protagonist in a healthcare marketing strategy

Through stories we connect emotionally, people are attracted to stories because they have meaning and create an emotional impact. Good stories can produce powerful results for brands by connecting with people through values, ideas and lived experiences.

Storytelling has always been there, but its importance and relevance has recently grown in eDetailing. Such development was caused by the growing amounts of information that must be efficiently delivered to users. From now on, pharmas face mounting competition where physicians have less time to spend with reps. Current detailing methods do not provide physicians with information that they value when they want it. 78% of HCPs complain about quality of information which is given to them and 50% say that the timing of detailing calls is annoying and inconvenient.

Traditional detailing used to be the only way for pharma companies to provide drug information to physicians. Then was the migration of detailing services to an electronic channel that HCPs can access to get the information they want, where they want, at a time is most convenient for them. eDetailing emerged exactly because traditional methods were lacking something. eDetailing can be an important tool that helps pharma improve collaboration with HCPs and, in turn, build market brand awareness and trust. However, there is A LOT room for improvement.

If we make a fair comparative:

Traditional Detailing

• Data about drugs is often not updated, and doctors are given the same information they have seen many times before
• Traditional meetings between reps and physicians take a lot of valuable time, which HCPs don’t have at all
• Overabundance of “bare” information or marketing push obscures the benefits

Strong Storytelling

• Each time, regularly, HCPs are provided by up-to-date information, which can be used in their practice immediately
• HCPs would rather discuss patient profiles that are illustrated and contain relevant information, as well as review clinical cases
• There are just SOME features about storytelling process and how it works

Such kind of content as presentations used to gain its popularity and had been efficiently used… But did it lead to better storytelling? Not always. Long ago, the main goal of presentation used to boil down to showing slides and the text that was written there. Alas, such presentations with lots of texts and images aren’t effective anymore. As a rule, many brand managers used to think “more text – more success”. New principle comes out – “less text – more interactivity”. Here is where storytelling techniques become useful tools in the armory of the professional marketer.

An interactive presentation, where HCP can ask questions and become active participants, will help you to gather information for further improvement and the rep’s visit won’t be boring.

You can use different styles, change pictures in your presentations but the only thing is unchangeable – care of your clients and understanding of their lifestyle and needs.

Who doesn’t like a good story?

What makes story a good story? Telling stories is not as easy as it seems at first. Branding and marketing are connected with storytelling and businesses are all trying out the approach. The reason for this is the sheer explosion of the amount of information that must be processed and published. You can create impact on public telling stories in concise, emotive and memorable way. Interesting facts, up-to-date information which throws light on current problems and latest news can make a great content.

It’s all about personalization. About what is written and how it is written.

Marketers have to accommodate to a modern lifestyle and use new popular technologies to make content accessible for target audience. Especially, when it comes to pharma, you have to contact doctors that by default don’t have time even for themselves, not talking about extra information you want to tell them. That’s why interactive content appeared.

It comes without saying that “Brevity is the soul of wit”, and that means keeping the message concise but powerful.

Storytelling in healthcare medical marketing is a tool that allows you to tell a story using sensory language presented in a way that conveys to listeners the ability to internalize, understand and create personal meaning from it. Your customers don’t buy your product or service. They buy the emotion you make them feel.

Any media can be used in a healthcare marketing strategy to tell a story, including video, email, social channels and case studies. However, each vehicle provokes a different reaction from your audience.

There is so much information that has been told so many times in so many variations, so the only thing you can do with this is to update it every time and present it in a unique way. Make your message worth to be remembered.

Hope this help... See you at work!

Dr. Oscar Mata Pe?a

Senior Medical Affairs Manager /Medical Marketing Specialist