Orchestrating the multichannel platform: finding the best ways to reach out to physicians is key in forming relationships with these important consumer groups. Using multichannel communications can ensure a company's brand message is communicated thoroughly and effectively.

Pharmaceutical product managers and their agencies are developing better ways to orchestrate and integrate multiple communication channels to reach today's physician, who must manage a busier schedule than ever before.

A typical group practice physician named Dr. Robin must keep up with a relentless stream of patients while juggling E-mails, phone calls, and tasks. Between consultations, Dr. Robin stops by a computer to view a patient's x-ray sent over from the hospital, and then uses the personal digital assistant in her lab coat pocket to access prescribing information on a new drug. Her cell phone vibrates, signaling yet another new text message. Darting past the drug company reps in her waiting room, she makes a mental note to participate in a web-based program on antibiotic resistance for continuing education credit at home.

Reaching the Overstretched Physician

In the past decade, new channels, opportunities, and ways of bringing physicians together have grown. Pharmaceutical agencies are leading the way in balancing the high tech and the high touch. They manage the gestalt better than any single-channel partner typically can.

It is no longer a question of being the first to latch on to new technology. The agency's job is to help firms align where they tell their story with how it is told, using data regarding new media and physician preferences to create more meaningful brand communication. They must complement the power of "pulling" (attracting and rewarding physician inquiry) with the traditional power of "pushing" relevant, believable, and behavior-changing brand communications.

Reaching physicians calls for many simultaneous modes of communication. Much like conducting a symphony, the effort to reach physicians involves more than simply assembling individual musicians and instruments. Today's multichannel media platforms work harder for a brand when provided with clear structure and leadership. The symphony itself--the brand's multichannel platform--benefits from being composed by an agency with a sense of each channel's unique capabilities and knowledge of how separate channels interact with one another. Together, they form a multichannel master plan.

Moving to Full Integration

The integration of channels represents a profound shift in thinking. To coordinate a brand message, product managers often dealt with several partners and few well-established processes or metrics. It was sometimes difficult to know where true expertise resided, and brand teams were often required to borrow resources from other departments in their organizations (e.g., information technology).

Today, channel-specific technology skills have become widespread, and most of the technical problems have been solved. What matters most is creating content that works in multiple channels to amplify brand messages and imagery.

Integration is the key. Today's agency of record must be responsible for overall brand communications strategy, not just a single channel. It is increasingly vital that the agency team have an up-to-date and expanding view of the full range of potential media and capabilities, as well as hands-on experience.

An agency's task is to ensure that wherever the busy physician looks, he or she should see, hear, and recognize the brand, and remember that the experience should be of uniformly high quality.

Moving to Media Neutrality

Research has been done on what physicians like and dislike about using new communication channels. Ease of use and interconnection with other brand-related activities are high on their wish list. Physicians indicated that they have no time or patience to navigate pharmaceutical product websites where they are forced to go through at least three screens to find the health care provider menus. Also, if Amazon.com can remember what someone likes to read, why should physicians need to log in like strangers each time they visit a drug company webpage? These physicians also want the multiple sales representatives, who are selling them the same product, to be aware of what has already been detailed and how they have responded to on-line experiences, meetings and events, and other brand-related media.

Accustomed to top-notch experiences with new media in their personal lives, physicians want comparable quality in their professional lives. The user's experience must come first. This means agencies must start with a media-neutral, unbiased, and customer-centric communications vision.

Championing the Brand

Consider these questions: Where is the best place for physicians to encounter the brand? What are the key working assumptions you can make, and where are the most important touch points? What is the role of the patient in the physician's decision-making, and how will that communication intersect with professional channels?

Companies should know as much as possible about the preferred information-gathering styles of their target audience. Are they primarily visual, auditory, or kinesthetic learners? Does audience-research help agencies creatively develop materials and media that appeal to a variety of these styles, making it easy for each physician to find the channel that fits him or her best?

When developing conceptual approaches, think about the full range of media and the specific objectives of each channel before committing to any one mode. Ensure that the team explores how imagery and messaging in one medium resonates with what is seen and felt through another, and pilot test explorations that require audience feedback.

The product manager should ensure that the client-agency team establishes durable, meaningful branding hallmarks that will distinguish the brand. Test, refine, and strengthen the verbal and visual language of persuasion as it appears in the different media.

Invest in building a data management structure so interactive responses obtained through one channel can help direct outgoing messages to physicians through other channels. Integrated data management is also great for tracking promotional return-on-investment. Many emerging communication modalities are individually more measurable than traditional promotion because of trackable physician behavior, such as click-throughs, responses, and inquiries.

Easing the Product Manager's Burden

From the product manager's perspective, this multichannel management approach can be extremely helpful. Many of them are burdened by more complex markets and products, and cope with reduced manpower and budget resources. Dealing with one visionary, problem-solving agency that can manage the multiple channels of communication is clearly preferable to dealing individually with single-channel specialists. An agency of record becomes a strong, well-prepared partner who can lessen the burden faced by product managers. Procurement colleagues, too, may find that working with a single agency offers more efficiency than dealing with multiple vendors.

Not Tomorrow, but Today

Multichannel programming with a visionary, integrating partner helps ensure one's brand message is everywhere the physician is, ready to communicate whenever physicians are ready to talk. Even though Dr. Robin will never return to the slower pace of times gone by, it is possible to keep one's brand by her side, providing support and information as her busy practice evolves.

THE MULTICHANNEL MINDSET: THINGS TO CONSIDER

As one considers how to better manage a brand's multichannel communication, keep these factors in mind:

Is the Brand Truly Living in the Physician's World? Find out what sites the targets are visiting, what devices they carry, and how much time they still spend with journals. Take a snapshot of their day so it will be possible to keep them company.

Think More Pull Than Push. Drawing in physicians and patients is key. Will the content hold up in a "pull model?" When learning and meeting their priorities, the agency will be welcomed back again and again.

Match Multichannel to Lifecycle. What is the best multichannel mix for the brand at each stage of maturity? Can it help overcome the reduction of rep support, for example? How should the multichannel mix evolve prelaunch, during launch, and postlaunch?

Who Is at the Helm? Think carefully about who should guide the overall multichannel campaign. Look for powerful content developers who can be media-neutral and media-savvy. The product manager sets the ground rules for all service partners to minimize conflicts.

Can the Agency of Record Handle This? Explore the capabilities of the agency of record in both traditional and new channels. What is their vision of multichannel, and how advanced are their thinking and capabilities?

Lois Moran

President

JUICE Pharma Advertising

322 8th Avenue, 10th Floor

New York, New York 10001

Phone: (212) 647-1595

E-mail: lmoran@juicepharma.com

www.juicepharma.com