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How can we go smarter in digital pharma marketing?

Digital content creation

Posted by Hexagone team |

April 15, 2020

How can we go smarter in digital pharma marketing?

As the world is now changing the way it operates, industries are also forced to embrace disruptive digital solutions as soon as possible to overcome current challenges. Digital has already transformed the pharmaceutical industry in many ways. The most significant one being the way they communicate and engage with healthcare professionals.  

Now more than ever, the Life sciences industry is about to take a new turning point especially when it comes to assessing processes and tools that will help through challenging times. However, this is not new, it didn’t come out as a surprise. Top consulting firms have been providing insights about the future of Pharma marketing(ref 1).

2020 was a hit at that time.

Well it is not quite what we expected for 2020 but it doesn’t change the fact that the Life sciences industry was presumed few years back to create new value and do things differently in the future for 2020. So here we are all together facing one of the biggest challenges of our time!

What do we need now?

Many pharmaceutical companies have made significant changes on their road to digital transformation. However, the current digital landscape requires to step up their efforts to adapt to current and new challenges.

We usually think… what’s the next thing, buzz word, new motto that will supposedly shape or reshape the way Pharma marketing is doing business?


Upon reflection, we don’t really need to surf on hollow concepts that often mask the vacuity of digital transformation initiatives, as they ignore the main fuel of the digital transformation engine: content!

Our goal is to create and deliver more digital content, that is more accurate, more interesting and in a faster way. Content is the key component to drive the value chain in Digital Pharma Marketing.

Therefore, wouldn’t it be time to consider a CONTENT AUTHORING SOFTWARE?

Content authoring technologies are changing the way we produce and deliver promotional digital content. They are well established and are no longer a choice as they became a necessity. But, sometimes they fail into being agile enough, so we tend to become maybe a bit lazy to try to understand all their effects and benefits for our value chain.

By the way, what is a content authoring software?


A content authoring software is a content development application that is used for creating digital content such as CLM presentations or emails in the Life sciences industry.  It has capabilities to simplify and ease the development process of digital assets compared to the way it is traditionally done by digital agencies.

It comes with many advantages like updating content in seconds with no third parties involved or being requested.

Bottom line: it saves money and time.  

Why should Pharma companies use a content authoring software?


Well, the first answer that comes in mind is to unleash the full potential of digital marketing to satisfy the needs of your brand strategy and stay competitive. Leaving some tasks to the software so marketing teams can focus and put energy into more valuable steps of their brand strategy process.  

The evolution of the world shows how much it is the time to establish more efficient, reliable automated processes for digital content development in Pharma. Especially when budget cuts on Life sciences firms are increasing all the time.  Many Pharma companies already reported moderate to enormous amounts of digital content and assets being produced by their marketing teams and it is likely to increase to match the customer-patient centric multichannel approach they are embracing.

If you make the exercise of mapping your current processes, you will come to a conclusion that there is probably room for improvement. You may start seeing opportunities for you to focus on the real game.

We know that today siloed creation processes are overrated and overly time and budget consuming. And once a piece is created it has limited time of reuse because we need to get into the whole process again. Tiring!

Moreover, looking at what we are dealing with now, in an era when people want access anytime, anywhere, the traditional development process fails.

Today, it is even more important that Pharma marketing strategies meet digital era rules. Current challenges are shaping the digital Pharma environment which is about adopting disruptive technologies.

The effects of digitization at different levels of the economy are real.

In order to understand what needs to be changed or at least calibrated in your existing brand strategy process, here 3 key questions to help you assess your current marketing model:  

How much time I am spending on creating one single piece of digital content for a brand?
How much money I am spending on that one single piece?
How many interactions/people do I have to make/talk to – to get it done?

There must be lessons to be learnt.

Adding to the above, ONE question that is being forced on us during this special time is:

How easy is my access to the parties involved into creating my single piece of digital content today?

You may have different levels of responses from an organization to another, but there’s only one answer to the digital challenge. There is so much to focus on now that, do we really want to spend more time into complex processes when we can make it simple?


Content authoring software have the full potential to enable a new mode of work to enhance and simplify your digital marketing processes but also to address the current challenge of delivering value remotely.

You need to know how to react to this technology in order to figure out its effects on your existing digital marketing development process and understand its full potential. Introducing new ways of creating, producing and delivering digital content is something, but it is a winning strike.

So, what are the things to look for in a content authoring software for digital pharma marketing?​

First things first, it should cover most of the tasks made by traditional digital agencies.

5 THINGS:


1.  A Cloud-based authoring software

Offering greater flexibility and a team collaborative approach experience: open the application in your browser, log in, and start working. Otherwise, what’s the point of insisting upon having access anywhere, anytime!

2.  Easy to use – finding the right balance between what needs to be done and great features to have (simplicity vs complication).

Offering too many features hampers the grip of the tool, consumes time and makes the user experience painful. In any app or software, no matter how much features it has, we never use more than half of it. So what matters is the simplicity of use and the must-have features that will deliver results. Moreover, a WYSIWYG interface is indispensable because it allows the user to see the final rendition of what he designs without the need to use other third party applications.  

3.  Easy sharing and fast localization  

4.  Connection to Medical Regulatory review platforms and automated distribution to CLM/CRM platforms.

5.  A great support team – so much important!

Scale up your digital content strategy  with CAM™, and read more about how it provides greater results.

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1. Pharma 2020: Marketing the future (PricewaterhouseCoopers), 2020 global life sciences outlook (Deloitte), The road to digital success in pharma (McKinsey & Company)

More reading

Read more on Multichannel marketing for Life Sciences.

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