Social Media Marketing-Panel Discussions-Pharma Industry-Mobile Search

Musings from DTC National 2011

Didn’t attend DTC Perspectives’ big DTC National conference in Boston this year?
No worries. I spent three days there last week (my first time). Several of us tweeted the highlights using hashtag #DTCN2011, so you can view all the tweets by searching the hashtag on Twitter. You can still view the conference agenda online.
I tweeted. A lot. But one can only say so much in 140 characters or less. So beyond the tweets, I wanted to provide a more in-depth review. Below is the first in a series of blog posts with key observations by day:
DTC National: Day One
Day one of the conference kicked off with a small pre-conference workshop in the morning. Pharma folks gathered for a series of small panel discussions, moderated by Bob Ehrlich, on the following topics:
- Optimizing The Brand Web Site
- The Use of Search
- Advertising on the Web/mobile
- Direct Mail and Direct Response
I was surprised there wasn’t a social media panel, but perhaps everyone’s sick of talking about that for now. How much more can we say about FDA still not delivering guidance anyway?
The panels were lively and informative, focusing in depth on these areas more than – as I learned in later days – the main conference itself. The audience asked questions and there were healthy discussions. I always like the smaller group settings better at these things. A few highlights:
• I laughed during the “Optimizing the Brand Web Site” session when conference chairman and moderator Bob Ehrlich asked the panel to stop talking about mobile (because there was a separate upcoming panel on mobile). What was left unsaid was that the Web and mobile are so intertwined that the two cannot be separated. I saw a tweet last week rom the iStrategy conference (source unknown) that over 50% of Web activity occurs on a mobile device! But wait … I’m not supposed to be talking about mobile here … so moving on …
• I spoke on the panel on which I thought was going to be about online and mobile media – “Advertising on the Web/mobile” - but which turned out to be all about mobile. We talked about optimizing sites and the plethora of healthcare apps available today. And we all agreed that there is a lot more for pharma to be doing in this channel. It struck me, too, that there’s so much more to mobile than just apps or mobile sites … there’s mobile media, mobile search, and optimizing emails for mobile viewing. At what point will pharma pay attention to these on a regular basis? I fear we’re a long ways off.
• I particularly enjoyed the “Use of Search” panel where Yahoo!, Google, and Bing representatives (among others) all gathered to discuss character limitations and potential implications of coming DDMAC guidance. To their credit, they were certainly mindful of the issues the industry faces. And the question was asked … who says there have to be character limitations? Not FDA .... Google, Yahoo! and Bing decide! I was pleased to see so many search reps at the conference and their industry’s openness to working with the pharma industry's – shall we call them – "special circumstances."
• The multicultural panel was hosted by several multicultural marketing agencies who made the very valid case for pharma to be reaching out to minorities, especially in relevant conditions such as diabetes and hypertension that disproportionally affect African-Americans and Hispanics. I have the hunch multicultural marketing is to pharma now as social media marketing was to pharma a few years ago: Marketers have an inkling they need to be doing it, but they don’t know much about it so they avoid it altogether.
While Bob’s panel moderation style came across a bit condescending - as if he didn’t believe people went on the Web or used mobile phones to do anything but talk - it also provided healthy perspective. We in the marketing and digital worlds drink our own Kool-Aid every day. Bob’s right – some of the consumers we’re trying to reach are read more..

source:http://intouchsol.com

Pharma Marketing-Conference-Epharma

Thoughts from ePharma Summit 2011

What’s an ePharma Summit 2011?
Today I attended the ePharma Summit 2011 in New York City. It’s a huge conference with more than 500 people attending from industry, agencies, and various vendors interested in the broad topic of digital pharma marketing. The agenda can be found online. The conference continues through the end of the day tomorrow. You can follow the Twitter stream at #epharma.
As a sidenote, it's interesting to look back at my past reviews of this conference and compare:
7 Things I Learned at ePharma Summit 2010, Some Early Nuggets from epharma Summit (2009) and More 2009 epharma Summit Observations
Anyway ... this year, there are lots of great people tweeting and we’re all trying to provide coverage between bad wifi and dying laptop/iPad/phone batteries (due to lack of power strips). Ah, technology! I was able to attend most of the conference except for when concurrent programs were running. I was able to tweet, except when my laptop battery died. So here, I wanted to provide a brief recap of what I saw as highlights of the day:

• Paul Ivans of Evolution Road chaired the event. A comfortable and knowledgeable presenter, Paul did a nice job kicking things off and moderating the entire day. One of my favorite quotes from him: “The rep arms race is over; we need alternatives to replace the sales gap.” This was also one of the most re-tweeted tweets of the entire day. In other words? It resonated.
• Standout presentations of the morning included several thought-provoking, futuristic talks from Thomas Goetz (Wired Magazine) and Bob Harrell (Shire Pharmaceuticals). Who knew someone created a creepy robotic dog that can right itself when pushed over? Innovation is inspiring, and their examples were good reminders that we need to never be satisfied with the status quo when it comes to health technology.
• Tom Abrams from FDA spoke. I’m not sure if attendees were expecting little hints, valuable nuggets, or all-out social media DDMAC guidance. But whatever they expected, they were disappointed. I’ll let friend and blogger Steve Woodruff explain why in his rant here. 
• I stepped away from the big ballroom to engage in three “unconference” round-table sessions after lunch covering the following topics:
• Encouraging patient-physician engagement. The question was asked if pharma should even have a role in this, if they should try to intersect that conversation. I say yes, as long as there is value for all parties.
• Unbranded vs. branded marketing. What’s the value of unbranded? In what situations should pharma be engaging in unbranded marketing? (For some thoughts on that, see these past blog posts)
• Marketing to niche and rare disease categories online. The opportunity for social media to reach these groups was discussed, as well as the importance of partnerships between pharma and academia.
• The surprisingly engaging keynote that wrapped up the day was Survivor Africa star – and cancer survivor star – Ethan Zohn. Proving out his credo “never let a crisis go to waste,” Ethan shared less about Survivor Afrrica and more about Survivor Ethan and his scary bout with Hodgkin’s Lymphoma at age 35. He “survived,” and he’s paying it forward by funding several charitable endeavors with his winnings. Inspiring! Read more about Ethan’s story here at People.com, including his videos, and also read about his charity, Grassroot Soccer.

There were several other good presentations and panels but there's only so much time and room to cover the conference. It’s always great to re-connect with past friends and faces and meet new ones too. That, to me, is the real value of these gatherings. And I look forward to more engagement, greetings and meetings tomorrow.
Stay tuned! And send power strips ... read more..

source:http://intouchsol.com