There have been many consequences and unexpected changes for marketers since the start of the COVID-19 pandemic. One of them (especially in the life sciences arena) is the concept of forced innovation. As an industry, life sciences had traditionally been slow to embrace a fully integrated digital marketing strategy. Of course, the pandemic has forced the acceleration of this embrace. A recent study showed that potential patient populations will look online for information prior to engaging a healthcare professional or organization; an effective digital marketing strategy can help you reach those patients.

As life sciences marketers navigate this landscape, there are some fundamental elements that are critical to digital marketing success. These elements include:

• Understanding your audience
• Embracing an omnichannel approach
• Developing a strong content plan
• Utilizing first-party data

Let’s take a look at these elements in more detail:

Understand your audiences

Whether you are trying to reach patient populations or HCPs, the most important step is understanding your audience.  Audience targeting has been an essential part of marketing strategies as long as marketing has existed. If you understand your target audiences and their online journeys, you will better know where they spend time online, what information they are seeking, what motivates them to action, what content they relate to, and what social media platforms are most important.

There are many tools that marketers can utilize to gain better insight into their audiences. More and more, life sciences digital markers are using social listening as a preferred option, and it is easy to see why. Effective social listening projects can give incredible insight into customer needs and improve the overall audience experience. Specific items that you should expect from social listening include:

• Market-specific analysis
• Market trend analysis
• Mapping the patient digital journey
• Understanding the tone and language for specific populations
• Overall brand analysis
• Developing best practices in terms of market-specific messaging and language
• Identifying relevant Key Opinion Leaders, (KOLs) for both HCPs and patient populations

Below are some examples of insights from a social listening exercise:

Mentions by channel and category provide direction for content strategy and focus

KOL mapping that leverages social listening insights to help refine overall KOL strategies for maximum reach and engagement

Platform-specific insights

Examples from real social posts to demonstrate positive/negative/neutral sentiments within the market