To understand HCP marketing, we have to understand the term ‘HCP’ first. HCP stands for Healthcare Professionals like doctors, nurses, and other medical practitioners are the critical target audience for pharma marketers and pharmaceutical companies.

Check out our blog post about engaging HCPs for success by leveraging KPI collection

Introduction

In today’s rapidly growing digital world, HCP marketing plays an important role for the pharmaceutical industry through which the industry is continuously transforming and growing day by day. The traditional methods of healthcare professional (HCP) marketing are being reshaped by through the increase use of digital technologie, as more pharmaceutical companies are connecting with their target audience through attractive ads, offers, and marketing techniques.

In this context, Customer Relationship Management (CRM) systems and closed-loop marketing (CLM) techniques are emerging as powerful tools to navigate this transformation, enhance HCP engagement rates, and turn the success rate into a feasible goal for any sales team and executives.

In this article, we’ll explore the impact of digital transformation in HCP marketing and highlight the pivotal roles that CRM and closed-loop marketing play in shaping the future of pharmaceutical marketing strategies.

Table of Contents

• HCP Marketing: Basics and Strategies
• The Role of HCP Social Media and Communications
• The Essence of HCP Engagement
• CRM: The Digital Powerhouse for HCP Marketing
• Closed-Loop Marketing: Enhancing HCP Engagement
• The Synergy of CRM and Closed-Loop Marketing
• Conclusion

Before we discuss further, let’s look at what CRM is and why a sound pharma marketing strategy starts with CRM.

What is CRM for pharmaceutical companies?

CRM is basically software or a personal assistant for your sales team. It provides easy access to customer data in real time. Providing valuable insights at your sales’ team fingers, CRM helps you track customers and your sales campaigns, all the while facilitating your follow up through automated emails and calls.

CRM also helps to collect leads from your Google Ads campaign or your social media campaign and make it easy for your sales team to collaborate with clients.

What is HCP marketing?

To understand HCP marketing, we have to understand the term ‘HCP’ first, so basically, HCP stands for healthcare professional marketing Healthcare Professionals like doctors, nurses, and other medical practitioners are the critical target audience for pharmaceutical companies.

Let’s understand how HCP marketing works.

How does HCP marketing work?

Using this type of marketing strategy, pharmaceutical companies and healthcare marketers generally serve information by engaging medical professionals about pharmaceutical products, medical devices, and treatment options.

Here are some of the strategies that help effectively in HCP marketing to reach and attract the target audience.

1. Have a strategic messaging approach: prompt an effective messaging approach that resonates with your target HCPs andoffers a unique value proposition.
2. Influence opinions using available platforms: use multiple platforms similar to print, digital, dispatch, and social media to reach out to HCPs
3. Conduct exploration – As the healthcare assiduity is constantly changing, it’s important to stay up-to-date with the rearmost trends and exploration.

The goal of HCP marketing goes beyond traditional advertising; it aims to establish meaningful relationships, and educate HCPs about advancements in medical science and provide valuable insights that can aid them in delivering better patient care.

The Digital Transformation of HCP Marketing

The digital era has ushered in a new paradigm for HCP marketing. With the widespread adoption of digital devices and online platforms, HCPs are more connected and informed than ever before. They seek information and market research, collaborate with peers, and engage in professional discussions through digital channels, including social media and professional networks.

Consequently, pharmaceutical companies need to adapt their marketing strategies to effectively reach and resonate with HCPs in this digital landscape.

HCP Social Media and Communications

Social media platforms are essential for healthcare professional (HCP) marketing. Actively participating in relevant discussions and sharing credible medical insights allow pharmaceutical companies to establish themselves as valuable sources of information. This proactive engagement not only enhances the pharma company itself credibility but also fosters direct interactions with HCPs, strengthening relationships and knowledge exchange.

A strategic approach to engaging HCPs on social media

1. Find Relevant Platforms: Understand which platforms are popular within the healthcare community. LinkedIn and Twitter is often favoured by HCPs for its professional networking and knowledge-sharing capabilities.

2. Engage and discuss: Respond to comments, answer questions, and engage in meaningful discussions. Authentic Interactions can build trust, and your brand can grow easily.

3. Interactive Content: Engage the audience with activities like quizzes and surveys to encourage participation and engagement. Interactive content can pop up in your conversations and enhance connections on social media.
4. Consistency: post fresh and interactive content on your social media accounts. Consistency maintains your presence and value keeping your audience engaged, just like the servicing required for your vehicle.
5. Provide Value to your audience by: Share content that educates, informs, and solves problems. Focus on quality over quantity.
6. Visual contents: your content must be audience-friendly. Present your content in visuals, such as infographics, and charts that make complex medical information understandable and shareable.

The Essence of HCP Engagement

HCP engagement is a multifaceted concept that encompasses interactions, relationships, and the exchange of knowledge. Between pharmaceutical companies and healthcare professionals HCP, engagement embodies the art of cultivating authentic relationships that drive collaboration, knowledge-sharing, and ultimately improved patient outcomes.

Key Elements of HCP Engagement:

HCP engagement, or Healthcare Professional engagement, refers to the interactions and relationships that pharmaceutical companies and healthcare providers (HCPs) establish to collaborate, communicate, and share valuable medical insights. It involves fostering connections, providing relevant information, and building trust to enhance the exchange of knowledge and improve patient care.

1. Two-Way Communication: HCP engagement is built on open and genuine dialogue. It’s about how you listen to the audience needs, challenges, and insights and responding with meaningful solutions.
2. Value-Centric Approach: Providing value to HCPs is like making your contents and products more valuable.This value can come in various forms, from informative content and educational resources to innovative solutions that streamline clinical workflows.
3. Education and Empowerment: Engaging HCPs involves empowering them with knowledge. Sharing evidence-based research, Case studies and best practises equip HCPs with the tools to make informed decisions and smooth workflow.
4. Collaboration and Networking: Collaborative engagements enable the exchange of diverse perspectives and innovativeideas. Networking always makes your marketing easier. It’s like building trust between you and your audience.
5. Patient-Centric Focus: Effective HCP engagement acknowledges the ultimate goal of patient well-being. Demonstrating how a product or solution directly contributes to improving patient outcomes and establishing a meaningful connection.
6. Long-Term Relationship Building: HCP engagement seeks to build enduring relationships rather than focusing solely on short-term transactions Trust and loyalty continuously grow when companies consistently deliver value over time.                 

The Essence of HCP Engagement in Healthcare Marketing:

1. Trust as the Foundation: Trust is the cornerstone of HCP engagement. Pharmaceutical and healthcare companies must earn and maintain the trust of HCPs by delivering accurate information and transparent communication.
2. Education, Not Just Promotion: Effective engagement involves education that goes beyond product promotion and can Help your audience know the correct information about the product. Sharing insights about disease management, treatment options, and clinical advancements positions companies as valuable sources of knowledge
3. Adaptation to Digital Channels: With the digital transformation, HCP engagement has extended to online platforms, where companies can share information, conduct webinars, and foster discussions that mirror real-world interactions.
4. Data-Driven Insights: Data analytics provide insights into HCP behaviour, preferences, and engagement patterns. These insights inform strategies that help establish more effective engagement.
5. Empowerment through Insights: Engagement is not just about sharing knowledge; it’s also about empowering HCPs to make correct decisions that positively impact patient care.

CRM: The Digital Powerhouse for HCP Marketing 

Customer Relationship Management (CRM) systems are a tool that empowers pharmaceutical companies to manage the industry. It offers sales reps a way to interact with clients easily, track preferences, and provide personalised communication. (CRM) is a tool that works in an instant between you and your client, helping you stay connected with your client, and increasing your sales team’s efficiency. 

CRM systems collect and analyse data from various touchpoints, allowing companies to gain insights into HCP behaviour, preferences, and engagement patterns. These insights enable pharmaceutical companies to create targeted marketing campaigns that resonate with HCPs on a personal and professional level.

CRM systems provide easy access to customer data in real time, enhancing collaboration among sales teams by facilitating the sharing of best practices and successful engagement strategies.

Managing Digital Touchpoints with CRM

CRM systems provide a centralised hub for collecting, organising, and analysing detailed data related to HCP interactions and make it easier to collect data. By integrating CRM systems, companies can automate their workflow and digital communications while enhancing the overall HCP experience.

360-Degree View: CRM systems offer a holistic view of HCP interactions, including past engagements, preferences, and communication history. This broad viewpoint ensures that statements are contextually appropriate.

Segmentation and Targeting: CRM systems allow you to divide HCPs based on criteria like speciality, prescription practises, and geographic location. This enables targeted and personalised communication and allows your sales team to establish strong connections with clients.

Automated Workflows: CRM systems enable the automation of communication and workflows. From sending follow-up emails to getting When it comes to delivering personalised content, automation enhances efficiency and consistency.

Personalised Messaging: The best feature for individual HCPs is being able to grab data. Personalization of party data based on their preferences and interests significantly improves interactions between clients.

Performance Tracking: CRM systems provide detailed insights into the effectiveness of digital campaigns. Monitor live key performance indicators like open rates, click-through rates, ad campaign tracking, and engagement levels to assess performance.

Case Study: A Successful Digital Transformation in HCP Marketing with CRM

Check our Case study

Xolomon has been digitalizing marketing and sales models in the pharmaceutical industry since 2011. The company offers a wide range of products and services to create databases and web applications for collecting and exploiting clinical trial data and information.

The Xolomon multidisciplinary team assists pharmaceutical laboratories, contract research organizations (CROs), research societies and institutes, collaborative groups, foundations, and hospitals in creating and implementing innovative strategies based on their needs, the latest practices, and advanced technology.

Challenges

The Necessity for Remote Calls during the COVID-19 Pandemic

Originally, Takeshi started Xolomon as an outsourcing company that provides pharma companies with the services of sales representatives. When the pandemic spread worldwide, he faced the necessity of adapting to the new reality by searching for remote call functionality for his team.

The pandemic transformed the needs of the customers.

“Before the pandemic, remote calls weren’t as important as afterwards,”

Takeshi explains.

The Xolomon team was looking for a solution that offered the possibility of making remote calls to physicians and tracking these calls through a customer relationship management (CRM) system.

Also, the solution would have to deal with the compliance issue of the pharmaceutical content.

Before searching for a dedicated platform for making remote calls with healthcare professionals (HCPs), Takeshi and his team tried to use Google Meet and Zoom as workarounds.

However, this method limited the demonstration of promotional materials. It was impossible to ensure the protection of personal and corporate information, and Xolomon sales reps couldn’t engage with their customers appropriately.

After finding the solution and using it for a while, Xolomon was unsatisfied with the

• customer experience
• level of support during the implementation process.

“Sometimes, physicians couldn’t access a video call or turn on the camera. Sometimes, the system broke up. So there was a lot of frustration for the physicians,”

Takeshi says.

Then it was Takeshi’s friend who recommended Platforce.

Implementing Platforce to Enhance HCP Engagement with Video Calls

After experiencing Platforce for three months, Takeshi decided to use the platform for the whole year at least. Also, Xolomon requested two more instances of the platform for their clients.

Solution: They implemented a CRM system to manage digital touchpoints. Here’s how it transformed their approach:

1. customized dynamic dashboards
2. effective analytics system that allows the company to measure the activities of each sales representative and discover the entire journey of each HCP
3. remote calls that enable Xolomon representatives to record their presentations for better performance and close the loop efficiently

Results:

With Platforce, Xolomon not only covered all issues that its team had with the previous solution but

• increased the number of engaged HCPs and touchpoints with them
• Along with making remote calls, Xolomon representatives could record their presentations
• provide HCPs with necessary content even without having a call.

Empowered by customized dynamic dashboards, Xolomon has created an effective analytics system that allows the company to measure the activities of each sales representative and discover the entire journey of each HCP.

To improve sales and marketing effectiveness, the Xolomon team uses KPI metrics to measure the number of touchpoints, average contact time with HCP, engagement rate, and ROI.

Such a comprehensive approach to performance measuring allowed Takeshi to save a significant amount of resources and digitalize the entire HCP engagement process

While sales reps could dramatically optimize their work, HCPs got an opportunity to choose the most convenient time and channel for communication.

For over two years of cooperation, Platforce helped Xolomon:

• Increase the engagement rate from 14 HCPs to 784 HCPs per month
• Reduce the cost per lead from nearly $250 to around $15 due to the increased engagement rate and flexibility of online communication

Closed-Loop Marketing: Enhancing HCP Engagement in the Digital Age

Closed-loop marketing is a data-driven strategy that involves the continuous cycle of collecting, analyzing, and applying insights to refine marketing efforts. In the context of an HCP marketing strategy, closed-loop marketing allows pharmaceutical companies to fine-tune their strategies based on real-time feedback from HCP interactions.

When an HCP engages with a pharmaceutical company through various channels, the data generated provides valuable insights into their interests and needs. These insights can be leveraged to tailor subsequent interactions, ensuring that the content and messages presented align with the HCP’s preferences. This iterative process not only strengthens the relationship between the pharmaceutical company and the HCP but also maximizes the impact of marketing efforts.

Case Study: Enhancing Digital Engagement with HCPs through Closed-Loop Marketing

PharmaTech Solutions, a fictional pharmaceutical company, embarked on a CLM-driven journey to enhance digital engagement with HCPs.

Challenges: PharmaTech Solutions faced challenges in effectively engaging HCPs through digital marketing channels alone. Generic messaging led to low engagement rates.

Solution: They implemented a CLM strategy fueled by data analytics. Here’s how it transformed their approach:

1. Data Collection: PharmaTech Solutions integrated data from email campaigns, webinars, and social media interactions into their CRM system.
2. Behavioural Insights: By analyzing HCP interactions, they discovered that webinars were the most preferred format for sharing medical updates.
3. Segmentation: Analytics revealed that HCPs in different specialities had distinct preferences. PharmaTech Solutions tailored content to match these preferences.
4. Personalization: Leveraging CRM data and behavioural insights, they personalized webinar invites based on speciality and historical engagement.
5. Predictive Modeling: Through data analysis, they predicted peak engagement times and scheduled webinars accordingly.
6. Content Optimization: Analytics guided the creation of engaging webinar topics, resulting in higher attendance and participation.

Results: PharmaTech Solutions experienced a 40% increase in webinar attendance and a 25% boost in engagement with follow-up emails. Analytics-driven CLM not only improved engagement but also deepened the value of their interactions with HCPs.

The Synergy of CRM and Closed-Loop Marketing in HCP Engagement

The synergy between CRM and closed-loop marketing is where the true power of digital HCP marketing resides. CRM systems serve as the foundation by capturing and storing relevant HCP data, while closed-loop digital marketing transforms this data into actionable insights. The combined approach allows pharmaceutical companies to create dynamic and personalized experiences for HCPs.

Imagine a scenario where an HCP attends a webinar on a new medical breakthrough hosted by a pharmaceutical company. With a CRM system in place, the company can record the HCP’s attendance, engagement level, and questions asked during the webinar.

This data is then fed into the closed-loop marketing process, enabling the company to follow up with tailored and targeted content beforehand, such as research papers and case studies that align with the HCP’s expressed interests. The subsequent interactions can be tracked in the CRM system, creating a seamless and personalized journey for the HCP.

Conclusion

The digital transformation of HCP marketing is a fundamental shift that demands pharmaceutical companies adapt and innovate with new technologies. CRM systems and closed-loop marketing techniques help to build interactions, personalised experiences, and value-driven engagement with HCPs.

By using the power of data, insights, and technology, pharmaceutical companies can not only navigate the complexities of the digital landscape but also establish profitable industries and better relationships that drive better patient care and contribute to the advancement of medical science. CRM and closed-loop marketing play vital roles in HCP marketing.

Platforce is the best CRM software for lead generation, order management, sales automation, and task management. Unlike other software, Platforce gives your company all it needs to optimize customer relations and boost customer experience. Try out the Platforce CRM system with a demo or tour now. You can also stay updated on our Youtube and LinkedIn channels.