Jan 2014

Vol. 13, No. 1

Pharma Marketing Network

www.pharmamarketingnews.com

Pharma Content Marketing Strategies

Insights from Industry Experts
Author: John Mack

Published by:

Pharma Marketing Network

PO Box 760
Newtown, PA 18940
[email protected]

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Pharma Marketing News

Vol. 13, No. 1: January 2014

ikipedia defines Content Marketing as any

marketing that involves the creation and
sharing of media and publishing content in
order to acquire customers. Forms may include news,
video, whitepapers, e-books, infographics, case studies,
how-to guides, Q&A articles, photos, etc. It is focused
not on selling, but on simply communicating with customers and prospects. The idea is to inspire business
and loyalty from buyers by delivering consistent, ongoing valuable information.
Pharmas Content Trove
Every pharmaceutical company has massive amounts
of disease and product-related content and many also
solicit content from patientse.g., patient storiesto
help them attract and retain customers by consistently
creating & curating relevant and valuable content with
the intention of changing or enhancing consumer behavior, which is how the Content Marketing Institute
defines content marketing.

p. 1

Diabetes Content Marketing

In December, 2013, Lilly Diabetes and Disney
announced that their custom books for children and
families with type 1 diabetes were available online.
Previously only available through pediatric endocrinology offices, these digital books can now be
enjoyed online, with optimized viewing on a desktop or
tablet (see Fig. 1).
Lilly Diabetes is always looking for ways to help
families affected by type 1 diabetes, said Kevin
Donahoe, brand director, US, Lilly Diabetes. We are
pleased to bring these unique books to as many
members of the diabetes community as possible, in a
format that is user-friendly and free of charge.
Meanwhile, Merck, which markets Januvia, Novo
Nordisk, which markets Levemir, and Bristol-Myers
Squibb/Astrazeneca, which together market Onglyz,
use recipes from celebrity chefs as part of their type 1
diabetes content marketing campaigns (see Fig. 2).

When this content is engaging, it becomes shareable

through social sites such as Pinterest, Twitter, YouTube
and Facebook. According to the PwC Health Research
Institute, 90% of adults would trust medical recommendations shared by their peers over social networks.
Such an approach has the potential to see more of our
content seen by more of our customers and stakeholders, significantly further afield of our traditional
content destinations, and this is a good thing!, says
Craig DeLarge, Global Leader, Multichannel Marketing
Strategy & Innovation at Merck.

Figure 2. Merck, Novo Nordisk, and BMS sponsor celebrity

chef recipes as part of their diabetes marketing strategies

Figure 1. Lilly Diabetes/Disney Custom Books for Type 1

Diabetes Families.

Interview with Thibaud Guymard

Kakushin Group recently interviewed pharma content
marketing expert Thibaud Guymard, Digital Marketing
Manager at MSD France. Guymard has broad experience with pharma content marketing, including roles as
co-creator of the Digital Health Think Tank and as an
Advertising Manager at Saatchi & Saatchi Health.
Guymard also assisted in developing the Pharma
Content Marketing Webinar organized by Kakushin
Webinars. This webinar will take place on February 25,
2014 (see http://bit.ly/MTG1090c).
Continues

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Vol. 13, No. 1: January 2014

p. 2

What are the current trends in pharma content

marketing?

A strong relationship has to be nurtured to facilitate

everyone's goals.

I think the biggest current trends in content marketing

are:

What are the topics you would like to hear about

from speakers at the Pharma Content Marketing
Webinar taking place on February 25, 2014?

Partnerships: Find trusted partners (medical

organizations, associations, etc.) to improve
content quality. Trust is critical for organizations
that will have to invest important budgets in content.
It improves the recognition of their content
(sources) and will increase the content's impact.
Video: This type of content is very expensive, but
the impact is also more important and can be used
through various types of communication channels
as key assets of a campaign or longer engagement.
One simple piece of advice: keep it short and
precise. This is what people like the most.

Specific campaigns or long-term engagement activities

that put content first and show content marketing best
practices and their limits. In addition, it's important to
explain how they bring value to customers and
ultimately to the company. Concretely: their key metrics
and how they've been measured.
Why Content Marketing Now?
In his opening remarks at the eXL Pharma Content
Marketing Conference in Philadelphia, PA on December
2, 2013, DeLarge presented the following arguments for
why pharma should now use content marketing:

Social: Having a social voice that is recognized by

our customers will increasingly become more
important. This is an important investment even if
the ROI is still not that easy to demonstrate.

Customers want content (information & stories)

more than marketing, and can control this choice
more than ever.

Business Impact Measurement: The value of

content marketing doesn't need to be demonstrated
anymore (more or less), but there are still various
challenges with the measurement of its impacts and
the final business value for a company.

World class marketers use it: P&G, John Deere,

Microsoft, Cisco Systems, etc.

What is the difference between pharma content

marketing for HCP and content marketing for
patient outreach?
The major difference is the understandability of it. You
need to keep in mind that you have different types of
people who don't have the same level of medical
understanding. Channels can also be different; content
marketers have to prioritize the best channels for each
type of audience, work with agility to reach as many
customers as they can and validate their strategy and
tactics to concentrate their investment where the ROI is
the best.
What are the hottest issues in content marketing?
Again, business impact measurement. There is huge
also much work to do to gain internal buy-in for this type
of non-conventional marketing.
What are the critical legal issues in pharma content
marketing?
The legal issues aren't different than those for classic
marketing activities. The rules are the same, but the
marketer's role is to explain that to his legal/regulatory
colleagues and show how they are followed. The only
real issue as a marketer is being able to react in real
time when speaking/communicating with customers
who do not want to wait for legal/regulatory validations.

Enhances other marketing results: SEO, PPC, PR,

& social

Better supports pivot towards customer centric

marketing
Better leverages pull versus push marketing, being
more shareable & conversational, which is best
leveraged via digital, social, and mobile channels
Better fills the top of the customer acquisition
funnel, & plugs the customer retention holes in our
marketing
Assumes the truth of: 1) mutually beneficial intention, 2) attention to others interest, & 3) faith in
reciprocity
Has longer shelf life, better reach & lower lifetime
cost effectiveness
Turn Brochures Into Infographics
Content is the king for marketers in pharma for years,
but in the age of social and mobile it cannot be text-only
content, said Piotr Wrzosiski, a sociologist focused on
digital marketing in highly regulated industries.
As DeLarge has said (see Do you need an
infographics strategy?; http://bit.ly/pn1301-01-1),
a brand or company could do well by deliberately
publishing and distributing infographics that represent
key disease demographics, disease state, company
and product information, which now resides on our
websites & brochures.
Continues

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Vol. 13, No. 1: January 2014

Some experts note the explosion in visual content and

this underscores DeLarges advice to pharma to have a
clear Pinterest strategy and a process to determine
what kind of information and boards to offer the public.
DeLarge pointed out that more of our website content
might be consumed more regularly and intently, if
designed in more interesting infographic formats,
versus the prose/image approach that is the current
fashion.
DeLarge believes a strategy is needed to gain
advantage in a competitive situation and leverage this
trend to better educate and serve our customers and
stakeholders who are being exposed to other engaging
information that too much encourages them against
good health practices. His strategy involves:
1. content planning to determine which content is
best suitable for infographic conversion,
2. devising a common infographic branding &
graphical vocabulary so that your infographics are
easily associated with your issue, company and
brand,

p. 3

3. development of a content placement &

distribution plan to assure that your infographics
are most relevantly placed in, and distributed to
those customers and customer destinations
where they are able to offer the best value.
The pharma industry has taken DeLarges advice and
embraced inforgraphics. See Leveraging Infographics
and Search for Better Health Communications in this
issue.
Content Centers of Excellence
Lately, theres been a lot of hubbub about "centers of
excellence" at pharma companies as in "Digital Center
of Excellence" and "Content Center of Excellence.
Rebecca Lieb, Industry Analyst with the Altimeter Group
and author of "Content Marketing," explained how to
organize a Content Center of Excellencea consortium
of experts from a variety of organizational divisions that
provides leadership and best practicesin her presentation at ExL Pharma's Content Marketing conference
(see Fig. 3).
Pharma Marketing News

Figure 3. How Companies Organize for Content Marketing. Source: Altimeter Group.
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Pharma Marketing News

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