Why Life Science Companies Are Going Omnichannel
Blog post summary:
It is no surprise that B2B buyers are going omnichannel. And healthcare professionals, who regularly engage and purchase from life science companies, are no exception to the rule.
When healthcare professionals engage with sales reps and from life science companies (such as pharmaceutical and MedTech companies), digital interactions are increasing at the expense of remote and traditional ways. Digital, remote and traditional interactions now play an equally important part.
Life science companies need to respond to this development, by turning their commercial function into an omnichannel engine to fully meet the demanding expectations of healthcare professionals. A transformation where digital asset management plays a key part.
The omnichannel trend is nothing new, but when COVID hit in 2020, the trend accelerated.
The omnichannel B2B buyer has now become the new normal.
According to McKinsey, they utilize traditional interactions, remote human interactions, and digital ways of engaging in equal measure, resulting in a clear shift towards remote and digital self-service from the otherwise dominant traditional way.
That means B2B buyers want to jump interchangeably between physical and digital touchpoints and expect consistent, rich, and personalized experiences across these.
This sets demands for B2B commercial organizations. They need to restructure their marketing and sales approach to better fit the way buyers want to interact with them.
Let’s take a close look at how this development is reflected in the life science industry.
Healthcare professionals are going omnichannel
Research shows, that life science companies such as pharmaceutical companies, biotechnology, and medical device companies experience a near-identical changing buyer landscape.
Life science companies |
What they do and sell |
Who they sell to |
|---|---|---|
Pharmaceutical companies
| Develop and distribute medicines to cure, treat or prevent diseases and conditions |
Healthcare professionals in hospitals and pharmacies |
|
| Medical devices | Develop medical and surgical instruments that help diagnose, prevent, and treat medical conditions. Products or solutions include instruments, machines, implants, apparatus, software platforms & tools, or a combination of these all | Healthcare professionals in hospitals and private clinics |
| Biotechnology companies | Use the natural processes of living organisms to manufacture products, food, and medicinal products | Pharmaceutical companies and FMCG brands selling food & detergents (Nestle, Unilever, P&G) |
During COVID, health care professionals expected to do more of their professional education virtually and interact in fewer in-person events and conferences once things returned to normal.
And as business, societies, and countries returned to normal, it was clear that the expectation became a reality.
Today, health care professionals are going the same way as other B2B buyers. The omnichannel way.
When (1) engaging and (2) purchasing from life science companies it is clear that they are transforming into omnichannel buyers as digital ways of engaging are gaining ground at the expense of traditional ways.
When healthcare professionals engage with life science companies
Healthcare professionals now look for ways to engage less in-person and more through digital and virtual means such as video calls when engaging with selling organizations.
In fact, before 2020, 79% of healthcare professionals’ preferred method of contacting sales reps was in-person.
That has fallen to 49%, whereas video calls have increased from 7% before 2020 to 38% today – see figure below.
The different ways of engaging with life science sales reps are more equal than ever before.
When healthcare professionals purchase from life science companies
Healthcare professionals increasingly look for digital self-service options when ordering products, especially when engaging with medical device companies.
Before COVID, few considered procurement portals (2%) or supplier apps (13%) as valid purchase channels.
Today, that story is very different as those numbers have exploded to 39% and 45%, from 2020 to 2021.
Conversely, traditional and remote ways of purchasing such as "emailing sales rep", "ordering in-person," and "sending a request to procurement" have fallen drastically – see figure below.
While digital has now become the norm rather than the exception, it is important to emphasize that digital has not replaced traditional – and traditional is far from dead.
The shift is a result of health care professionals simply wanting it all.
Omnichannel in life sciences
For life science companies to meet the new and demanding expectations from multi-channel healthcare professionals, they must re-engineer their commercial engine to go omnichannel.
Ensure healthcare professionals and other buyers can reach them in whatever channel they prefer.
And that all channels, systems, data, and content, across owned and 3rd party, deliver channel-agnostic experiences.
But that is not all.
As life science companies go omnichannel, they need to manage the vast amount of content that gets produced, to deploy the content needed across channels.
As part of the most highly regulated industries in the world, life sciences companies must navigate complex compliance guidelines – across markets.
Make sure outdated, expired or even wrongful content gets archived immediately, regardless of where it is placed in the sea of available channels out there for life science companies.
One thing is the legal part, but life science companies also need to ensure they’re marketing messaging remains clear, consistent and credible, despite the major ramp-up in channels to accommodate healthcare professionals’ demands.
Enter: Digital asset management.
Why digital asset management is crucial to deliver omnichannel experiences at scale
Why is digital asset management crucial?
Because it is the critical enabler to realizing one of the most essential parts of creating omnichannel experiences – content distribution at scale.
Digital asset management is the single source of truth for companies' content.
Be it documents, images, audio, video, 3D objects, or VR/AR files.
And with content analytics, you get the insights you need to make better business decisions.
Don't get us wrong, other martech platforms beyond digital asset management are needed to go truly omnichannel. Master data management platforms, enterprise resource planning and product information management systems, and much more.
Unfortunately, sometimes digital asset management systems get overlooked as the MarTech stack is built.
Ensuring proper content review and approval processes is invaluable in an industry where false claims and off-labeling marketing impact your company’s reputation.
And use cases that realize omnichannel ambitions cannot be realized by any other platform than digital asset management solutions.
That’s why Digizuite’s DAM is trusted by life science companies across the globe.
An effective digital asset management solution allows you to use, repurpose and manage content across channels, improving efficiency and productivity.
Assets are shared amongst teams globally, empowering you to get ready for a global omnichannel strategy.
Want to learn more? Here are four ways:
Learn how Lonza, the international provider of integrated healthcare solutions, achieves sales targets and empowers marketers with the Digizuite digital asset management.
Check out our on-demand webinar and learn how life sciences companies manage all forms of marketing content in a heavily regulated industry.
Read our article on life sciences trends for 2022 where we we share 3 marketing trends that are key for brands who want to get ahead in 2022.
Contact us today for a free, personalized assessment of where you are today, and we'll be happy to share our expertise and insights on how you can help your business hit your 2022 growth goals.
