美女免费一级视频在线观看

May I have your attention, please? May I have your attention, please?

Aside from being an Eminem lyric, it’s also a sincere request from pharma brands to healthcare professionals (HCPs).

HCP marketing is one of the stickiest challenges faced by pharma brands trying to get their products in front of doctors who then interface with patients. Contemporary HCPs increasingly consume digital content but also have distinct preferences for what that content is and how it’s presented to them.

A recent Indegene survey found 26% of HCPs prefer content around brand/product awareness, making it the most popular form of content.

The report found that practical resources, including product samples and disease-awareness materials, account for significant shares of content interest among HCPs and underscore their desire for actionable and patient-centric information from drugmakers.

HCP marketing represents a sizable addressable market, too. The most recent JAMA study on pharma’s spend toward marketing to HCPs was in 2016 and found that the industry spent $20 billion on HCP marketing.

Sources told MM+M they believe that number has likely increased since then and will continue to do so as marketers put more effort in channels like CTV and influencer marketing with video content specifically targeted for HCPs.

It’s critical for pharma leaders — and, by proxy, their medical marketing agency partners — to truly understand what a digitally savvy HCP is in 2025 and what’s impeding their communications with this target audience, as well as how companies such as Pfizer and AbbVie are finding success at connecting with HCPs.

“There’s no such thing as a non-digital person anymore — even people in their 80s are doing something [online],” says Vaishali Mokashi, head of HCP strategy at Initiative. “It’s really not so much about whether we are only going to focus on those who are already digitally savvy, but instead [to] look at what aspects of digital engagement we can leverage and what’s valuable to the brand.”

Digitally savvy HCPs, explained

To better understand pharma’s target audience, it’s helpful to first unpack what makes an HCP digitally savvy.

These HCPs are comfortable using mobile devices and computers, engaging on social media platforms and consuming content in digital formats. The latter distinction is important given a survey conducted by Healthcare Success found 88% of physicians said they prefer video-based learning over perusing text-based digital content.

While many may consider a digitally savvy HCP to be a physician who is a Gen Zer or a millennial, that assumption is incorrect. According to Indegene’s research, the demographics of digitally savvy HCPs are shifting. Currently, the highest affinity group is those between the ages of 50 and 70, as opposed to younger HCPs.

Additionally, there has been a significant increase in digital engagement among HCPs, with one-third considering themselves digital natives — up from 20% in a prior survey.

This signals a continued move toward a hybrid or omnichannel approach that pharma’s marketing efforts need to address.

Gaurav Kapoor, EVP at Indegene, also underscores the importance of content affinity, noting the effectiveness of a channel can vary based on the quality of the content.

“Content plus channel becomes very critical. We’re seeing that content affinity is becoming the king here,” he says. “Whether doctors come to digital or not, it’s all about the content — which means you have to have personalization.”

More physicians are becoming digitally savvy and pharma must respond to that evolution accordingly. However, these physicians are changing in other important ways, too.

The profile of doctors in America is becoming younger and more diverse, according to research by Initiative. The report indicated there will be more women HCPs over the next five years, along with an increase in representation of Asian and Hispanic doctors.

Going forward, the pharma-HCP relationship will focus more on the value of engagement rather than just volume, according to Initiative’s Mokashi, and will involve nurturing both digitally savvy and non-digitally savvy HCPs.

Best practices

Though the playing field is changing in real time, pharma’s playbook is deep to stay connected with physicians.

First and foremost, remember that physicians are people at the end of the day. Yes, they may have a “Ph.D.” or “M.D.” after their name but they are still human beings with personal lives and media consumption habits.

“They’re watching Netflix, they’re on social media — they’re doing all of that in their personal lives,” says Lynnette Hunter, EVP of client services at AbelsonTaylor Group. “In their professional lives, we’re seeing more people being much more comfortable watching video content.”

Recognizing this phenomenon and adopting shorter, more consumable content is essential for fostering meaningful connections and delivering value through marketing campaigns.

Levo Health CEO Fergus Linskey adds that targeting top prescribers through EHR workflows and sequential messaging has shown higher engagement and conversion rates compared to longer presentations.

For mobile device targeting, Linskey advised clients to use programmatic patient-level data to precisely reach their desired HCP audience. These companies can integrate their messaging directly into EHR workflows, he says, to ensure the content is delivered at the point of care.

The goal, he notes, is to earn brand awareness and influence prescribing decisions through the sequential, multichannel delivery of relevant, concise information, rather than relying on a single, more traditional marketing tactic.

Taking a more personalized, data-driven approach to engaging with digitally savvy HCPs is a non-negotiable for pharma brands, according to Kapoor. He advises drugmakers to prioritize building high-quality, personalized content at scale to meet HCP preferences while also leveraging AI and marketing technology to enable content optimization.

This content should cover specific areas that are most important to HCPs, such as brand awareness and product information, market access data and patient affordability details as well as practice enhancement resources.

Linskey adds that the content should underscore two or three core components of a formulary in order to compel them to make a prescribing switch.

Top pharma brands

Pharma knows it needs to be better at connecting with digitally savvy HCPs, yet a few have proven how to solve this key piece of the omnichannel puzzle.

The companies doing the best are aligned with the ideals of customer-centricity, according to David Laros, who leads omnichannel projects for Beghou Consulting’s life sciences clients. However, he says that for most brands, embracing this mindset is more of the exception than the rule.

Pfizer, which debuted its PfizerForAll DTC platform last year, received plaudits for its work in physician outreach.

“Pfizer Pro has a standardized platform with templated drug information, treatment protocols and HEMA/patient management tools that’s easy to navigate for physicians on the go,” Linskey says.

AbbVie has comparable platforms with AbbVie Access and AbbVie Pro, though Linskey is most impressed by the drugmaker’s adoption of AI to deliver personalized messaging and recommended content based on each HCP’s prescribing behavior, patient demographics and online behavior.

AbelsonTaylor Group’s Hunter echoes the Pfizer praise, while giving Biogen its due as well.

“From our perspective, we have seen Pfizer and Biogen succeed in engaging with digitally savvy HCPs by ensuring they build strong omnichannel marketing plans that can engage across the HCP adoption journey,” she says.

Hunter notes that when organizations are committed to learning their customers’ needs and architecting communication strategies that deliver relevant and meaningful content at the appropriate times and channels for HCPs, they can succeed.

Though many brands “talk the talk” about omnichannel, Hunter says they haven’t made a successful execution in meeting the needs of HCPs — which can make all the difference.

Understanding and trust

As with any relationship, it all comes down to both sides understanding and trusting each other.

While drugmakers need to understand individual HCP preferences and behaviors, Laros suggests they also get a grasp on the broader ecosystem in which these doctors operate.

This means examining the provider organization they work for, the payer market they’re faced with and the patients they’re caring for.

Laros says brands would be well-advised to tailor their messaging and channel selection based on that broader context.

When it comes to moving the needle with HCPs through content, also consider leveraging key opinion leaders (KOL).

The use of health influencers and KOLs on social media can be effective in reaching digital native HCPs — even if they don’t have the biggest followings.

Additionally, some specialties are more digitally savvy than others, such as endocrinologists, internalists and cardiologists, per Indegene’s report. This means they may be more inclined to receive messaging from a KOL in their field.

Laros urges brands to build out trusted adviser relationships with HCPs, which requires providing pertinent education and information, while demonstrating an understanding of their needs.

“What needs to be different is utilizing data and local knowledge, because the reps might say, ‘This doctor might always love Channel A and Message C, but for this particular situation, it doesn’t hold,’” he says. “You need to be proactive in the way you use data and analytics to create a holistic understanding of how you engage with that particular customer.”

To gauge how effective these approaches are, Laros says drugmakers need to embrace robust measurement of leading and lagging indicators. Then, they can make iterative improvements.

From the February 01, 2025 Issue of MM+M - Medical Marketing and Media