[00:03]
HCP budgets are not the same size as DTC budgets, right? They’re typically often a fraction of the size and with that comes budget constraints to create the amount and the types of creative needed to execute a full sort of omni-channel digital strategy. There’s no true on or off. There’s no true endemic or not.

[00:25]
And I think you need to make sure that you’re engaging with people across all the different touch points because you sort of never know when that white coat moment it happens and it might be on, you know, a podcast, it might be on YouTube, it might be on video content might not be while they’re in the EMR.

[00:49]
Hello and welcome to the MM+M podcast. I’m managing editor Jack O’Brien. In today’s episode, we’re going to explore the latest trends in HCP content consumption, as well as how medical marketers can adapt their strategies to reach their target audience effectively. Our guests are Lindsay Reardon, senior director of business development at The Trade Desk, and Kevin Elwell, Swoop’s VP of client success.

[01:10]
During the course of our conversation, this pair will share research insights and how HCPs engage online, highlighting the growing importance of CTV and audio channels and how to elevate patient HCP engagement strategies.

[01:33]
Welcome to the show, Lindsay and Kevin. It’s wonderful to have you on here. I am really looking forward to getting your insights and sharing them with our audience. Lindsay, I want to start the conversation off with you. Talk to me a little bit about how HCPs are using digital channels differently today compared to even just a few years ago. Yeah, and and actually, you know, I don’t necessarily think HCPs are fully using digital channels differently than a few years ago.

[02:02]
To me, I think it’s the a shift in the HCP marketers, the agencies, the programmatic platforms who are evolving the way they engage HCPs to better align with how HCPs are utilizing digital content, right? So like historically, HCP marketing has been very focused on reaching and engaging HCPs within endemic environments during their we’ll call it white coat moments, right?

[02:31]
When their mindset is on their patients. But the reality is the HCP digital journey is so much more than that on a daily basis, which leaves like a ton of moments of influence uncaptured.

[02:47]
We know like at the trade desk we see all of the data through our bid stream and we know the HCPs are heavily utilizing digital content for both personal and professional reasons like They’re engaged with news and lifestyle, they’re on podcasts, they’re within endemic environments, they’re CTV, they’re more and more, right? And we recently conducted a study to kind of better understand what does that HCP journey look like.

[03:16]
And we found that, 91% of them are relying on the open internet to stay informed on new treatments, medications, clinical trials, everything, whether that be, you know, through endemic content, or ads from brands, or podcasts.

[03:40]
But what is interesting, and I think where there has been a little bit of a shift, is like where where and when they are doing some of the research that they’re doing, right? I think some of the lines are a little bit more blurred between white coat moments and blue gene moments.

[04:00]
moments, because a lot of the research that HCPs are doing are now happening outside of those work hours at night via not just online publications, which is kind of the traditional method of research, but podcasts, which I know we’re going to talk a little bit about, you know, the emerging channels, but I think that has become a really critical one.

[04:23]
So the key from my perspective is like it’s not necessarily that their behavior is changing drastically, but that we need to better understand what their journey looks like and align with it both inside and outside the office for them. I appreciate that, Anzer. You made that interesting point about the idea of white coats versus blue jeans and obviously that’s kind of the the parallel for ACP and DTC marketing.

[04:49]
Kevin, I want to ask you on on that point, when you look at the attempts to unify those two different approaches to marketing, are there privacy concerns when you’re trying Can you unify that? I I can imagine there are a lot of parallels, but obviously there are considerations for both you have to keep in mind.

[05:05]
Yeah, look, I mean, targeting people in white coat moments and targeting people in in blue jeans moments, I think are have slightly different privacy concerns, but at the end of the day, you’re still trying to reach the same publicly listed individual, right? And I think, you know, kind of what Lindsey was saying is you need to understand that, you know, quite frankly, doctors are people too, right?

[05:28]
You need to respect their privacy as much as you would anyone, um patients or not, but you do need to reach them in in all moments of their life, right? Doctors are busy to the point these days that they can never truly take off that white coat, right? I think they’re already they’re always sort of in the moment and they’re always getting texts from their co-workers, their nurses, you know, what’s happening, getting updates on the patients. So there’s no true on or off, there’s no true endemic or not.

[05:56]
And I think you need to make sure that you’re engaging with people across all the different touch points because you sort of never know when that white coat moment it happens and it might not be it might be on you know a podcast, it might be on YouTube, it might be on video content, might not be while they’re in the When you’re looking at, you’re talking about here this idea that HCPs have this really, you know, busy lifestyle.

[06:21]
Obviously, that just kind of comes with the job and obviously there’s the the professional considerations, but also there are people at the end of the day too. I have marketers talking to all the time. It’s like we we sometimes overthink how we’re marketing HCPs because at the end of the day they still watch Netflix, they still like to text on their phone, go on social media, all this sort of stuff. So I guess I’m curious from your perspective is what are some of the challenges that at medical markers face when they’re trying to advertise and market to HCPs. Is it the overthinking of it?

[06:49]
Is it the fact that they can’t easily translate those best practices from DTC over to ACP? Like what what stands in the way? Um, I think it historically has been yes, some overthinking but also lack of a really good connected spot to reach people in the same way that you might reach consumers when you think about them, right? I think the thinking has often been about Okay, I want to reach HCPs. How do I identify who they are? How do I make sure I’m reaching the white right ones?

[07:17]
Well, that’s endemic, right? But through the data we have available today, the integrations with a whole bunch of different sites and inventory sources, you can make sure that you’re reaching them across all of the different touch points, right? As we kind of get into a much more connected world and I’m going to kick it to Lindsay as that’s where the trade desk kind of falls in. Yeah, I think there’s a few challenges, honestly. One is is, you know, rep visits are down, and they have been since COVID.

[07:46]
Uh, doctors are seeing patients back to back to back to back all day long. And sales reps from manufacturers are not getting in as often. And as a result of that, more dollars have flowed from personal promotion to non-personal promotion in within the digital channels. Um, and I think as a result, there’s there’s a lot more saturation too.

[08:11]
So I think that there’s a challenge with standing out, which is also why I think moving beyond the endemic environment is so critical and into some of those emerging channels. The second piece that I think is really challenging is just generally speaking HCP budgets are not the same size as DTC budgets, right?

[08:33]
They’re They’re typically often a fraction of the size and with that comes budget constraints to create uh the amount in the types of creative needed to execute a full sort of omni-channel digital strategy. And that’s something that we hear kind of time and time again is we really want to do this, but we don’t have to connected TV spot for HCP.

[09:03]
So how how do we think about going about doing that and making it work moving forward? Those are really the two biggest challenges that I say. I want to ask too because Kevin was kind of alluding to this earlier is obviously there is this partnership between both of your organizations. I’m curious how that seeks to enhance 8C marketing efforts. You both obviously bring some capabilities to the table. So fill our audience in terms of what that all is.

[09:31]
Yeah, so in terms of on the swoop side, we’re just looking to bring the ability to reach these HCPs at scale and then swoop is traditionally played within the the privacy safe consumer marketing area, right? Where you can try and reach individuals who are likely to have certain conditions. Through the tech that we have there, we’re able to link to likely patients of specific doctors.

[09:57]
So you’re trying to reach the people who are, you know, maybe we can predict that they’re most more likely to go to the doctor in the next 90 days or so. So you can reach consumers with messaging about what kind of questions to ask their doctors and then arm doctors with the information that they need to properly communicate about perhaps new and up upcoming drugs that are hitting the market as there’s a lot of new research and development going on right now.

[10:22]
And, you know, what we’re doing with the trade desk is bringing, that, experience and data set to them where they can actually go and reach out these people where you need to, right?

[10:34]
Yeah, and to piggyback on that, I think the partnership we have is kind of combining swoops, privacy privacy safe approach to data with trade desks ability to execute a holistic omni channel campaign for HCPs, and I talked a minute before about some the more dollars that have flowed over into media and the over saturation that’s occurring and the our platform is really perfectly set up to be able to help reduce that saturation and be much more effective with the buys with holistic frequency control across every channel.

[11:19]
Our partnership supports all the innovative formats like CTV and audio. and allowing our, you know, partners to be able to look at everything holistically. I appreciate you detailing the different aspects of the partnership and really what that brings to the ACP marketing experience. Kevin, I want to go back to you for another question in terms of how a data-driven approach can really bridge the gaps that you’ve both outlined there.

[11:46]
I think people hear data-driven, they’re like, okay, like they they either get overwhelmed by it or they think it’s another buzzword or something, but like talk to me on a practical basis, what that means, a a data-driven approach to bridging some of those gaps that we’ve talked about. Yeah, I mean it’s really linking when you’re dealing with trying to reach consumers you’re trying and HCPs at the same time you want to reach the right ones with the right messaging, right?

[12:10]
And given the data approach, we’re able to link the likely consumers to like the likely doctors that they’re going and seeing, right? I think the other thing we’ve seen is some of the walls shutting down in terms of historical methods that advertisers have used to reach those groups. For example, geo-targeting around healthcare sites used to be a a big thing and we’ve seen legislation come to say that, “Look, you can’t do that. You need to do minimum, I think, 1 km radius is in New York.” Right?

[12:37]
Um which a km in New York is you’re talking half of Manhattan and and what does that really do? And that’s the intent, right?

[12:43]
But so you want to be really respectful of everyone’s privacy and the sensitive moments that they might be in at a medical center, but you still need to reach them with messaging about what their condition might be what they can do about it and use some of the predictive technologies that we’re able to leverage these days to identify likely diseases you might have based on overall medical history and deliver that information to both the consumers and the doctors. And Lindsay, I want to go back to something you brought up earlier.

[13:12]
You were talking about the obviously there’s been this renewed focus on podcasts and these kind of I would say non you say non-traditional forms of media, but like there is very few forms of media that are more popular and main stream today than podcast. Obviously, the same goes for CTV. I know so many folks that have a a Roku or whatever their different setup is. You know, these are obviously very prominent channels people will get your message across. Talk a little bit about why they have gained so much theme and what they really offer in terms of HCP marketing going forward.

[13:42]
Yeah, I think we’ve all said it at least once, maybe twice in this conversation that HCPs are consumers too. And there is engaged with CTV and audio as the rest of the population, right? So, this is just another touch point within their journey and a a moment to influence them, right? And we have to be thinking about a a full funnel approach for HCPs.

[14:06]
We um I mentioned some of the research that the trade desk has done, but within that research, we found that you know a third of physicians out there are relying on podcasts for clinical information. And 50% of them have like commented that they hear about new treatments on on CTV, which suggests that ad recall and attention is actually pretty strong during these moments.

[14:31]
And then even outside those sort of clinical moments in terms of researching information, we found that even in comparison to CTV, Endemics, and other lifestyle news publications that 64% of physicians are listening to podcasts during the evening. And that was the highest level of engagement across every channel.

[14:57]
So to not be there feels like a pretty big missed opportunity, right? And we know some of that content is clinical and some of it is not, but it just it it it needs to be somewhere that marketers are today because that’s where their audience is. Definitely.

[15:16]
Lindsay and Kevin, it’s been wonderful having you on the show here and it’s it’s been great to be able to identify some of these challenges that are out there, but also outline some of the best practices that are available that offer solutions for the folks in our audience. Is there anything else on this topic that you think they should keep in mind as things go forward as more investment and interest is put towards HCP marketing? I think it’s just about making sure that you can take every opportunity you can to reach these really important stakeholders in the medical system, right?

[15:45]
Alunsey you mentioned that rep visitation is way down since COVID, it’s harder and harder to get in to visit them. And the touch points that are available to communicate with HCPs are I think more valuable than ever. And you want to work with someone who’s able to reach them across all of the different channels that you engage on the same platform, so you can make sure that you’re also being respectful and managing your exposure across, not just hammering one single person across every single thing that you have access to.

[16:14]
Yeah, I’ll double down on that. I think in the DTC world, there’s been a big shift to an audience first approach, right? And following your audience where where they are, wherever they are. And I think the same thing needs to happen on the HCP side of the business. And yes, that means solving for some challenges in terms of, you know, developing developing creative for new channels and stuff like that.

[16:40]
But I think that the the benefit and the ROI will will be there by tapping into some of the areas that haven’t previously been tapped into for HCPs. Well, it’s an exciting front in terms of medical marketing and I appreciate you both coming on the show to detail it for those in our audience and hopefully we can have you on the show again down the line to see how everything is advanced and where the market has evolved going forward. Yeah, absolutely. Thank you so much for having us.