Are you making the most of your web investment?
pharmafile | October 21, 2003 | Feature | Medical Communications |Â Â digi pharma, investment, websitesÂ
Pharmaceutical companies have spent millions of pounds on websites since the mid-1990s. Although almost no one is prepared to admit it, many did so because 'everyone else had a website' and they wanted to go one better. It could almost be described as an online manifestation of the herd instinct, with decision-makers prepared to invest huge sums, lemming-like, in the hope of a profitable return on investment.
The 'money no object' mentality still existed as recently as two to three years ago, but recently with the economic downturn, web investment has been severely cut back with some companies only prepared to invest small sums for instance in an annual update of basic web information. This in spite of the fact that health information is one of the most sought after commodities on the web. Internet penetration among UK GPs is over 80% and more than 70% spend more than one hour on the Internet every day – contrasting with the three minutes they spend reading print journals.
It is now believed that pharmaceutical companies are increasingly failing to update and freshen up their websites properly. There is a growing perception that there are too many websites around and no-one is looking at pharmaceutical websites any more. Many websites are being scrapped instead of refreshed.
The key question remains: is this because the day of the website is over, or because we dont know how to look after them properly? And we are talking about a multi-million pound investment!
Internet strategy reasons to be cheerful
- Over 27% of health seekers visit pharmaceutical sponsored websites – far more than most pharmaceutical companies think
- Pharmaceutical companies are re-evaluating the way they do business and how it impacts on sales and marketing and R&D
- The balance of power in the healthcare sector is shifting towards the end customer – the consumer
- This is an industry where information is key
- Health and drug-related websites are the most popular on the Internet.
The Internets powerful influence on health seekers
The US is a good key indicator of what is likely to happen in Europe in about two years' time. In the US, 52 million American adults – or 55% of those with Internet access – have used the web to get health or medical information.
The majority of these 'health seekers' go online at least once a month for health information and many of these say the resources they find online have a direct effect on the decisions they make about their healthcare and on their interactions with doctors. Some findings are:
- 55% of these health seekers say access to the Internet has improved the way they get medical and health information
- 48% say the advice they found on the web has improved the way they take care of themselves
- 92% say the information they found during their last online search was useful
- 81% say they learned something new
- 47% say material obtained from their last online search affected their decisions about treatment and healthcare
- 36% say health information obtained for someone else affected their decisions on behalf of a loved one.
All this is compelling evidence that the Internet is making a huge impact on healthcare.
New developments
The web environment is changing rapidly. Increased bandwidth – broadband, ADSL, ISDN and cable modems – has meant bigger and faster Internet connections for consumers and healthcare professionals, all key customers.
Global expansion of the Internet is also a huge factor for the pharmaceutical industry, with the Third World rapidly coming online. We are looking at the true globalisation of information – the key currency of all websites.
With increased bandwidth comes more 'media rich' information. Three years ago websites were text rich, but now it is commonplace for video and high quality sound to be available online. Modern websites now use graphics much more widely and even animation is used to convey information in the most effective way.
Influencing factors
A pharmaceutical company's website is synonymous with the pharmaceutical company. It represents the image, presence and key brand offering for your organisation. It is also the reflection of your image how you see yourself and how others see you.
Most pharmaceutical companies are simply anonymous to their customers. Consumers hardly know them. They buy brands like Lucozade or Colgate, rather corporate images. Even healthcare professionals tend to know them mainly through their representatives. They are effectively non-brands.
Due to regulatory restrictions within the UK and Europe, pharmaceutical companies are not allowed to communicate directly to their customers except through their websites. Websites are thus the only place where a pharmaceutical company can communicate directly with its customers. This situation is virtually unique to the pharmaceutical industry and not enough is being made of the opportunity.
Enter a typical pharmaceutical website and what do you get? Options to go to treatment areas. Click here and what is the response? At best it is variable and at worst non-existent. Customers are much less tolerant of poor service on the Internet than mail requests. So, for instance, while a customer is happy to wait a week or even a fortnight for a mail response to an enquiry, an Internet response is demanded almost immediately, or at least within 24 hours.
Four key indicators
- your website speaks volumes about you and your business
- your website speaks volumes about how you treat your customers
- your website speaks volumes about the quality of your communications
- your website is often the only contact many people have with your company.
The key message is that if the only contact customers have with your pharmaceutical company is through your website, make sure it is a good experience!
In terms of good online practice, a few pharmaceutical companies recognise the need to give quality information to their audience. Broader issues need to be addressed, rather than plugging specific drugs and therapies. The strict ABPI code does allow pharmaceutical companies to explore disease education and some big company sponsor websites for individual therapy areas, or have sections within their own websites addressing this.
If the customer shows interest in certain areas, provide more information in that area. It sounds simple, but often does not happen.
Branding
Many marketers forget that their website is their brand. Companies invest billions in establishing their brand, then neglect to spend on maintaining the manifestation of that brand – namely their website.
The quality of your offering should be reflected in the quality of your website. Just as in the automotive industry, there are Ford Mondeos and Bentley Azures. These days there are no excuses for not having a luxury class website to reflect your blue-chip, expensively nurtured brand.
Pharmaceuticals have been cutting back on their web investment drastically. A yearly update is about the limit many are prepared to invest in. What many people forget is that offline content should be reflected online. If a customer sees a newspaper cutting about a certain therapy or drug, he or she should be able to see that on the website. If you can go to a conference organised by a pharmaceutical company, you should be able to see this reflected on the website. We are talking integration, not isolation, but all this needs investment, time and effort.
Key findings
Research conducted by APCO Online in October 2002 suggests that UK pharmaceutical companies have a weak presence on the web. The sector as a whole is the target of widespread criticism on subjects such as pricing, access to medicine and safety. Despite this, many companies are still failing to communicate basic information about themselves and do not engage successfully with key issues on the web.
Basics such as contact details – phone numbers, email address, background company information, press releases and so on – were missing from many sites, for example:
- 47% of companies did not have press releases available on their site
- 75% did not have press contact information available, such as phone numbers
- 17% of sites did not have basic 'about us' information on their site
- 60% of sites were both difficult to navigate and lacked a search function
- Only four companies responded to an email from a journalist within 24 hours.
Key steps in managing your website
- Keep your website up to date with even the most basic information – such as contact details, addresses, phone numbers and email information.
- Ensure that your website can be easily updated. Some websites can be prohibitively expensive to update because the original design involved expensively produced graphics and images.
- Make sure your website is properly serviced, with prompt and informative responses to queries from users.
- Market what you are preaching. Your website is a great place to develop relationships with advocacy groups, the media, healthcare professionals and end users – your customers.
- These groups should be able to receive personalised information through your website relevant to them. To some extent this is already taking place with edetailing where the demonstration of a product by a rep can be reproduced online.)
- Ensure there is up-to-date information on disease and therapy areas as well as drugs.
- A referral mechanism, in other words a link, to support groups.
Conclusions
The basic mindset should be that whatever is happening within a pharmaceutical company offline should be reflected online. In terms of branding, your website reflects everything about you. Organisations spend billions of pounds on their brands and yet a good website is extremely cost-effective – costing less than £1 million but it does need to be properly maintained and serviced.
Remember that a good customer experience online counts for just as much as a good customer experience offline. Customer relationship management of your expensive and precious brands includes your website.
June Dawson is Director of Sugar, part of The Shire Health Group
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