“During the pandemic, digital marketing has become more vital for the success of brands”

#SpeakPharma with SCORR Marketing

2020-10-23

Impressions: 4073

The pandemic has been raging across the world for over nine months, with no end in sight. With trade shows and conferences getting suspended, it has become harder for people to meet and travel restrictions have worsened the impact. Now more than ever, digital marketing can help create awareness about your company, generate leads and deliver success. SpeakPharma spoke to Jane Byram, Media Director for SCORR Marketing, a leading life sciences marketing and communications agency, on the importance of digital marketing at the time of COVID-19. SCORR Marketing partners with PharmaCompass in its Pipeline Prospector Tool, a database of current global drug development deals.

In your view, what are the various benefits of digital marketing over traditional marketing?

Digital marketing is a broad term, encompassing marketing that takes place online — on your social media channels, website, via paid search, and more.

In order to make your digital marketing comprehensive, you need to work on an integrated marketing plan that looks at both digital and traditional marketing and how the two can work together. However, digital marketing offers the advantage of being nimble — you can change your marketing plan quickly based on the current events or metrics that show your audience’s engagement, or the lack of it, with your brand.

Thanks to technology, most of your audience is very engaged on traditional platforms. And with trade shows and conferences unavailable because of the coronavirus, your digital marketing needs to carry the day, now more than ever.

What are the best digital tactics to increase awareness of a company’s brand?

There are three digital tactics that work best at increasing the awareness of a brand.

Digital advertising – Developing Google Ads and Microsoft Ads will get your brand the attention of new audiences by serving up content that is directly related to their browsing habits.
Social media content — both organic and paid. Such content can expose your audience to your industry knowledge and help new audiences discover your thought leaders and your brand.
Search engine optimization (SEO) – By optimizing your website content using SEO, you can ensure that new eyes will continue to discover your brand and begin seeking you and your content out intentionally.

What about generating leads? How can digital marketing help a company get leads?

Digital marketing helps drive leads by showing your audience that you’ve got solutions to their challenges. And you can use digital marketing to invite them to reach out to learn more. For example, if you “gate” content — request a visitor’s contact information in exchange for valuable information or content — you’ll be able to identify the visitors who are most likely to convert into customers.

With marketing automation, pharmaceutical companies can target customers with drip campaigns — automated messages across email, web, social media, and text messages. With the help of marketing automation tools, messages are sent automatically, according to sets of instructions called workflows. Workflows may be defined by templates or may be custom-built from scratch. By reaching your audience at multiple touch points, you can nurture your audience along their journey from discovery through qualified lead.

Most clients won’t come to your website ready to buy right away, as many are just gathering information. With the right types of content, you will be able to give them the right types of information at the right time in order to help usher them toward making a decision, rather than overwhelming them with pesky calls, advertisements, or emails.

What is the best way to optimize for success in the digital space?

The most important thing is to be intentional in your digital strategy. Think about who your audience is — where are they in the digital space? What channels are they using? How are they consuming your content?

From there, create your content so it touches every stage of their journey, using each of those channels with a strategy appropriate for that digital venue. By creating a content “web” that crosses channels, you’re more likely to reach the right audience at the right time.

And once you’ve got a strategy — it’s not just “set it and forget it.” Stay active, keep nurturing your content web, keep tweaking it and adding to it.

How can you be sure your digital strategy is working?

You can’t change what you don’t measure. Begin by setting key performance indicators (KPIs) and use metrics to measure how your digital strategy is working. Once you have set the KPIs and metrics to measure your digital strategy, keep reevaluating it. In the digital space, things change constantly. Assess your strategy and your digital performance on a regular basis and adjust accordingly. Furthermore, set goals and assess how they are hitting your marketing objectives, often.

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In your view, what are the various benefits of digital marketing over traditional marketing?

What are the best digital tactics to increase awareness of a company’s brand?

What about generating leads? How can digital marketing help a company get leads?

What is the best way to optimize for success in the digital space?

How can you be sure your digital strategy is working?