Top 5 Pharma Marketing Trends in 2021

With the successful adoption of technology, the pharmaceutical industry as a whole, is witnessing a huge revamp. As we gradually approach the year 2021, It is worth taking another look at the important and significant trends that determine pharma marketing, in this absolutely new and fresh decade.

The pharmaceutical industry, at present, is undergoing swift modifications, due to the development of various technologies. It has become quite clear that digital spending is ultimately starting to keep up with the levels of other industries.

This brings us to the expectation that some more cutting edge styles in advertising and digital marketing, as a whole, will be eventually applied to the health care and as well as to the pharma space.

Here is a list of top 5 pharma marketing trends of 2021, which we consider to be extremely significant and with the help of which, the farmer Industry is presently spurring out with innovation.

#1. Marketing Automation and AI

The use of AI or artificial intelligence and machine learning, is progressively and systematically accelerating the discovery of drugs and its development processes. Artificial intelligence can play a very vital role in appropriately qualifying market leads, in such a way, that will definitely help you to serve better in your future.

Many startups are deeply exploring the uses of these technologies to face the various obstacles and challenges in the pharmaceutical world, such as, post-launch strategies and designing effective marketing, as well as, optimization and automation of the processes that are involved with manufacturing.

If the marketers want to identify any visitor’s needs, to a very high degree, if at all needed, then they can easily do that by using a progressive arrangement of questions in the automated chat conversations.

Since patient identification is a necessary step in the pharma industry for discovery of drugs and development process, especially while conducting clinical trials, AI can simplify the criteria of identification of eligibility, make the cohort identification process cheaper and speedy and help include more patients.

It allows the marketers to be sorted in a very automated way, into separate personas, each with their own traditional workflows, like email sequences that they create through content that tailors the customers journey to their various unique needs.

Workflows, such as this, can extensively improve the effectiveness of your marketing automation strategy, by freeing up precious resources and time that might, or else be spent manually qualifying leads.

#2. TeleHealth and Online Patient Care

Anyone who is aware of the modern healthcare industry, for the last few years, knows for the fact that a substantial amount of care is taken currently in remote areas as well, whether it is by phone, portal, an app or website.

While there are very limited ways to market outright while offering various remote care and telemedicine, there are some exclusive opportunities for the pharma advertisers, to take full advantage of the rising trend in remote technology of the healthcare space.

It helps to develop non-intrusive methods that can let patients know about treatment options and conditions, well prioritizing their health, on the top of the mind.

Since a lot of misinformation about health and medicine is on the web, it serves as a great and important chance for the pharma brands to provide an authoritative research-backed voice on the conditions that affect most of the people.

The interaction that would take place between the patient and the prescriber, was a traditional form of marketing and treatment. But now, the pandemic has drastically altered familiar models.

Thus, 2020 introduced the new trends in pharma marketing, and telehealth serves as one of the most popular trends, with software tools that let doctors deliver health care services, as much as possible, to people who live in remote areas.

According to the BCG report and the Future of work 2020 IPA, almost 70% of prescribers are confidently willing to engage with companies related to healthcare, that are exclusively using digital platforms and mediums.

You can now easily look around and find out that pharma organizations and health care experts are implementing new telehealth opportunities to increase values and boost up sales.

#3. Online Video Engagement

The online video engagement is growing across all types of industries, but this medium is very specifically important for healthcare marketing, because those individuals who engage with an online health related video, are likely to take at least one action after watching a video.

One study shows that 39% of patients called up to make an appointment after watching a relevant video on a specific healthcare topic.

With the increase of streaming bandwidth, especially with the introduction and rise of 5G speed, video will become more and more commonplace. Thus, investing in this particular area of digital content will serve as an key element. Videos work for the pharmaceutical industries because, when it is done rightly, It can distinctly describe innovative and complex ideas.

The brain has no other way but to fixate on human forms and particularly faces, and this is what exactly our patient testimonial video serves on the table.

When the audience will watch a real person speaking naturally and sharing about the experience with your services or products, You will automatically have a high audience engagement from the very start to the finish.

This does not only make a testimonial stronger in a video than any text or other different media, but you will also gain a lot of credibility due to the nature of the matter of the concerned subject.

Most people are fairly quiet when it comes to sharing problems that they are facing regarding their personal health. A video shows the subject who will almost be seen as being sincere and open and by this way can gain a listener’s trust. By this way, one can gain confidence and relate the problems they are going through.

#4. Expanded Use of RWE

Pharmaceutical companies take many years to discover and introduce a new drug molecule to the market. They invest millions and millions in research and development with a comparatively low probability of success.

To shorten these cycles of drug development, the pharmaceutical research centers need a clean insight on the options that are available for treatment and work in a wide population.

The use of RWE or real-world evidence is found to be increasing as biotech and pharma companies realize that RWE can be essential in life-cycle management and drug development and increase efficiency in the cost of clinical trials and innovation.

Based on the field of therapeutics, the RWE market is broadly divided into neurology, oncology, cardiovascular disease, immunology and other therapeutic areas. The segment of oncology had accounted for the largest share of the RWE market.

North America is known to have the largest share of the RWE market followed by Europe and the Asia Pacific. There has been quite a high number of RWE service providers, favorable environment and presence of a well-established pharma industry.

The United States is expected to take over the North American market, owing to a high demand related to clinical research activities, which serves as one of the key factors to augment the demand of RWE solutions market in North America.

#5. Google Featured Snippets

Google continues to support featured snippet results to the extent that, now, more than half of all the searches performed, end without a single click. This specific change in Google Search results has distinct implications for various pharma brands: now, like every other company, the pharma brands have to compete to earn the top spot in the snippet that is featured.

An extreme challenge that the pharma markets will have to face is the nature of Google’s machine learning technology. It has to educate consumers and their patients about the conditions and products that might affect them, because Google uses machine learning technology to direct these results, and it is most likely to pull from a third party source or a competitor.

To stay active in this area, Pharma marketers can work more hard to earn the featured snippets present in the search results for key terms and as well as optimize their Google ad campaigns to be relevant, as much as possible, in order to have the best opportunity of earning the top-most position.

With the growth of technology and other developed methods, We may see in future that the industry is catching up to the far higher adoption rates, in other different verticals

The share of the healthcare and pharmaceutical spend will continue to rise digitally, in 2021 and beyond. Not every feature available will be useful or applicable to pharma marketers, but the pharma marketing industry may witness some growth rates that have never happened before.