Pharmaceutical Executive Europe - April 2008 - (Page 27) Pharmaceutical Executive Europe April 2008 Technology: Publication Planning 27 highly niche markets, the format offers an unparalleled flexibility that traditional print mediums cannot even come close to. Being able to announce your news to audiences at the touch of the button invariably leads to more proactive campaign planning. Your messages will target niche markets often hard to penetrate. In the age of the ‘YouTube generation,’ audiences are looking not only for relevant, up-to-date content but also to form virtual communities where issues are discussed and debated. Scientific research is not exempt from this trend and so taking part in community-based activity via online publications will not only improve your sales pipelines, but also will allow you to interact with your potential customer base directly. Printed marketing collateral only offers a one-way communication for your messages. Getting actively involved online will allow you to engage in real dialogue with potential customers, to educate existing customers in your current offers, and to gain valuable feedback on your products and campaigns — all in real time. Moving your publication planning online will help you proactively manage your reputation. Getting the right messages to the right audiences has never been more important, but building wider involvements and winning over scientific communities to your cause can help you create a stockpile of goodwill within the industry. It can also facilitate better relationships with editorial boards, who ensure that all the published research is thoroughly peer-reviewed and are often leading and well respected figures in their fields. Through partnership with online publishers, pharma can benefit from this means to reach key opinion leaders. Online journals can be utilised to get messages across to a significantly larger audience base than via advertising in traditional print publications. Not only has this potential reach been broadened, but also the tools at hand to assist you have become increasingly more sophisticated. If your campaigns and messages do not embody these new technologies, you are not liable to stand out in a highly crowded and competitive market place. For publication planning, online is the future. Traditional journal subscriptions are dropping and there is increasing evidence that these channels are losing their effectiveness in reaching out to the entire market. For publication planning, online is the future. Traditional journal subscriptions are dropping and there is increasing evidence that these channels are losing their effectiveness in reaching out to the entire market. The landscape of scientific publishing as a whole is changing; the Wellcome Trust and the National Institutes of Health in the USA have both put an increased emphasis on the importance of open access publishing as an essential channel for the rapid and efficient communication of research findings. Online journals, particularly those that operate with open access policies, are the future of the industry. They will be a key route for you to reach your target audiences and maximise the potential of your publication planning. ■ DARE TO GO DIGITAL BioMed Central’s free ‘Online and On-message: Going Digital eMarketing seminar’ is being held on the 20 May 2008, both as a live event and as a webcast. Click here to register: www.biomedcentral.com/emarketingseminar To view a recent webcast — in which Deborah Cockerill of DeFacto, Ben Choder of interactive media company Stream57, Shipra Singh of Bell-Pottinger Health, and this article’s author Matt McKay discuss how pharma can maximise its reach online — click on the image (right). http://insitu.stream57.com/daretogodigital/ http://www.biomedcentral.com/emarketingseminar
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