Pharmaceutical Executive Europe - August 2008 - (Page 20)

20 Online Marketing August 2008 Pharmaceutical Executive Europe harmaceutical marketing is an ever-evolving field; in the past marketers have solely targeted researchers and physicians via traditional means — namely direct mail, advertising and door to door selling via field-based medical sales reps. As the healthcare community is faced with increasing legislation preventing the hand-out of freebies, and physicians are increasing the number of hours per day they spend online, marketers are beginning to consider more innovative and intelligent ways in which to reach their audiences. Social networking, wikis, podcasts and blogs have already taken off within the US healthcare community, with physicians logging in on a regular basis to sites such as SERMO, which reaches a community of more than 65000 physicians. In the UK, Doctors.net has an integrated clinical discussion and support forum in addition to useful links to Medline-PubMed, the eFormulary and eCases. At a recent BioMed Central event — ‘Online and On-message’ — speakers Paul Mead, of VCCP Search, and Tim Benjamin, of Device, focused on the effectiveness of ‘natural’ (free search listings) versus paid listings (which are sponsored and usually displayed in separate sections) to effectively target audiences, as well as the use of Google for reputation and brand management. Natural listings, according to Benjamin, provide a higher ROI for pharma marketers because they incur no media costs and are P usually highly ranked sites that have more clicks and subsequently superior conversion rates. In addition to optimising search result listings. ‘Search Relations’ — a fusion of search engine optimisation (SEO) and PR — is equally applicable in helping marketers communicate their brands more effectively and also to manage their reputation better. To create an effective Search Relations campaign, Mead went on to recommend that pharma marketers should regularly “map, monitor and engage” with their audiences using the opportunities that Google, advertising and online marketing can provide. Open access Matthew Cockerill, publisher of BioMed Central, touched on the benefits of online advertising in open access1 journals (as opposed to traditional or print subscription titles). He stated that there were key benefits, not only because open access content has a high Google ‘PageRank,’ but also because it is a crucial vehicle by which pharma marketers can target an almost unlimited and extensive global audience. Whereas print journals offer a limited range of advertising options for pharma and med comms professionals and normally charge by the page, online advertising in scientific, technical and medical (STM) journals offers the marketer the option to target a niche audience using a plethora of techniques (banners, Know Your eMarket Carol Blenkin examines some of the ways in which pharma marketers can deploy eMarketing, online advertising and Web 2.0 technologies to target niche markets or a specific audience. Steven Puetzer/Getty Images http://www.sermo.com http://Doctors.net http://www.biomedcentral.com/emarketingseminar/

Table of Contents for the Digital Edition of Pharmaceutical Executive Europe - August 2008

Pharmaceutical Executive Europe - August 2008
Contents
From the Editor
News and Analysis
Calendar
The Calm Before the Storm
Steering Pharma in Russia
Built on Sand
Renaissance Man
IT Meets IMI
Send for the Software Specialists
Know Your eMarket
Last Words

Pharmaceutical Executive Europe - August 2008