4 considerations to engage HCPs effectively in 2024

With the year 2023 coming to an end and 2024 looming, we’ve recommended 4 key considerations that continue to emerge as drivers of effective HCP engagements. These elements, which may become increasingly integral in 2024, could enhance your HCP engagements and provide opportunities for deeper and more meaningful conversations.

The sustained importance of omnichannel

Omnichannel engagement encompasses a customer-centric and holistic approach to create a seamless and personalized experience for your HCPs, ensuring that they receive relevant & timely content on their preferred channels.

Your marketing, medical affairs & sales teams need to be aligned & bought on this approach to foster successful internal collaboration. Transitioning from multichannel to omnichannel doesn’t happen overnight, but alignment & education will be essential before the planning & execution phases. Consider workshops to assist in this change of mindset.

*Extracted from the HCP engagement transformation Reuters Events survey report, July 2023

The data above is just a glimpse of what life science companies are looking to invest in omnichannel, with a staggering 88% expecting an increased budget by 2026.

If you’re already deploying an omnichannel strategy, now is a good time to relook at your data to refresh your HCP segmentations and customer journeys. An omnichannel strategy is not an end, because your HCP behaviours, needs and preferences may change.

Personalizing HCPs informational needs

In today’s healthcare landscape, healthcare providers (HCPs) are inundated with information. With limited time and resources, it can be difficult for them to find the specific information they need to make informed clinical decisions. This is where personalized content comes in and with an omnichannel mindset, we’ll need to take into account your HCPs informational preferences.

*Credited to DT Consulting, a study done with 6,270 HCPs in 14 countries and 8 specialty areas.

The chart above shows that there are generally some types of content preferences and frequency gaps. Here are some pointers for creating personalized content for HCPs:

• Collect and analyze data: Collect data about HCPs’ demographics, specialties, interests, and preferred types of content etc. Analyze this data to identify patterns and trends.

• Segment your audience: Divide your HCP audience into segments based on their shared characteristics. This will allow you to create content that is more relevant to each segment.

• Continuously evaluate and refine: Continuously evaluate the effectiveness of your personalized content strategy through data analytics and adjust as needed.

• Adopt a modular approach: Creating lots of content from scratch will just create more MLR reviews and it is also less cost-efficient. With a modular approach, you can build different stories by reusing approved content for your different segments and also improving speed to market.

Leveraging interactivity

Interactivity enables a 2-way engagement and exchange of information between life science companies & HCPs and this year, we’ve seen a ~400% increase in demand from our clients to create interactive assets, mainly on animated eDAs, interactive stories and gamification.

Why should you consider leveraging interactivity? Here are 2 key benefits.

1. It enhances engagement and encourages participation.

• Interactive platforms break the monotony of traditional communication methods, making interactions more engaging and stimulating for HCPs.

• Gamification elements, interactive polls, and live Q&A sessions can further enhance engagement and motivate HCPs to actively participate.

2. It provides valuable insights and real-time feedback.

• Interactive tools enable life science companies to track HCP engagement metrics, assess the effectiveness of their content, and identify areas for improvement.

• Real-time feedback from HCPs can be used to refine messaging, adapt strategies, and ensure that communication resonates with their target audience.

Embracing AI

AI is not meant to replace us, but rather, act as a valuable co-pilot in certain initiatives. Here are 3 ways to leverage AI:

Natural language processing (NLP)

NLP and machine learning algorithms can be used to analyze input and the relevance of it’s output to continuously improve their response. This is apparent in the usage of AI chatbots where little to no human interaction is needed.

Improving your creative visuals

Creatives & key visuals are common in your marketing campaigns and materials. You can leverage AI tools to show your creative agency something close or similar that you’re looking for, in return for a better finalized output.

Automation

AI can also be used to automate repetitive and time-consuming tasks, such as data entry and analysis. This can help to free up time and resources, allowing marketers like yourself to focus on the more important strategic activities.

Planning for your 2024 HCP engagements? Speak to us to gain further insights: michael.phee@drcomgroup.com | marketing@drcomgroup.com