Digital presence in the pharma industry

Ever since people started accessing the internet, a lot of information is shared online and people do learn online as well as market their products, again online.

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Let us imagine that we wake up with a cold or fever.  It gets worse throughout the day and then we begin searching on the internet. In fact, however is that health content on the web can be difficult to navigate, and tends to lead people from mild symptoms to scary and unlikely conditions, which can cause unnecessary anxiety and stress.


What does this signify for all ? This has a message for all of us.

What it means is that like in all areas in life, one needs to know what to absorb and what to discard. For this, we need to go to credible websites that show us the path.

We need to focus on sites with rich blog content that provides information on health conditions, answers to questions, quick tips and advice they can get without going to the doctor.

We must always remember that people take comfort in reading about other patients who have experienced a treatment, condition or surgery they are facing, so this can help boost your blog’s readership numbers. While we can feature testimonials in various places around the website, our blog is a great place for reading in-depth about another patient's success. This does indeed inspire many.

Rather than short clips, blogs are trending toward featuring in-depth patient stories on their health issues.

For instance, the Harvard Medical School blog has a steady stream of content that covers a variety of health concerns. Its navigation makes it simple to browse topics by health categories, such as men’s health, women’s heart or heart health.

Emails as a resource

The fact is many patients go searching for information on the internet however we can ensure we reach them first. Here,  email is one of the best ways to reach those who need the information they are looking for. In this case, the information is placed in their inbox before they even begin looking for it. By sending out an email newsletter at least once a month, we will continue to educate prospective or current patients by providing them with fresh content they can apply to their own health.

The key is to provide an email database with a variety of information to best capture the interest of the audience.

We need to also ensure there is email personalization and segmentation based on a recipient’s interests and needs so  that they receive the information that is relevant to them. We need to plan in sending out a video, a current blog post or provide industry news that will give readers information they are looking for on various topics. Be sure to plan these ahead of time so they are timely according to the current trends.

For example, Aakron Childrens Hospital sends regular newsletters and emails them. Parents who have subscribed are happy to receive these as they are indeed dealing with many of these situations just before school starts.

An informational blog

A blog goes hand-in-hand with a strong, user-friendly website. Now, it has been found that  1 percent of all Google searches are related to medical symptoms, with 3.5 billion Google searches, that results in 35 million online medical searches every day.

One should take advantage of all those searches with rich blog content that provides information on health conditions, answers to questions, quick tips and advice they can get without going to the doctor. We should be sure to plan an editorial calendar around health or other timely topics relevant to all. For health, after all, is relevant to everyone.

We must remember that people take comfort in reading about other patients who have experienced a treatment, condition or surgery they are facing, so this can help boost our blog’s readership numbers. While we can feature testimonials in various places around our website, our blog is a great place for reading in-depth about another patient's success. Rather than content with less content, blogs are trending toward featuring in-depth patient stories on their journey from diagnosis to recovery.

In this context, the Harvard Medical School blog has a steady stream of content that covers a variety of health concerns. It has ensured that the navigation on its website makes it simple to browse topics by health categories, such as men’s health, women’s health or heart health. It has ensured that readers can easily find how to subscribe and engagement is highlighted by showing the most-commented blog posts

Videos that connect
People are increasingly are leaning more toward visual content. Everyone connects to people sharing their experience on video. We must note the fact according to the research of Wordstream, one-third of online activity is spent watching video. This is extremely relevant in the area of health care. If we can get our physicians on camera speaking about their area of expertise, it inevitably does add to their credibility and capture an audience that is out there looking for the expertise our physicians have. Added to this, if they share their experiences, it surely does add a lot of value. After all, experiences do indeed have a lot of credibility and many people are open to sharing nowadays to help others heal from what they had been through. This makes everyone open up with their issues which further results in everyone feeling absolutely comfortable in what they need to discuss. There are videos galore on the internet nowadays. In fact, many people know a lot about what they need to discuss even before going to the doctor.

We would like to know more from you in this area. Do let us know if anything or anyone has helped you online in the health sector. Is technology being used optimally ? Do you feel this trend with continue in the future? What do you think should be done further in this sector to enhance digital engagement? Do share your views with us.

Marketing digitally

Marketing is a huge challenge for all in most businesses which is why many people do compromise on it. This is where digital marketing can step in and make a huge difference.

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Affordable marketing

Digital marketing is truly democratic as it benefits businesses of all sizes by giving access to the mass market at an affordable price.

Not only does it make it possible to do mass marketing, it allows people to do personalised marketing also. One can address people by their names and know what they like as well through their choices. This is what is making it the marketing choice of the new generation.

To do this effectively, we suggest the following

1. Eggs In Too Many Baskets

This is a mistake that many  business owners make – trying to do everything at once with little prior experience.

Some people set up 10 social media accounts, set up a PPC campaign set up a rigorous blogging schedule about a topic that which has not been properly researched into yet.

In fact, The worst mistake a new business owner can make is trying to manage too many new social media accounts all at once. We’ll get to that mistake in the next section.

When you’re just starting out, focus and consistency should be the primary goals.

Focus: If one tries to launch several campaigns at once, one would not only be totally overwhelmed, but will also have difficulty determining which marketing campaigns were successful.

Consistency: this should be the key to getting our business noticed.

• Consistency on social media will build you a loyal following.
• Consistency in blogging builds a loyal customer base and turns new, cold prospects into new buyers.
• Consistency in SEO means that there will be saving of money in the long run instead of relying too much on paid advertising.

Too many business owners try to do everything at once and fall flat on their faces. We need not be one of them for sure.

2. Let us find our place in Social Media

Many business owners know that they need to be on social media. After all, social media isn’t going anywhere.

But as we said earlier, we need to try from being invisible to being everywhere at once.

For most brands, this is a recipe for disaster.

As a new business owner, one’s aim should be to find one’s own  place on social media. This means that in the beginning you should focus only on, at the most, a few social media platforms that one is already feeling comfortable with, one should note how many interactions one is getting.For example, if Instagram isn’t giving us any engagement, then move on and focus on the platform that does!

The aim here is to find the social media platforms that gives the highest level of interactions (likes, shares and comments).

We need to find out where most of our audience is and post on those platforms consistently to build up a loyal social media following.

3. Influencer Marketing

Influencer marketing is quite new in the realm of digital marketing tips. In fact, most people have probably never heard of it.

And for the ones who have, they’re probably going about it the wrong way.

Still, influencer marketing can be a very powerful tool when wielded correctly.

So what exactly is influencer marketing?

Simply put, it means that instead of marketing to your target audience directly, you pay or inspire influential people in the niche one is in to get the word out.

When it comes to social media users, influencers are basically the strongest referrals that one’s business can get.

Influencer marketing is especially effective on millennials as they are influenced by the recommendations of their peers in making buying decisions.  

So, one should always keep a lookout for potential future influencers in one’s niche.

4. Don’t Underestimate Having an Email List

An email list is probably one of the most valuable and responsive assets one can have.

• Valuable – It has been found that customers who purchase products through email spend 138% more!
• Responsive – according to a recent study,  email subscribers are 3 times more likely to share content on social media!

And unlike our social media followers and fans, we own our email marketing list.

5. The 80-20 Rule for Content

The 80-20 rule means that 80% of your success will come from 20% of our efforts. This rule applies to just about everything, including one’s content. The content can be created in a variety of different mediums.

For example: videos, webinars, blog posts, infographics and so on.

Quite simply, 80% of our content should communicate VALUE, and 20% of it should be focused on promotions. Valuable content means content that’s unique, fresh, timely, relevant, and solves real problems for our target audience.

One’s success will come from 20% of your efforts, but that other 80% is necessary to drive it!

If we aren’t convinced about the value of creating useful content, then take a moment to reflect on the fact that businesses with blogs receive 67% more leads than businesses without blogs.

Other benefits of having a blog include:

• Getting more targeted traffic.
• Adding a human element to your brand. This helps in building trust and loyalty with your customers.
• A cost effective medium to set up.

6. When to Rely On SEO

Every business owner has heard about SEO.

But still, many of them shy away from it because they think it’s complicated and too time consuming.

While both of these things may be true, SEO is still the best way to drive traffic to your website.

Even something as simple as the business name can influence one’s ranking in the search engine.

7. Learn to Use Paid Advertising

As we spoke earlier, many small business owners spend too much of their working capital on PPC.

The mistake is to confuse “more traffic” with “more sales.”

Instead, we should follow these 3 simple steps:

1. Create a relevant and compelling offer. For example, a newsletter or a free eBook.
2. Create great website content.
3. Create targeted PPC ads to get people to one’s site.

A mistake is to expect to turn cold prospects into immediate buyers. Instead, bring we need to bring them in first, and then convert them into buyers later.

8. Enhance the User’s Experience

Enhancing user experience (UX) will be the glue that holds each of our strategies together.

The following are popular ways to do this.

• The content on the site.
• The communication channels we use.
• An intuitive user interface (UI).

With all of this, we can certainly make digital marketing work for us.

Learn Digital Marketing to stay relevant

Most students start their higher education with a bachelor's degree program. The fundamentals that are taught at this level create a strong foundation for future success. From here, students are prepared to start their career or enter the master's level of education.

What is a BSc in Digital Marketing? It is a specific section of the marketing category, which is itself actually part of the larger business category. This means students have the opportunity to become very specialized in their field. Courses in this major focus on using the Internet and computer science in order to achieve a corporation's marketing goals. Students usually learn content generation, social media networking, and keyword search strategies. This information is supplemented with more general knowledge of consumer behavior and marketing essentials.

Marketing is a crucial part of nearly every company, and students are able to enter a specialized field of marketing. With the emphasis being placed on online sources more and more, the demand for digital marketing professionals is always rising.

In our Bachelor's in Digital Mediawith  Digital Marketing Major, you will learn not only traditional marketing principles, but also the newest technologies and trends driving digital marketing today. This includes video content creation, website development, mobile user experience design, search engine optimization (SEO), digital advertising, social media updates and so on.

Remain the Latest with Later

Let us know more about Later,  a free tool that has helped many people organize, schedule and post images on Instagram. 

It’s the key to consistency and to be present when our audience is (even if we’re still in bed).

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Features galore

First and foremost, Later is free (up to 30 posts a month)! There are a ton of scheduling options for you, but this is one of the only ones that is free. Also, we are not allowed to use an app that posts directly to Instagram (as in the app posts for you). Every app (complying with Instagram’s policies) will have you “copy” and “paste” your caption as it opens up your image for you inside Instagram. This is because of Instagram’s policies that blocks third party apps from posting on your behalf to your feed.

Another feature we love is that we can type our full caption inside the app on your phone or on your desktop.

Tip: hit “enter” to create a line break when typing on your desktop and it’ll copy over on Instagram to help break up your paragraphs.

No more typing whole paragraphs with your thumbs! It is so much easier to get all your thoughts out on a bigger screen and keyboard, so we try to schedule as many posts as we can from our desktops.

We also love that when using the app on our desktop we can pull images from our computer, Dropbox, or Google Drive, instead of being limited to our phone’s camera roll. So nice! Take a tour of Later and invite your friends to create their own account so you can get more posts for free (each free account comes with 30 free posts).

Take your audience seriously

We hear from a lot of people that they aree incredibly busy throughout the day, and that sometimes you forget to post at new times (or even to post at all). Some are only available to post at certain times so those are the only results you have to work from. We know that it does take time to gather the image, prepare and type the caption (especially if we are using our thumbs), and post. If we only post once a day, we are easily missing over half your audience. Social media posts (Instagram or not) fly by during the day from all the other posts that your followers see. The attention span on social media is not long. We have to be consistently posting throughout the day to get seen by your entire audience. That’s the bottom line.

Post while (half) sleeping

Later makes this incredibly easy. We realized that we were missing a large chunk of our work-outside-the-home audience by posting our first image on Instagram at 9:00 a.m. They were already at work by then! So we changed things up. We ensured that our meeting was scheduled in the morning post the night before (by loading the image and writing the caption) and saved it in Later to post at 7:45 a.m. One of us will get the buzz on our phone while we’re still warm and cozy in bed. All we have to do is hit “post, copy, paste” then add in our hashtags and we’re done. Easily posted in less than 30 seconds. 

 We used the same tactic at night. Sure, sometimes we’re up late working (or binging on Netflix) so we don’t really want to be thinking up a long caption or set an alarm to remember to post. We see a big increase in traffic if we post around 9:00 p.m. so we follow the same steps above to schedule our posts and hit a few buttons, and BOOM, posted.

Track, tweak and repeat

If we are super busy throughout the day and we don’t have many chances to try new times to see what the results may be, we get it. Later makes scheduling new times super easy. If you log into Later on your desktop, you’ll be able to drag and drop images to change what day and time to post. Want to try 6:45 a.m. versus 7:00 a.m.? Just slide the image up a tad and the app will drop it in the new time slot. See your entire week or month at a glance to know when future posts are going out to make sure that you’re being taconsistent throughout the day (and don’t forget the weekend!). 

 We also love, love, love that one can “preview” what the account will look like. Say for instance that we have been feeling that your feed is getting too much of a certain color or photo type. We can preview your feed to see what images you could use to break up what we already have. 

Tag along

Another feature that we’ve just started using is the ability to “tag” and group our media. So when we are ’re in the desktop version of Later you can view your “media library”. From here we can tag individual images so they’re easier to find later. For instance, we tag images “coffee” or “blooms” or “hands”. So when our feed needs a shot similar to one of those, we can find one super quickly. Let us begin this now.

Try something new

We really want people to come out of their shell a bit and try a new type of post this week! Whether it’s a new subject, new style, or new time - try something new. Know that your audience is constantly evolving so your efforts need tweaking every now and then to keep up with them. This is what makes people look up the Instagram aided by Later all the time.

In a sense, Instagram with Later makes us feel updated and evolved all the time. Let us all begin to use Instagram in the right way to stay updated and current all the time. 

This is what all businesses and people need to remain relevant to all.

Digital Marketing through Google Analytics – Finding the pulse of the customer

Google Analytics is indeed having a huge impact on almost everyone in the world today as it analyses all that one needs to know about people and their choices. Due to this, it is indeed a very important business tool.

We all know that the major challenge is any business is understanding one’s customers. For this we do need to work on it incessantly.

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Understanding our customer(s)

Everyone needs to know who our potential customers are and what impact they could have on our business.

Earlier, people used to do this by conducting manual surveys of potential customers and trying to see what people are looking for. Brochures were often distributed, views were asked, noted and compiled. This was done many a time till the business hit the spot of 100% success.

Naturally, the whole process took so much time and money that there were more misses than hits in the business world. In fact, this resulted in a new area called market research where a whole department would be working on just this aspect of business.

Even in the digital world, this is very much present. For, the key to success of any business is having a comprehensive understanding of one’s customers Whether we are build or optimize the experience of a customer, understanding and knowing one’s customers better is always the key to growth.

Some things we could do are

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1. Ensuring intelligent customer engagement

A satisfactory customer experience is valuable for retention of customers. This in turn results in more revenue.

In the area of technology, engaging with one’s customers in real-time has become more easily accessible thanks to new tools. Messenger is becoming an ever more popular customer service channel, while tools like Drift allow you to talk with your customers as they browse one’s website.

Even though technology has a lot of strength, there are some areas where one must keep in mind.

·         Remove bias: One must get the uninfluenced, impartial opinion of the customer without any bias. For, we want genuine insights, even if they’re negative. An example of this could be a question like  “What or where do you think we could do better?”

·         Be concrete: We must use simple language that asks for feedback on a specific topic for clarity. For instance, we could has, “How have you improved in sales using our software?”.

·         Focus: Our surveys should always address only one area of the customer experience.

Keeping these things in mind as we personalize our customer survey helps a great deal

2. Creating robust buyer profiles

Often, many people make the mistake of using generic demographics like age, profession, and location to develop their potential buyer’s profiles. These data points do not provide enough information to create messaging that resonates with the audience on an emotional level.

One thing we could do to analyze customer preferences is to use the Acquisitions tab on Google Analytics to see which social media outlets, industry blogs and professional forums the website traffic comes from. This could then be used to find out where and when to reach them more effectively.

Acquiring keyword data is also a helpful way to discover the terms and descriptions that certain buyers use to describe one’s services.

To segment customers based on keyword searches, we could use Google Webmaster Tools to create a list of common keywords that drive people to one’s site. This can then be grouped into overarching themes and assigned to different profiles based on the data we have available.

These keywords can then be put across the website copy, content marketing efforts, and other online interactions. Speaking the same language as your customers is a subtle way to make our current audience feel more welcome.

3. Generating data from customer analytics

Every action has value. Each and every customer action needs to be analysed, whether it is clicking on a link or reading through a web page as this provides valuable insight into customer behavior.

The behavioral data one collects leads us to conclusions about what our audience doesn’t understand, what they do and don’t like, and how we can create a stronger website experience.

If people had trouble navigating to a certain sales page, for instance, we need to adjust the interface to allow for a more user-friendly experience.

If theirs is one page people that people spend more time on than others, we need to analyze that page’s content to see what’s retaining people’s attention.

Most of all, if there is a page with a high bounce rate, we need to understand what’s making people leave.

4. Anticipating and planning

Planning for future customer engagement is just as important as creating a plan for the present.

One thing we would need to do always is to put our teams in the right frame of mind to respond to customers during stressful or challenging situations.

 Additionally, when we look and study historical behavioral data, we will learn which features customers have found most valuable over time, and which features they didn’t use. Understanding the most popular and most visited pages can also help us plan content strategy making us focus on topics and formats that will best solve the challenges that our audience faces.

Drawing trends across the most commonly-used features would to determine why our customers liked them. Additionally, looking at market trends and analysis will give us a good idea of what other companies in the space one is in, have already accomplished. This shall make us  devise new features that explore these areas.

5. Traverse the customer’s path

The only way to completely understand the unique and dynamic customer buying journey is to put ourself in your customer’s shoes.

All this requires is a change in perspective, a change in the way one operates. Each step of the customer needs to be noted and then understood from his/her point of view.

Here, technology has indeed made it much, much easier to understand and interpret data to make the business cater to exactly what people are looking for. We just need to learn the tools that we have completely and holistically to ensure we take the right steps.

We welcome you to join our course in Google Analytics to take you forward in your journey.