The Challange

The India-based company wanted to create an impactful presence post launch in all 3 West African countries for Roivit. The challenge was to create a marketing campaign that is sensitive to the socio-economic demographics of the 3 nations, as well as, appeal to the local culture, traditions, and language, there. It also needed to convey the message about the universal appeal of the energy booster and captivate the attention of the general public to this exciting new product. It needed the marketing campaign to provide results as outlined in the strategy document prior to the launch.

Idea

Looking at the challenge of the marketing campaign to resonate with the larger public, we suggested a unique brand strategy in line with the audience the energy booster was targeting. We came up with the central theme of ‘Always-On’ that formed the foundation of all marketing and promotional materials. We presented the branding strategy of the promotional materials to hit all 3 markets and all 3 key channels (print, digital, and online).  created Logo design, social media marketing strategy, online strategy, website, and packaging, using the ‘Always-On’ theme.

The Results

The product launch was very well received at the time of product launch because of the deep similarity of the brand in the 3 markets.

It helped the company to consolidate its position in the health and nutrition beverage market in these 3 countries. As an outcome, there was a good visibility of the product on the eve of the launch that provided substantial traction to their brand value post the launch.

Recommendation

On Platforms like Facebook and Twitter pharmaceutical companies saw growth from both Corporate pages and Career pages. The upper growth of the Careers pages is perhaps the sign of the low number of total Fans these pages have. As for the Corporate pages, the high growth rate suggests that this silo was a very important channel for pharma brands in 2016, companies also struggled to gain Follower growth for 2016. Top Branded portals’ handles were the biggest drivers of Followers growth mostly because of the comparatively low number of Followers. Just like on Facebook, the Over the counter Brand handles didn’t register any significant growth. This could be due to companies refocusing their efforts in other silos.

a searchable database of over 600,000,000 pieces of brand content, the following topics surfaced as the most popular talking points for pharmaceutical companies.

Though the volume of content published by pharma companies on Facebook has fallen year-on-year, the average interactions per post have been increasing. The utmost driver of this growth has been from Facebook Likes, which suggests paid promotion is largely responsible for the increase.

Note – This analysis doesn’t include dark posts. Only publicly viewable posts were considered for the study.

1. There is 0 correlation between more posts and higher engagement.
2. Pfizer has published the amount of content on Facebook than all other pharmaceutical companies in 2016 but had lower total interactions than most other companies

Social media is integrated into the daily lives of consumers, often engaging with brands for customer service support – except when it comes to pharmaceutical companies. Regulations have certain deterred pharma brands from the open social media dialogue consumers experience with retail, travel and hospitality brands. However, the demand for conversational interactions via social media channels in the pharmaceutical industry has caused a business to adjust their approach and establish a more meaningful dialogue between patients, healthcare providers and caregivers.

Referring to all this, here are the 5 key strategies for digital marketers to all the pharmaceutical companies to enhance and smoothen their social media marketing campaigns.

Be More Active in B2C Social Media Conversations

Pharmaceutical companies should improve their practices to be good at communicating at an enterprise level without risking regulatory non-compliance. Instead of using the social media to connect with the customers or engage in ongoing dialogue to build relationships, many pharmaceutical health companies play it safe. Some Pharmaceutical companies use social media to support their PR and corporate communications message, complying with regulations around managing adverse events. While social media is the best platform for these endeavours, there’s so much more pharmaceutical companies can do with social media without compromising compliance.

Use Social Media with Direct Customer Service Tools

Social media platforms are making this much easier for organizations, offering various tools for ease of communication with so many engaging factors such as Facebook Messenger and Twitter Quick Replies. Pharma companies need to utilize all these channels for many things like live advice, drug Details and live chats that answer basic questions or receive some adverse events reports.

The users of various devices reaching for their tablet or smartphone and opening Messenger or social media platform to find support instead of calling a customer care number. The Social messaging channels are perfect for cases like these because they offer instant access with minimal effort. Pharma companies need to respond to patients in the patient’s favour channel. These channels also offer an advantage for the pharmaceutical company too, they can engage in private, one-to-one conversations with patients (either with a human agent or even a chat robot) while tracking adverse events across various channels.

Patient forum and critical epidemics and new pharmaceutical research, mergers, and acquisitions; conversations about all these topics are occurring daily online and they hold potentially valuable insights for Pharma companies.

Akshit Bhadarka