Gartner Says U.S. Pharmaceutical Companies Must Be More Patient-Centric

Gartner research on decision making for healthcare reveals that 70 percent of consumers believe they have access to credible information, and 64 percent feel that they can apply that information to help improve their decision making.

"It's not enough to have average digital capabilities these days. Pharmaceutical brands must ensure that their content is present, relevant, and meaningful enough to take action on," Beland said.

From the analysis, the following findings emerged:

• Most company websites are information-rich but content-poor. Only half of patient/caregiver sites incorporate patient stories, and conversation guides are not consistently synced with their healthcare provider (HCP) counterparts. For example, 76 percent of companies provide materials to help patients prepare for their next doctor visits, but only 41 percent have similar materials on HCP sites to help doctors prepare for conversations with patients. This limits both the quality of those engagements and the company's ability to inspire discussion.
• In an environment where TV ads have a neutral impact on brand awareness, winning companies generate superior ROI on their display ads through efficient placement, prominent calls to action, and substitution toward more effective video/mobile formats. Across the 78 brands with detected display ad activity, quarterly site traffic impressions from web ads grew by an average of 50 percent, while site traffic from display ads increased by 20 percent.
• Sixty-eight percent of companies engage in competitive keyword bidding, with 69 percent of them incurring conquest on those branded search terms. Those that aggressively deploy budget on category search terms receive higher ROI on paid search traffic than those focusing on conquering against competitive branded terms.
• Companies that commit to email, social, and mobile efforts see significant returns with website traffic, cross linking, and performance; 83 percent of total site traffic occurs on companies' consumer mobile sites and 80 percent on their HCP mobile sites.