Pharma Digital Investment is Increasing, But Still Only 3-6% of the Total Promotional Spend

Every year I get a call from a market analyst asking me what the trend is for digital marketing spending in the pharmaceutical industry. He wants to know if the profits of health websites, which depend on drug display ads, will increase or decrease next year.

Who am I to judge?

I only report the data I glean from various sources. For example, recent data from IMS Health Global Pharmaceuticals Marketing Channel Reference indicates that worldwide pharmaceutical industry investment (i.e., spending) in sales force and marketing channels was nearly $71 billion in 2014 - a drop in 1.4% from 2013. BUT... the digital channel investment increased 32%!

Source: IMS Health. Click on image for an enlarged, readable view.

However, spending on digital channels accounts for only $2.3bn or 3.2% of the total $71 billion promotional spend worldwide.

Let's dive a bit deeper into the data and compare it to other estimates over the years.

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The Value of Medical Content Channels According to HCPs vs Pharma Professionals

A study conducted from July – August 2015 by EPG Health Media, publisher of epgonline.org (a website for healthcare professionals) found some "significant gaps and imbalances" between how healthcare professionals (HCPs) and pharma industry professionals (Pharma) view the value of medical content delivery channels.

Keep in mind that the results are based on a very limited number of survey participants, which include 216 HCPs and 137 pharmaceutical industry professionals (66 pharmaceutical professionals and 71 service providers).

I selected a few channels to look at (mostly digital) and replotted the data in the following chart, which shows the percent of respondents (HCPs v. Pharma) who consider that the channels have moderate or significant value for HCPs.

Click on image for an enlarged view.

What are the key takeaways from this study?

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A Day in the Life of a Typical Digital Marketer vs. My Day Yesterday

I was sent an email from a reader of Pharma Marketing Blog directing me to an infographic about the day in the life of a digital marketer. You can view the entire graphic here, but I want to focus on the section reproduced below and compare that to what my day looked like yesterday. You can compare it to your own day and see if you fit the pattern.

Click on image for an enlarged view.

So how typical is this?

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How High Technology Can Help Improve Pharma's Reputation & Increase Sales

A pharma sales rep avatar

World of DTC Marketing blogger Rich Myer asked "How should pharma respond when attacked?" This was in response to the critique of pharmaceutical marketing practices by John Oliver (see here).

Myer started out with the premise that consumers just don't understand all the good that drugs do to improve health and save lives and how much money pharma companies spend on research. Which, as Myer says, doesn't "mean a damn thing if the consumer perception of the pharma industry is in the dirt."

Other than "work[ing] harder to earn trust and demonstrate everyday that we provide benefits to patients and society," Myer has no answer to his question.

Myer, however, implies that technology -- specifically the Internet -- stands in the way because what the pharma industry says in its defense "is not going to be heard in an age when everyone with Internet access is an opinion leader."

I would like to suggest, however, that the Internet and other digital technologies -- especially mobile -- can help pharma improve its reputation. How so?

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