Omni Know-How
July 16, 2024
There has been no shortage of think pieces expounding the benefits of omnichannel for customers and brands. (I know. I have written my fair share.) An HCP gets a better experience; brands optimize engagement and pull back on less impactful and efficient tactics.
However, I want to look at the value of omnichannel adoption through the lens of another key stakeholder – marketing procurement. Plain and simple, the focus of marketing procurement for pharma manufacturers is to maximize the value of marketing spend for the enterprise. Essentially, an ROI analysis: “For every dollar in brand or comms spend, what is my organization’s return?”
Often, the negotiations move to the spending side of the equation – volume discounts, agency consolidation, and production decoupling. A standard set of levers intended to reduce cost while maintaining return.
I would argue that omnichannel adoption is a key opportunity for procurement to impact both sides of the return on marketing spend analysis through three key benefits.
Three purchaser benefits of omnichannel adoptions.
1. Objective vs. subjective value
Omnichannel activation lives in the world of objective value, while a large majority of marketing services purchased by biopharma companies are evaluated subjectively.
I’ll pick on myself here. I came up in this industry as a brand planner. Over the course of my career, I have run dozens of brand positioning work sessions. Those range global to US only, across different clients, therapeutic categories, and product life stages… Frankly, my billing rate reflected that breadth and depth of experience.
Now, I like to think I was good at running a positioning work session, and I can find a past client who would confirm that.
But let’s be honest—that is a subjective analysis. It is really hard to find objective proof that my workshops or the positionings that emerged from them were objectively better.
However, in the world of omnichannel - where data, precision, and attribution are much clearer and trackable – evaluating the value exchange for the spend becomes much more transparent for procurement.
2. Optimization means doing less of what doesn’t work
The old adage from John Wanamaker, “Half the money I spend on advertising is wasted: the trouble is I don’t know which half” – is so clearly relevant for HCP marketing. Anyone who has ever been on a rep ride and seen the troves of unused marketing materials – knows that HCP marketing suffers from the desire to make more marketing collateral.
Now, the standard critique of omnichannel might be, doesn’t this personalization and precision stuff mean even more marketing spending? While that could be an outcome, I would argue that the first and most immediate benefit of omnichannel adoption is reducing underperforming marketing initiatives. Because omnichannel takes a customer-centric POV, the performance data gives marketers and procurement key insight into what they should do less of - A type of content that gets less engagement, a message that underperforms, or even a segment of HCPs who are unresponsive to a given channel. The insights from omnichannel adoption give marketing buyers a barometer for what portion of their spending can be cut back or repurposed.
3. Expected results and historical benchmarks as the norm
Finally, when a marketing organization is working with an experienced omnichannel activation partner, the conversation switches from “I think this will work…” to “I know this will work…”
Because an experienced partner should be working with historical benchmarks that often are catered to the program, channel, therapeutic category, and target HCP list. Focusing on activation, pull-through, and reliance on historical results should instill more confidence and accountability in what is being delivered in return for marketing spend.
When we combine these three benefits, it almost seems that omnichannel activation is catered to marketing procurement analysis.
You have transparency in the value exchange for the marketing spend.
You can identify underperforming initiatives and marketing investments.
You increase expectations and benchmarks for success.
All of these help marketing procurement maximize the ROI of the organization's marketing dollars.