The Forces Transforming Biopharma Marketing

Trend #1. Omnichannel marketing—powered by digital tools—is maturing fast. Omnichannel marketing has been a buzzword for more than a decade, but now many leading biopharma companies are finally capturing its potential. In addition to traditional offline efforts, they are embracing digital-first strategies, engaging health care providers (HCPs) and patients through email, social media, and digital ads.

• The impact: A specialty pharmaceutical company we work with saw a $200 million value boost and ten-time increase in HCP reach through omnichannel marketing efforts.
• How they did it: Together with BCG, the company designed an omnichannel next-best engagement engine across both sales and marketing touchpoints to identify both “who to engage” and “what to do.” (See Exhibit 2.) This new engine helped sales reps be more effective: for example, it guided them on which customers to focus on and what actions to take, such as providing samples or sharing specific messages. Reaching HCPs through multiple channels also increased engagement with core products.

Trend #2. AI-powered tools are being integrated into core workflows. AI-powered tools are transforming data analysis across the marketing function, optimizing marketing messaging, speeding time to market, and reducing workload.

• The impact: A large pharmaceutical firm created an AI-enabled marketing content engine, reducing campaign launch times by 75% and cutting costs related to new content generation by 30%. (See Exhibit 3.)
• How they did it: New GenAI capabilities were created to help draft copy and create visuals for digital assets (emails, banners, social media posts, and articles) by leveraging the company’s vast trove of data. In tandem with a revamped operating model, the company was able to realize value incredibly quickly.

Trend #3: Personalization capabilities are being harnessed to improve the patient experience. Consumers are increasingly expecting personalized health care. In response, biopharma companies are finding ways to provide more customized patient experiences.

• The impact: One innovative health care technology company recently implemented advanced patient journey mapping, driving engagement scores and meaningful topline impact.
• How they did it: The team worked with BCG on extensive research to identify customer archetypes, helping illustrate what matters to different patients and why. Armed with a better understanding of the needs of their core patients, the company was able to derive the unique journeys that each patient experiences, and craft targeted interventions to reach each patient with personalized content at their respective decision points.

Trend #4. Scalable analytic ecosystems are enabling stronger agency partnerships. Leading biopharma companies are blending in-house expertise with agency partnerships to build more agile, data-driven marketing ecosystems. This is allowing biopharma companies to focus on the most critical elements of marketing strategy while outsourcing many elements of day-to-day execution.

• The impact: A large pharmaceutical company recently doubled the revenue impact of consumer-marketing-driven sales (as measured by marketing mix modeling) by creating differentiated in-house marketing strategy, digital execution, and analytics functions while keeping strategic partnerships with vendors for selected creative and media execution tasks.
• How they did it: In analyzing the market, the company realized an opportunity to reach customers digitally with more precision and personalization, backed by strong analytics. The team started small, hiring a core group of talent rather than expanding rapidly, and proved value through credibly demonstrating the impact of targeted new marketing campaigns. Early successes provided the internal buy-in to continue investing in expanded capabilities for a larger analytics and digital marketing and media execution team. Strong agency partnerships in creative execution, coupled with deep in-house experience allowed the company to iterate quickly on content creation and leverage its burgeoning strategic expertise.