How pharma companies can accelerate customer engagement post-pandemic

By Carolina Wosiack, Managing Director EMEA, CI&T

Throughout the 2020s, pharmaceutical companies have been thrust under the spotlight like never before. Fortunately, they’ve largely responded exceptionally, delivering life-saving vaccine treatments at record speeds. As such, they’ve been handsomely rewarded, too. Pfizer recently announced record earnings of $100 billion for 2022, largely driven by the ongoing rollout of its COVID-19 vaccine and the launch of the antiviral pill Paxlovid. However, the company also expects its revenue to decline by as much as a third this year, as demand for these ‘blockbuster’ treatments reaches a plateau.

Now, pharma companies are moving into new markets and working on new drugs to sustain their growth. In February 2023, AstraZeneca CEO Pascal Soriot stated in the company’s annual results announcement: “…we are on track to deliver industry-leading revenue growth through 2025 and beyond, and have set AstraZeneca on a path to deliver at least fifteen new medicines before the end of the decade.”

These companies already know how to research, create, and test innovative new drugs until the formula is perfected for public use. But when it comes to marketing such products, pharma executives tend to be risk averse and obsessed with outputs. With the pandemic largely behind us, how can pharma companies continue to boost revenues and customer engagement? Let’s take a look.

• Small, agile product teams can identify opportunities the fastest

If pharma businesses want to continuously unlock new revenue streams, they may need to adapt their working models and mindsets. Large, traditional R&D departments are no longer nimble enough for today’s volatile world. Analysis of over 65 million scientific papers, patents, and software products from Harvard Business Review in 2019 uncovered a near-universal conclusion: “whereas large teams tended to develop and further existing ideas and designs, their smaller counterparts tended to disrupt current ways of thinking with new ideas, inventions, and opportunities.”

For leaders to cultivate true innovation, they must set up compact teams that focus on specific customer needs, identify issues, and then work to address them. Here, it’s often useful to build ‘two-pizza’ teams made up of no more than eight people (the name comes from an Amazon maxim—if it takes more than two pizzas to feed a team, the team is too big). These nimbler groups can discover how to solve these problems at pace, and then recommend their ideas for wider production.

A prime example is the team behind the Oxford–AstraZeneca COVID-19 vaccine. The vaccine’s rapid development was led by just six scientists based at Oxford University.  Manufacturing then expanded to facilities across five global continents—and in less than twelve months after its first approval, two billion doses had been supplied to countries around the world. It’s this ability to embrace change and move quickly that will set companies apart throughout future periods of both calm and crisis.

• Research and testing will optimise omnichannel customer strategies

Modern customers interact and engage with businesses across numerous digital touchpoints—from PCs to smartphones, websites to social media. But it’s crucial to identify and test which channels are best at delivering customer value, as part of their healthcare interactions and experiences, before companies heavily invest in campaigns within them.

Pharma content marketing, such as articles, podcasts, and webinars, is a good way to educate and entertain your audience. However, content that attracts isn’t always content that sells. Businesses must first grasp and understand their customers’ journeys to create truly relevant content. This process can be complex, and numerous experiments will likely be required to uncover the best way forward. So, pharma companies must ask themselves a) what behavioural changes do they want to elicit amongst their customers? And b) how can they positively influence human behaviour that drives business value?

Managers must also consider customer differences across locations and demographics, and tweak strategies accordingly. For instance, 18 to 24-year-olds are more than twice as likely to use social media for health-rated discussions than those between 45 and 54. Targeting the second demographic via Facebook or Instagram ads may not be cost-effective—so businesses must research more practical avenues.

A cultural change may even be necessary. Fewer organisational silos and a greater focus on digital and omnichannel will help forge collective progress, as new research shows the pharma industry is set to spend $4.5 billion on digital transformation by 2030. More attention paid to delivering strong content and smooth experiences, in the right place and at the right time, will ensure your business remains at the forefront of tech, marketing, and the minds of your customers.

• Data will uncover increasingly important, multi-layered insights

The role of data in the pharma industry is becoming more critical than ever. It helps companies find patterns that enable better, faster decisions, and unlock growth in new areas via a data-driven and data-backed approach. For instance, data can highlight genetic makeup, disease status, demographics and more to help researchers quickly and cost-effectively find appropriate candidates for an urgent clinical trial. As the price of bringing a new drug to market reaches as high as $1.1 billion, cost optimisation via data is key.

Unleashing data from silos and sharing it between stakeholders will also transform business intelligence and value. Insights from field-based teams are crucial for customer experience and digital design too, as they can inform appropriate upgrades and developments. For example, what information do customers require before making a purchase decision? What are the most popular payment methods?

Pharma companies that combine their data with AI technologies will be able to unearth truly impactful insights that accelerate the market delivery of medicines and products. Ultimately, strong customer engagement along with innovative new products is a combination guaranteed to solidify your presence and supercharge your revenues. 

What’s next for pharma?

The pharmaceutical industry performed perhaps its greatest feat yet in safely guiding the world through the worst of the pandemic. Some companies now find themselves as household names, in unprecedented positions of influence. But to remain successful, the sector’s work is only just beginning.

From Blockbuster to Kodak, all too often we’ve seen heavyweights in other industries squander seemingly unassailable leads. So, companies who pivoted to play an important role in tackling COVID-19 mustn’t rest on their laurels, but instead invest and adapt further to solidify their positions. Meanwhile, challenger pharma brands and wider healthcare organisations must work harder than ever to catch up with competitors and position themselves at the forefront of the industry’s future. The sector is evolving as fast as its treatments. Pharma businesses that build smaller research teams, optimise their omnichannel strategies, and accelerate their data analysis will be well positioned to guide us through whatever the world throws at us next.