We recently attended the 4th annual eyeforpharma eMarketing Summit held in Munich. This international congress is a fantastic opportunity to hear key innovators in the pharmaceutical industry sharing their experiences in e-marketing and how they see the industry moving forward in the digital arena.
The hot topic this year was the place of the pharmaceutical industry in social media. Some trailblazing companies such as Boehringer Ingelheim and MSD have already embraced the social media of Twitter and Facebook, and are utilising these platforms to initiate dialogue with both patients and physicians. In fact, Twitter was such a hit that during some of the sessions delegates were actively encouraged to tweet comments and questions on their smart phones.
We have been providing digital strategy and implementation for some of our clients for over 3 years now and it is fantastic to see that e-marketing is being embraced by more and more marketeers as not just 'a website' but a new portal to communicate with their customers. The fact that pharma is still lagging behind other industries in this area has a lot to do with the regulations governing communications (e.g. ABPI Code of Practice); however, this conference shows that a lot more is possible and that the results can pay dividends.
Salmaan
