Bridging the gap: Why UX is essential for a successful pharma marketing strategy

Each year, pharmaceutical companies invest billions of dollars and countless hours of creative and execution time on digital advertising. A significant portion of this effort is focused on leveraging digital tools and channels to capture the attention of healthcare professionals (HCPs). 

Strategic marketing campaigns can create personalized interactions that deliver valuable information to HCPs. When done effectively, a campaign drives the right people to the right places, directing HCPs to the most relevant information. 

While you understand that these campaigns are a critical component to engaging with HCPs, you may find yourself asking things like: 

• Are there things outside of our marketing efforts that can help improve the HCP experience?
• Is it possible to make our digital marketing campaigns feel cohesive with the rest of our HCP experience?
• Can I maximize my marketing dollars by getting HCPs to stay on our website that our ads are driving them to?

The answer to all of these questions is yes! With the help of an intentionally designed user experience (UX), you can provide a meaningful, relevant, and positive digital experience for HCPs.

Thoughtful UX can increase the return on your marketing investment and assist you in successfully meeting your business objectives. In fact, without it, you may face several challenges in creating a seamless HCP experience across all channels.

4 issues that your pharma organization or brand will face if your omnichannel strategy fails to consider UX 

1. HCPs won’t stick around  

Chances are, your marketing campaigns are captivating and well thought out. While ads may prompt HCPs to land on your website, without thoughtful UX, they won’t stick around. With 88% of online consumers stating they are less likely to return to a website after a poor digital experience, UX design has never been more important than it is today. 

Depending on their experience on your website, HCPs will choose to engage with your content or abandon ship. If they choose the latter, all of the marketing effort and dollars spent to get them to your website in the first place are tossed overboard as well. 

It’s no secret that HCPs are incredibly busy individuals. Good UX improves usability and accessibility, structures and organizes relevant content, and simplifies navigation. All of these elements help maximize the time HCPs spend on your website. Thoughtful UX helps this time feel low-stress and efficient, since HCPs can easily find the information they need.

2. HCPs won’t take action 

UX not only helps users locate useful information, but it also leads them to take action. There are several reasons that HCPs will check out your website. Similarly, there are various actions that you might want them to take based on where they fall in the marketing funnel. For instance, you might want an HCP in the awareness phase to request a meeting with their dedicated field representative to learn more about a newly approved product. 

Good UX increases conversions by creating an experience built on understanding HCP behavior and needs. UX optimizes the HCP journey by: 

• Allowing for ease of navigation: It’s essential that the user can find what they are looking for quickly. For instance, if an HCP lands on the consumer side of your website, is there an obvious way to switch to the prescriber site?
• Providing a variety of consumption opportunities: While HCPs are academics, they’re also digital natives, and video consumption is a part of their everyday lives—they expect it in their work too. Websites should thoughtfully combine a careful balance of text, digestible videos, and interactive elements that HCPs can find value in. 
• Ensuring accessibility: It’s critical that your website is built to be consumed across various device types. HCPs will use your website to access important (sometimes lengthy) topics, like drug interactions or side-effect information. Thoughtful UX design ensures they can do this on a tablet, desktop, and mobile device.

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Ultimately, you are probably focused on finding ways to encourage HCPs to prescribe your treatment option to patients. Good UX helps HCPs discover and feel confident in the information your organization provides them.

3. HCPs won’t have the information they need 

The ultimate goal of most pharmaceutical organizations is to improve patient outcomes by developing and bringing to market therapies that HCPs embrace and prescribe to patients who need them. While marketing campaigns are a good starting point for influencing this behavior in HCPs, you can’t possibly use the limited ad space to provide HCPs with all of the information they need to make a prescription decision. That’s where your website comes in! 

Content strategy, a critical component of UX design, helps you balance your business goals with HCPs’ needs. Content modeling helps discover what information is needed, in what format (text, graphic, audio, video, etc.), and what structure. A digital content strategy helps you earn HCPs’ trust by getting them the right information at the right time. Think of your marketing campaign as only a teaser to the rich content that HCPs can engage with when they land on your website. 

4. HCPs will perceive your brand negatively 

Did you know that 75% of users judge a company’s credibility based on their website design? Even if your marketing materials are informative, visually appealing, and on-brand, if HCPs are not met with a similar experience on your website, the effort and dollars spent on your brand awareness campaigns are not maximized. More importantly, your brand’s reputation is at risk.

Thoughtful UX eliminates design distractions, incorporates HCP feedback, creates consistency across digital touchpoints, and delivers a personalized experience to HCPs. These efforts help build trust and familiarity with the brand while also helping HCPs feel understood and valued. The end result is increased customer satisfaction and brand loyalty. 

Create a seamless HCP experience; add UX to your omnichannel strategy 

Marketing efforts alone can’t maximize HCP engagement. UX design isn’t just a nice-to-have—it’s the missing piece to creating a successful omnichannel strategy. 

Want to learn more about how UX design can help you capitalize on your marketing investment? Chat with our Pharma experts.