Have Pharma gone Webinar crazy!?

With the outbreak of the Pandemic and the lingering worries of COVID-19 pharmaceutical sales and marketing has taken a hit. There are no live conferences that health care professionals can physically visit and meeting a doctor in sales call is still a long way off for many countries. Over the last few months webinar activities have increased substantially. A remote piece of activity where a key opinion leader will discuss and or be interviewed about their chosen subject. On the face of it this may sound like a good idea, allowing messages about the product and disease to be circulated thus bypassing the risks associated with COVID-19. But let us take a more detailed look. As a company (IMI) we help pharmaceutical companies spread the message through our positive opt-in email database. We were one of the first companies in the market to offer this facility, and we have over 14 years’ experience, so we know what a good email looks like and more importantly we know what doesn’t work. Webinar stats Statistics Email in comparison to webinars, continues to dominate. On a scale of 1-5, email ranked 4.46 and was one of the top tools for promotion. Scoring a 2.77 out of 5, social media is the second most widely used promotional tool for webinars. In order to make a webinar campaign effective, 3 is the magic number in terms of email campaigns deployed per webinar. Experience shows that response rates are highest during the 2 weeks before a webinar. So it is important to get those invitations out. 30% to 40% of visitors to a webinar landing page, register for the event. Send at least one reminder the day before event for best results and limit registration forms to 5-7 questions. Elephant in the room. If you were faced with the two options below which would you choose? OPTION 1

• Receive an email
• click on webinar registration
• confirm that you are a health care professional
• complete 5-7 questions to register
• Put the date and time in your diary.
• On the day of the webinar open confirmation email and listen for 30-45 mins.

OPTION 2

• Receive an email that has a video already embedded in the content that contains 5-6 carefully structured questions being answered by a key opinion leader.

I am sure that we are not alone in being incredibly busy with email marketing over the last 6 months and IMI’s September booking slots are almost full. We are extremely careful with our HCP database and do NOT bombard the list with numerous webinar invitations. Other suppliers have a different approach and the webinar landscape is becoming increasingly congested. Take note of the elephant in the room and provide information in a quick easy to access way that will keep the reader engaged. If you are committed to a webinar why not take option 2 above after the event. You will not be disappointed with the results.