Growing Biopharma Digital Marketing Impact: Digitizing Launch, Developing Talent and Optimizing Service Alignment

Identifying the drivers of digital marketing performance excellence in the healthcare industry will enable companies to gain valuable customer insights, build effective relationships, leverage online media, and maximize revenue.

Best Practices, LLC undertook benchmarking research to provide critical insights into how savvy biopharma digital marketers are enhancing the medical and commercial potential of new products, improving alignment with brand teams, acquiring and training new digital marketers, managing service delivery for key programs, and optimizing insource vs. outsource mix.

Study Snapshot

For this research, Best Practices, LLC engaged 31 digital, multichannel marketing and other commercial leaders from 24 leading healthcare organizations through a benchmarking survey instrument. Nearly 70% of benchmark participants serve at the level of director or above.

Key Findings

• DM teams deliver highest pre-launch impact via Competitive Assessments & Customer Insights: For commercial objectives, the most beneficial pre-launch digital support areas include contributing to competitive assessments (where 79% see positive impact) and online research and analytics to fuel brand development (69%). Roughly half of DM teams also find some success with creating opt-in databases and social media listening. Revenue forecasting and digital war-gaming activities are less commonly used activities.
• Digital marketing is structured as a “hybrid function” for 64% of companies: For almost two-thirds of companies, digital marketing is structured in a “hybrid” fashion, with a centralized digital, multichannel, or Center of Excellence team working in close concert with brand marketers to execute essential digital tactics and campaigns. Just 26% locate all digital marketing capability within individual brands or business units, and only 10% locate all capability in a centralized digital group.

I.	Executive Summary	pgs. 3-9
	Research Overview	pg. 3
	Participating Companies	pg. 5
	Key Research Findings	pgs. 6-9
II.	Digitizing Launch & New Product Development	pgs. 10-22
	Critical Commercial & Medical Support Activities
	Improving Brand Team Alignment
III.	Developing New Digital Marketing Talent	pgs. 23-29
	Talent Acquisition & Development
	Talent Deployment Models
IV.	Optimizing Digital Service Delivery	pgs. 30-37
	Digital Function Structure
	Service Management Models: DM Teams, CoEs & Brands
V.	Outsourcing & Vendor Management Excellence	pgs. 38-48
	Outsourcing Levels for Key Channels & Activities
	Vendor Usage Trends
VI.	Study Participant Data	pgs. 49-53
VII.	About Best Practices, LLC	pg. 54

• Total Products Supported by Participating Digital Marketing Groups
• 4 Main Ways in Which Digital Marketing Services Can Help Maximize New Asset Potential
• Impact of Digital Support on Pre-Launch Commercial Programs for New Products
• Impact of Digital Support on Clinical and Medical Focused Pre-Launch Product Development Programs
• Effective Activities for Improving Alignment between Digital Marketing Team and the Launch and Brand Teams
• Critical Skills and Characteristics for Hiring New Digital Marketers
• Effective Tactics for Forging Successful Healthcare Digital Marketers
• Service Deployment Structure: Digital Talent and Expertise
• Structure of Digital Marketing Function
• Group Responsibility for Listed Core Digital Activities
• Map Indicating from Which Parts of the Healthcare Organization Digital Services Tend to be Managed
• Map Indicating the Average Budget Investment Dedicated to Each Digital Program Area
• Comparison of Digital Service Trends at Large Companies Against Those in Place at Medium-Sized and Smaller Companies
• Extent of Outsourcing Digital Activities
• Number of Vendors and Agencies Used by Participating DM Groups Across All Brands Supported
• Average Number of Vendors Used Per Product Supported
• Revenue Supported Per Vendor (USD '000)
• Average Number of FTEs Employed Per Vendor Used
• Of All the Vendors and Agencies Participating Digital Marketing Teams Collaborate With Regularly, Approximate Percentage Hired by Digital Marketing, Marketing, and Brand Teams