That’s all fascinating stuff if you’re a digital convert (as most of us are), but from a marketeers point of view - What’s the end game here?
Surely it’s about influencing behaviour, so understanding your market and customer has to be not just about what type of content will engage, or through which digital channels you should deliver it, but also how that ‘understanding’ can be levered to influence behaviour and opinion.
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What actually influences behaviour? It’s an entirely different question isn’t it? Have a look at the images below, results from a study we carried out three weeks ago on this very topic (by the way you can get a full copy for free here – just select the appropriate option and submit a request).
For clarity, the respondents are EU based physician subscribers to www.epgonline.org - the medicines and disease knowledge base for healthcare professionals published by EPG Health Media. The panel was chosen to provide a representative cross section of doctors including general medicine and a proportional mix of medical specialties.
A: Physician information access channels/frequency
B: Influence
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In slide A some of the results aren’t so shocking, you can clearly see the established shift from print to digital, perhaps a surprisingly high level of mobile engagement (this is EU based) - actually we weren’t so surprised about the level of mobile access, something you can find out more about here [earlier blog on mobile device habits and healthcare] - No huge shock at the frequency of direct engagement with the Pharmaceutical industry either.
But in slide B we turn to the big question, which channel is likely to influence behaviour?
It’s here where things start to get interesting. It’s clear that the channels where some form of interpersonal connection exists (such as colleagues, a congress and even the Pharma sales reps) fair much better in terms of influence, and frankly that’s understandable.
But for those of us plying a trade in the digital communications industry, the ‘enigma question’ must be why the shift to digital, illustrated in slide A, doesn’t translate to influence in slide B; how can that be?
Both print and digital publishing are still 2 dimensional communication channels, and despite the social networking explosion and it’s undeniable impact on web based communications, neither channel can truly be described as incorporating any form of ‘real’ interpersonal engagement, so arguably it remains fair to compare ‘like with like’.
So what’s the difference when it comes to healthcare communications? Why in general terms should print beat the web hands down in terms of influence when its reach is evidently so diminished?
What does the web lack? Could it be proper referencing for medical texts, credibility, objectivity, fair balance, transparency or all of those and more?
If you’d like to understand more about HCP behaviour, which channels they engage with and how they are influenced you can contact us via www.epghealthmedia.com or simply check back here from time to time.
We will conduct a further study towards the end of November asking physicians ‘what’s wrong and what’s right with web content’, in particular we’ll focus in on the issue of influence. Maybe you have a question you’d like us to incorporate in the study, feel free to let us know!
