Chris Cullman described for me the challenges of marketing to physicians and the opportunities he sees for getting and holding their attention.

While the context for this conversation was for marketing pharma brands to doctors, it is completely applicable for marketing to scientists. Both audiences have the expectations that any of us have as consumers. The lines between the world of work and everything else are gone.

We want the information or support anytime, anywhere and if your brand can’t provide that experience, someone else will. What are you doing to match the highest expectations of customer experience?

…there's a choice to be made when the physicians make a prescription. There's a choice to be made when they make a referral. There's a choice to be made perceptually when they invite a rep to come into their practice and when they search if they're going to search for information about a product, about specific brands and you see the manufacturer's website and they've been there before. Or they know the manufacturer and they think that's a bad user experience, that they're not going to get the information they want.

There's a long list of choices, both competitors and other sources, for that same brand that are not the manufacturer. Just from that one use case, the value of creating a better user experience and the value of making that information easily accessible, it needs to be clear.

Another challenge is, of course, attribution and data. Because of privacy, you will never see the final step of who saw what and wrote a script. Understanding what data is available and what gives you the most accurate picture is key to reaching your audience.

For me the most interesting bits of our conversation were the following and related to some of the recent conversations on this podcast.

The first is using storytelling to give customers (doctors, scientists) a reason to reach out to your sales team to learn about new therapies or products. What kind of stories can you tell that draw people to your brand because of how it makes them feel? This may sound a little squishy but the reality is that this is how we make decisions. Brands may attract or repel us. Which brand do you want to do business with?

As an example, Chris talked about the idea of putting two KOLs in a room with a camera and let them talk about an idea they find interesting. He points out that when this happens, before the camera is on, the banter can be fascinating. Why not roll with all (or at least more) of it and breathe some life into your efforts?

There will always be concern with compliance and review, but I think companies will learn what needs to be edited and get even better over time to take advantage of this opportunity to speak authentically and about meaningful things.

Let me know what you think in the comments.

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