Generating HCP Leads: Keys to Filling Your Marketing Pipeline

Lead acquisition can be a daunting task for pharma and medical device brands. A physician’s first exposure to your product can be a make-or-break situation for you to gain a foothold. So it is essential that you develop the right approach for lead generation. Here are a few effective ways to fill your marketing pipeline.

 

Test Multiple Channels

Doctors are notoriously hard to reach, so filling your pipeline isn’t an easy task. To maximize your lead generation strategy, you’ll need to settle on the most productive channels to reach your audience.

If you don’t surface the most effective channels, lead gen costs can quickly spiral out of control – increasing your cost per acquisition.

So create a plan to test multiple channels, track results, and select the winners. In most cases, there won’t be a single best channel to reach everyone, so plan to allocate budget to multiple channels.

Plan to test media such as:

• Direct mail
• Trade publications
• Email
• Social media
• Paid search advertising
• Medical conferences

Once you’ve found the channels that work best with your audience, do not get complacent and ignore new or evolving channels as times change. Plan to test your lead generation media annually or every other year.

Discover which online channels physicians prefer

 

Perfect Your Pitch

Physicians are a busy and skeptical audience. They face an endless stream of pharmaceutical and medical device reps and a wave of marketing content daily. Your lead gen messaging must stand out and respect their time all at once. If you cannot clearly deliver a unique benefit and proof of claim in 60 seconds, you risk a longer delay in getting them into your marketing pipeline.

How you present your pitch, facts, and research matters. Your messaging should be clear, concise, and speak their language to maximize your short pitch window. And always offer specific solutions to specific problems early in your communications.

As you develop your pitch, consider these two recommendations for a successful physician lead generation campaign:

Great content. Don’t insult your busy audience, instead use your limited window to provide a compelling value proposition, proof of efficacy and safety, and an incentive to act. Keep in mind that “first touch” content should lead to further exploration, not act as a comprehensive proof of concept.

Tactical placement. Publish your lead gen content where it can make an immediate impact, such as in respected medical journals or within KOL webinars. Consider using your selected channels as a hub-spoke model where multiple media options lead to a single source of truth. Healthcare sales are complex with lead generation acting as a single step within a broader communication strategy. So make sure you’re distributing your content in an integrated, tactical way.

Find out how to rethink your content

 

Focus, Focus, Focus

There are over one million active physicians in the United States, so it is likely that some of those physicians are better targets for your brand/product than others. To be successful in filling your pipeline, you must focus your targeting.

Two of the more popular lead generation tactics are targeting by physician specialty and geography.

Specialty. A physician’s specialty should be one of the core pillars of your audience targeting. Figure out the specialties that suit your product and target your content to those specialties.

Geography. Detailing is still prevalent in the industry, so targeting your audience by location can also be an effective lead gen strategy. Using a geo-targeting strategy can save reps time and cultivate more onsite visits.

 

Be an Information Partner

One final thought: Lead generation isn’t just about grabbing attention. It is an opportunity to establish your brand as an information partner to the physician. According to a 2016 HealthLink Dimensions report, “medical professionals prefer marketers to act as information partners.” So make sure your lead gen content does not focus on selling, but instead educates doctors, offering real value that will help grow their practice.

 

Elsevier offers various content solutions to help pharma marketers educate HCPs with credible and trusted content, including Article Service, Content Licensing, Clinical Guidelines and more. Contact your Sales Representatives to explore limitless opportunities.

 

Article Written by: Alex Brown