Multichannel marketing. A guide for analysis and follow-up. Part 2. Websites

When a concept such as "multichannel marketing" becomes an increasingly clear part of a company's everyday work and affects many different departments, the employees need a higher level of digital awareness. In this series, consultant and digital strategist Fredrik Holmboe goes through the most common strategies within multichannel marketing and how they can be used and followed up to increase the company's digital competitiveness in the market.

In the previous issue of Pharma Industry we published the first article in this series on multichannel marketing, with a focus on analysis and follow-up. That article covered the email channel, the engine that drives communication, interaction and flows of traffic alike. This article focuses on websites, the watering hole where your customers top up on relevant information within their field of interest.

Looking back quickly: for several thousand years people have tried to communicate an offer to others. For a long time word of mouth was the alternative, though other methods were available too. The oldest objects found that carry a sales message are papyrus scrolls a little over 5,000 years old, dug up in Egypt.

Since then the process has developed dramatically, with a few clear breakthroughs.

The Gutenberg press in 1450, which opened the way for mass production of printed text. Industrialisation during the nineteenth century, where strong commercial forces had a great need to market their products and services broadly. In 1836 a French newspaper, La Presse, became the first in world history to sell advertising space. Radio arriving in the first decades of the twentieth century, with the television set following fairly closely behind, then the telephone, and finally the internet.

For most of the twentieth century the success factor was to be seen and heard as much as possible. With more money invested in radio and television advertising it was more likely, almost certain, that the company would get enough exposure to reach or beat its sales targets.

But now we are seeing the other side of that kind of extensive marketing strategy. People are starting to tire and to shut sales messages out. Above all when we count in all the marketing channels available today, at a time when we are constantly connected to the internet.

We do not want to be sold to any more.

Today we want to be informed on terms we have chosen ourselves. We want to feel a greater autonomy, where the information presented to us is personally adapted. We do not want to feel held up in our own lives, and we would rather take part in something of substance without opening our wallets at all before we finally choose to do business.

That history, and the reluctance it has bred, is extremely important to take into account when creating, running and maintaining a website, if that site is to become an attractive destination for your customer group.

Websites

In the pharmaceutical world there are mainly five types of website: corporate sites, campaign sites, patient sites, product sites and portals. They are aimed at two main audiences, the general public and healthcare professionals (HCPs).

The material on these sites, that is the articles, the films and so on, often goes under one collective name: content. I will use that word throughout this article whenever I mean material of some kind.

One important point to make is that a website, with all its subpages and different resources, must not become a digital library, a place full of everything from A to Z put there for unclear reasons. Or worse still, put there only because it happened to be at hand when the site was built.

The goal for every type of website is to take the visitor from their question to the right answer in as few clicks as possible. Under "key factors for success" you will find many different aspects to think about in order to reach the goals you have set.

• The corporate site is the type of site where the web address is often based on the company name or an abbreviation of it. This type of site usually focuses on the company as a legal entity, with general information such as vision, current events, share information, information for the public about marketed products, contributions to research and development, or a presentation of the company's own research. More recently, transfers of value to healthcare professionals have started to appear there as well. This type of site often links on to the variants below.
• The campaign site is the type of site produced for a particular campaign, such as a PR or educational campaign. The campaign site acts as the hub where information sits, where people can register their interest, follow how the campaign develops and take part in the results. The site often works as a gathering point for the multichannel marketing that should be launched and driven hard to give the campaign the best chance of succeeding.
• The patient site is the type of site aimed at individuals interested in a particular therapy area where the company is active. It is often patients who visit, but relatives or generally interested people can be represented in the visitor statistics too. This type of site usually presents the disease, the therapy, the research, trends in the field, "lifestyle advice" and stories from people living with the illness.
• The product site is the type of site aimed at healthcare professionals interested in the medicine being marketed. In Sweden the content is based on, or in line with, what the summary of product characteristics says. For prescription medicines the site is always "locked" behind a security question where the visitor has to state that he or she works in healthcare, a procedure we in Sweden are relatively alone in having. Text, image and film can be mixed to describe the medicine's mechanism of action, its efficacy and side-effect profile and practical advice. Other services are often limited to ordering product-related material, but as the need to give the visitor greater value grows, other ways of getting the most out of the visit are being explored.
• The portal is the type of site where several of the variants above are gathered under one roof. Most of the company's offering is therefore represented in the menu bar: medicines, material ordering, filmed material, a listing of "beyond the pill" services such as apps, training and treatment programmes and various tests. A portal is often aimed specifically at either healthcare professionals or the general public, but is sometimes merged into a single site. More and more companies are moving towards portals for several reasons. Partly it is what was mentioned earlier: the goal is to take a visitor from question to answer as quickly as possible, which is easier if everything is gathered in one consistent environment. Partly it is that a portal is in many cases more cost-effective to run and maintain than several separate sites. The message also becomes more consistent and the marketing more effective when every channel drives towards one destination.

KPIs (cost per interaction)

A website can be considered successful when it meets business-driving goals, not simply when it has high visitor numbers.

Some time ago I heard about a product manager who had an annual target of getting 500 visitors to his part of a portal, a target that will not decide whether the site is successful. Not even if it is met. What comes out of those 500 visits at the next step, and the step after that, may very well be decisive.

What counts as business-driving varies from site to site and from business area to business area. It is mainly within the following three areas that you find data to support an analysis of whether the goals are being met.

1. Exposure

• Number of visitors to the site
• Number of unique visitors
• Number of pages visited
• Number of "bounces"

The first point shows the total number of visitors to the site over a chosen period, that is, the total visits from one person on one device counted whether it was one visit or several. A device usually means a computer, a smartphone or a tablet.

The second point tries to capture visits by different people over the chosen period, with the aim of counting each person only once. This has become a little harder in recent years with the advance of the mobile devices mentioned above, since one person can visit the site to read an article on a work laptop, carry on reading on a smartphone on the bus home, and finish on the home PC. Even though the aim is to count one person once during the period, that person is counted as three different (unique) visitors. Most commonly, though, the first and second points differ and conclusions can be drawn from the statistics.

The third point is usually broken down as the number of pages visited per visit, and generally shows how appealing a visitor finds your content and how easy the site is to move around in. Good content, good linking between pages and a clear structure usually lead to good numbers.

The last point, the number of "bounces", is a measure of how many visitors come to your site only to leave it without having clicked on within the same domain. It is often a measure of how well the visitor got an answer to the question that brought them to your site and then became interested in reading more. A "bounce" can happen when the visitor clicks on to another domain, clicks "back" in the browser, closes the whole browser (or the current tab), types in a new web address, or leaves the window open so that the session on your site expires.

2. Interaction

• Number of units of content consumed
• Number of specific activities completed

The first point mainly concerns content other than text. Examples can be filmed material such as interviews or lectures, animated films that show mechanism of action or handling, course material, self-tests and so on. That type of content is often preferable, since it can lead to a greater experience of value, longer visits and more return visits.

The second point concerns the activities you have defined as desirable for the visitor to complete. Examples can be signing up for a course or a newsletter, or answering a survey. Every single page on your site should have one of two things: a clear call to action (CTA), or a considered reason why there is no CTA. One or the other.

All the traffic passing through your site should be handled in a deliberate and business-driven way.

3. Engagement

Measuring engagement is hard if only one form of data is examined. It is in the combination of several different data sources, including some of those above, that you find the visitors' engagement. Some of the measures you can look at are these:

• Number of likes, comments and shares
• Length of video play
• Length of scroll on the page
• Number of clicks on internal links
• In some cases time on the site
• Number of connections per user

The first point is a kind of value barometer for your content. If the visitor is satisfied and has experienced a value, the chance is greater that the content consumed is liked, commented on or shared. Each single form of engagement can give too little data for an analysis, but taken together a better picture usually emerges. The value of these three can be based on the level of investment required from the visitor. A comment takes longer to write than a like, and a share means the visitor considers your content valuable enough to put their name behind it out towards their own network. Your content is then, to borrow an expression coined by the thought leader Seth Godin in 2007, remarkable. A search for "Seth Godin remarkable" is time well invested.

The second and third points show how interesting the visitor considers your content to be. Length of video play is often an obvious parameter to look at, but length of scroll on the page can sometimes be forgotten. Pages where the statistics show that readers leave "early" should be reviewed.

The fourth point also says something about how your content is experienced. If the first article was good enough to meet the visitor's expectation, the chance is greater that they will consume something more of what your site has to offer. This point also says something about how clear the internal linking is and how easy the site is to move around in.

The fifth point is a little special: time on the site. Like video play and scroll length above, time on the site can give a hint of engagement. With a big BUT. Your content competes with a great many other stimuli from other parts of the internet (social media for instance) and from the "real" world (a phone call for instance). Your site can be left standing, ticking away time and lifting the statistics without showing any real engagement. Time on the site is good as an engagement barometer, but should be analysed with some care and in combination with several other factors.

The last point shows that a visitor has appreciated your site enough to come back several times. If this figure is high you have probably succeeded in creating the watering hole where your customers top up on relevant information within their field of interest.

To reach that goal there are a number of decisive factors.

Key factors for success

• What is absolutely decisive is creating an environment where the visitor actively chooses to take part in your content. Three factors lay the ground for a good environment:
• A striking visual experience. In less than a second a visitor has evaluated your site with the question "stay or surf on?". So invest heavily in creating an environment that gives the intended audience the right feeling. In our part of the world "less is more" often works well. It matters that the graphic experience is consistent across all your resources online.
• An immediate answer. The answer to the question that brought the visitor to your site has to be there, in the middle of the field of vision. Immediately. The visitor should not have to work out where the answer is. It should be clear what the next step is, through graphic "markers" that catch attention, with neutral space around the content that is the focus of the page.
• Simplicity in moving around. On your site it should be easy to find related and interesting material as soon as the question has been answered. Help the visitor stay in your environment as long as possible. The business gains from it.
• Create content that makes people think and gives the visitor real value, and find the balance between value for your business and value for the visitor. Sometimes they are the same thing, sometimes not. It is easy to fall into the trap of creating content focused on what needs to be communicated or what you want to communicate, sometimes called "the inside-out approach". Think more "outside-in", where content is produced on the basis of what meets the target group's demands and wishes. Start there and then mix in what you want to say, for a balanced mix.
• Write for the web, with consistent language. It is different from writing for print. Short, concise and possible to consume in a few minutes should be the goal for most of what is produced. But make sure of a good mix, with some content that is shorter still and some that is longer. As a principle, use the same language across the whole site to create a consistent experience.
• Update regularly with new content. Search engines love it and so do your readers. But make sure content is published because it fills a need with the recipient, not because it is available. Put the focus on a solid publication plan that lets you have good lead time with valuable content, together with the ability to bring in current news in your field quickly.
• Consider putting some of your particularly valuable content behind a login (a user account). That can be filmed material or congress reports, for instance. A login is not necessary in Sweden, but is common in most other countries. An account makes it possible to identify visitors' preferences and follow their activity at a personal level. Something that can be used in your other sales and marketing activities. Today there are also other ways of following some of your customers on your sites if you do not choose a login procedure. This is through the use of cookies in contexts where the customers are identified, when sending email for instance.
• Offer a responsive site. Search engines punish sites that are not responsive with a lower search ranking. The visitors who use a tablet or a smartphone to visit your site probably punish you even harder, by leaving your site with a lower likelihood of returning.
• User-test and optimise the site. Run regular tests to secure an optimal layout, accessibility and usability. Could you link in a better way? How quickly do the pages load? Are all the images properly optimised? How well does our support work? Is it easy to get where you want to on the site? Interacting with your own site from a customer's point of view is often very revealing. What grade do you give yourselves?
• Promote your site in well-chosen channels and through digital marketing strategies. Examples can be:
• Search engine optimisation, SEO
• Search engine advertising, Adwords for instance
• Email marketing
• Advertising through banners and in print
• Customer-facing staff, sales, medical or market access for instance
• Use data from the flows of traffic on the site, the visitor statistics and the other measures presented above to identify what type of material you should create more of. "Outside-in" usually beats "inside-out".
• Communicate with the visitor. Your site gives you an incredible chance to get insight from the market and from your customer group, and you should ask your visitors at regular intervals what they want to see more of, what they find good on your site, or what would benefit from being improved. Statistics are valuable, but cannot give a complete picture. That is best reached through dialogue.

In a world where the noise only keeps growing, it is extremely important not just to create, run and maintain a website. Your site needs to be something quite special. In its looks, its content and its usefulness. It needs to be remarkable.

It takes a dedicated effort to succeed with the above, and at many companies it takes a large shift, an organisational digital transformation, before every colleague starts speaking the same language and has the same answer to the question of why these digital efforts and projects are needed.

In a digital world there is no longer room for silos. Cross-functional cooperation is the foundation, and clear leadership is required from people in senior positions in order to succeed.

Once your site has reached a level the company can be proud of in front of its customers, it should be the hub for every marketing activity, whether those are carried out online, in print or in physical meetings. That is an insight and a goal everyone at the company needs to share if the investment in a striking, valuable and remarkable site is to bear fruit.

In the next issue of Pharma Industry comes part three in this series, webinars. A channel that, handled well, offers great potential to reach the customer group and in the longer run to create a large and lasting value on your websites.

See you then.

Fredrik Holmboe

Digital strategist and consultant

fredrik@dualia.se

www.dualia.se