Reprints provide independent and objective evidence to substantiate your marketing messages, and you can use them to achieve any of your marketing campaign’s goals.
Electronic communications offer new avenues for informing providers about the best therapeutic options for their patients, especially as field sales forces face an increasing number of impediments to accessing healthcare professionals (HCPs) in person. Pharma marketers face pressure to retain and grow their market share even as their sales force shrinks and HCPs turn to digital sources for clinical information. Journal article reprints and ePrints, which are digitized copies of journal articles, are the perfect solution to these dilemmas, offering disinterested, evidence-based data and discussion about a product or device without requiring an in-person meeting.
According to Kantar Media, 98% of physicians read medical journals in some print or digital capacity, so it’s no surprise that 77% of physicians are receptive to reprints during rep visits.* And for those elusive HCPs who cannot or will not meet with sales reps, ePrints distribute the same content in an electronic format, obviating the need for an in-person meeting. ePrints are equally useful for physicians who still prefer in-person meetings, as you can display them on tablets and other digital devices to review and discuss a particular article. Reps can then email the article to the HCP after their meeting. Whatever the situation, reprints represent a versatile and strategic marketing tool in the new pharma marketing landscape.
Reprints are versatile
Pharma marketers devote substantial effort to crafting omni-channel campaigns, and reprints are an effective tool for every marketing channel. Reprints can be brought to office visits and conferences, while ePrints can be embedded into digital and email campaigns. Marketers can monitor how HCPs are engaging with ePrints, allowing them to determine what types of information resonate most strongly with prescribers.
How to use reprints and eprints in your marketing
Face-to-face meetings: Reprints are ideal for sales reps who have face-to-face meetings with HCPs. Physicians read them after meetings, save them for future reference, and share them with colleagues, increasing the likelihood that they will consider a particular product when evaluating therapies for their patients. These hard copies provide hard evidence of efficacy—they literally put the evidence supporting your product’s effectiveness into the hands of prescribers.
Tablet detailing: Tablet detailing enables reps to communicate sales messages in compelling and engaging new ways by integrating video, interactive elements, and other multimedia assets into their presentations. Once reps have a prescriber’s attention, ePrints can be displayed alongside marketing messages to corroborate a product’s selling points. Reps can then follow up by sharing ePrints via email.
Conferences and meetings: Bringing reprints to conferences and meetings is another great way to spread the word about a product to a wide audience of physicians who are actively seeking information about new treatments and medications. Professionals attending meetings and educational events are in learning mode: They attend conferences specifically to stay informed and talk to their peers about current practices and new developments. In fact, 70% of physicians attend conferences to learn about new products, treatments, and procedures. * Conferences are also an ideal venue for eye-catching digital and interactive displays into which marketers can integrate ePrints, in addition to offering reprints that g physicians can take home.
Email: Sales reps can send reprints to physicians via email after they've made initial contact. A follow-up email can also serve to remind a physician about a product, reinforce its benefits, and allow prescribers to spend more time with the data at their convenience.
Display advertising: Display advertising allows you serve ePrint ads to physicians where they most often consume clinical content: on journal websites and in journal-branded email marketing. ePrints can be embedded into banner ads on journal websites, eTOCs, and eNewsletters. Marketers also can link to ePrints directly from their product’s website, which gives prescribers easy access to key clinical evidence when they’re actively researching treatment options.
Show the evidence behind your treatment
For pharma marketers, it’s a time of scarce resources, a dizzying array of digital advertising choices, and new venues for contacting and engaging with prescribers. Journal reprints and their digital counterparts are incredibly versatile sales collateral: They support sales reps during face-to-face meetings, at conferences, and online, substantiating a product’s efficacy with scientific, peer-reviewed research that physicians need to see to believe. Wolters Kluwer offers sundry formats and opportunities for reprints in every specialty and distributes your article to your target prescriber.
*Kantar Media: December 2017 Medical/Surgical Readership Study