Reaching Doctors: The Art, the Science and the Blind Luck.

by Tony Davis

Dr Tony Davis

Tony is, amongst others, the founder and director of MEDSQUIRREL, an innovative cloud-based, platform technology company whose purpose is to uplift practitioners and companies in all sectors of the medical industry to improve healthcare in South Africa and beyond. He is also the founder and director of MEDIRATES - a company that consolidates the complexities of the Medical Aid tariff's in South Africa and presents a simple and inexpensive solution saving time and money for all.

He is the author of two upcoming books on Living your Life On Purpose, and Level Up - how to take your business to the next level and his main passions is helping high capacity individuals achieve their purpose in life. Giving people hope to live life to the full.

Getting an audience with a doctor isn’t what it used to be. Overeager gift-bearing Reps patiently sitting in waiting rooms beside the ill and afflicted is what Hollywood would lead us to believe is how pharmaceutical companies advertise their products to GPs, but this crude way of marketing medicine is rapidly being phased-out.

Doctors have a lot less time available these days and making time for a Rep to do a pitch falls to the bottom of their daily To Do Lists. Reaching doctors and creating awareness around the incredible benefits of your products is a challenge on many levels, but what if you could leverage evolving digital solutions and the sharing economy to do it all for you? Welcome to the rise of evolving online resources for doctors that can save them valuable time and help pharmaceutical companies get in front of doctors at just the right time, when they need your product most.

1. Where do they hang out?

Although Doctors are as diverse as any large group of people can be, long hours and running demanding practices will result in a tendency for most to spend less time socializing than the average person, and that includes doing so on social media. Therefore, opportunities for advertising to them on social media platforms may not be as effective as it might be with other segments of the population. This also contributes to the common-held belief that most doctors are tech-adverse. Up until recently doctors have not needed to be tech-savvy to be able to run a competitive practice. But this is not the case for much longer. The ideal situation is one that will allow you to share information about your product at the very moment that the doctor would have a use for it.

2. Overcoming Trust and Legal Issues.

Some of the challenges pharma companies face marketing their medical solutions, are the legal limitations they face communicating the benefits of their products to doctors while having to circumvent the rest of the population. It’s not easy getting a message to some people when they are surrounded by other people that you’re not supposed to be talking to. It would all be a lot simpler if you could give a direct message to just the correct audience.

Then there’s the challenges around overcoming the bad wrap created from past price-fixing scandals and the knee-jerk clampdowns being enforced by lawmakers globally, as a result. Fewer and fewer marketing options are being left available as these legal constraints tighten.

3. Slow to the Digital party.

In the past, there was no real need for doctors to be tech-savvy. Doctors could easily go for days without having to glance at a computer screen. This has changed. Now that their time has become so limited and their resources stretched, many are having to turn to technology to keep their practices running more lucratively. It seems crude, but truthfully, time really does translate into money for doctors. An efficient practice allows more satisfied patients in and out in a shorter period of time, which translates into more income for the practice. If doctors have an online platform open on their desks all day that will give them easy access to information at the click of a button that helps them speed up their effectiveness, they will have a definite advantage over other practices.

4. Eliminating the Competition.

In the event a doctor had an online platform open on their desk all day to help stream-line their practice, this platform would be the ideal place for pharmaceutical companies to market their products. In this case, doctors would be easy targets, so to speak and the companies would have a major competitive advantage over other companies with similar products. Imagine a doctor consulting a resource on the platform dealing with the latest findings on arthritis, and your arthritis symptom-relieving product begins to flash on the doctor’s screen. Your product will be the first that comes to mind.

5. Get Specific to Gain Targets.

It’s usually pointless to advertise apples to people looking to buy eggs. It’s even less effective advertising something to someone who doesn’t think they need anything at all. Letting doctors know about your exceptional pharmaceutical product is difficult, especially if you have to compete for airtime with hundreds of other products for thousands of different ailments. You need a process of elimination that will work in your favour. A type of online funnel that will take you to the right doctor, one that will want what it is that you have to offer.

Let’s have a conversation about how you can reach doctors.