Pharmaceuticals and Healthcare

The combination of direct-to-consumer advertising, the pharmacy and GP channels and the political issues surrounding rising healthcare costs makes the marketing of pharmaceutical and healthcare products or services a demanding exercise. Touchpoint can help streamline and simplify these tasks with their online and automated communication tools.

Marketing Applications

Compliance Programmes
A Touchpoint-managed compliance programme can help improve overall compliance by supporting the patient through the early or full stages of their medication regime. A typical programme can include:

• Promotion via pack, GP and pharmacy
• Sign-up via web, mobile or call centre
• A series of email or mobile txt messages to encourage, educate and remind consumers
• In some cases, a nominated support person can be included in the programme

Touchpoint enables you to implement all these components – including automated sign-up and execution. You can also receive realtime reports to measure response and feedback during the programme.

Pill Reminders and Prescription Alerts
Reminder programmes can play an important role in building new medication habits and reminding consumers of key events. Common examples include reminders for:

• Taking pills or other medication at specific times of the day
• Purchasing repeat medication from the pharmacy
• Visiting the GP to renew a prescription
• Contacting the GP for a scheduled check-up or follow-up vaccination

A Touchpoint reminder programme lets you:

• Set-up these reminder and alert programmes
• Provide consumers with the mechanisms to register and manage their own programme
• Deliver the reminders and alerts via email, mobile txt, fax, mail or telephone call (via a call centre)
• View overall reporting

Retention Programmes
Touchpoint lets you cost-effectively manage a retention programme that can be personalised to the individual and their stage within the prescription or product lifecycle. Features include:

• Automation of timed or triggered communications based on the stage and segment of the consumer
• Management of email or print newsletters
• Management of suitable reward programmes
• Surveys and other feedback elements

Customer Acquisition Programmes
A good deal of pharmaceutical advertising attempts to raise awareness for products that are not government subsidised or well known. Often, this type of advertising falls short of communicating the medication’s key benefits. Additionally, a large percentage of consumers will research health related issues on the internet, before or after hearing of these products through offline channels.

To maximise the return from your website or offline advertising, it’s imperative that you implement effective programmes to convert this initial response or interest into a deeper understanding of your product and the related health issues.

Touchpoint’s customer acquisition services let you create conversion programmes that leverage this initial interest into a richer communication:

• Convert initial response from a website or call centre into a request for further information
• Fulfil information via email or mail
• Automate follow-up communications via email over a 4-6 week period to further educate customers about your product issues related to their illness
• Send free GP vouchers as a follow-up to selected prospects
• Survey customers via email/web after 6-8 weeks to see if they have been to see their GP

Once set-up, these programmes run automatically and can be fed by various online and offline advertising campaigns. You can view reports that show:

• Where consumers are hearing about your products
• Feedback from surveys on what % of consumers are visiting GP’s
• Feedback from surveys on what % of consumers have taken up use of the products

Trackable Coupons
Free GP visit vouchers can encourage many patients to see their GP to learn more about your product. Touchpoint’s trackable coupons let you:

• Capture requests for these vouchers via the web or mobile
• Record key information about requesting consumers
• Distribute these vouchers via the web, email or direct mail
• Track the redemption of the vouchers back to the original consumer
• Send follow-up communications via email or mail
• Survey customers after they have visited the GP or started using product
• View summary reports that show a breakdown of:
• Consumers requesting vouchers
• Consumers redeeming vouchers
• Post GP/prescription survey responses

With non-prescription drugs, the same approach can be used with product coupons and pharmacies.