Are We Overcomplicating Omnichannel?

About two years ago, I decided to lose some weight and start exercising. To that end, I went online and started researching HOW to lose weight and HOW to exercise. I was overwhelmed with the volume of information available on these topics and thus started going down these rabbit holes of doing hours of researching and reading to come up with my perfect plan. What I was not doing was putting in any hours as it related to losing weight and exercising…I was WAY OVERCOMPLICATING it, and I finally came to the place where I just started walking and eating less…it was not rocket science, and getting started was the key.

I feel like we are doing the same thing in the Bio/Pharma industry with Omnichannel marketing. We are WAY OVERCOMPLICATING it, and we end up not doing anything.

Many of my customers are in one of these situations:

• Senior leadership at larger companies are mapping out a strategy they will ultimately roll out to the rest of the company. As a Brand Leader, the challenge is that you have been patiently waiting for this direction for two years.
• Senior leadership at smaller/mid-sized companies do not have the bandwidth to put an omnichannel plan in place and roll it out to the organization. Thus, you have no direction and don’t know what to do or where to start with omnichannel.

To that end, Brand Leaders are:

• Waiting for their Omnichannel Plan to be provided to them by senior leadership.
• They try to develop a plan on their own and perhaps get caught up in hours of researching and reading and feeling stuck.

Below is the equivalent of “just start walking and eating less” to begin an omnichannel journey as a Brand Leader.

Defining Omnichannel

An easy-to-digest definition of Omnichannel is:

A data-driven, unified customer experience across channels.

At the highest level, you want to use every source of data that could exist, from transaction data to engagement data, to understand your customers at an individual level better. This can be data that your organization has or that you obtain from a partner.

Best Practice:

• ASK your organization and your partners what type of data they have on your targets.

If you use this data/insights properly, you can begin to create a seamless experience across channels, which enables a more personalized and precise engagement with each HCP.

Speaking of creating a seamless experience across channels, I often get the question, “How many channels make it omnichannel?”

• Think about omnichannel as a philosophy for organizing your go-to-market differently by being more data-driven and more able to be coordinated.
• While delivering seamless messaging across many channels is a good idea in theory, Brand Leaders can overcomplicate this aspect of omnichannel.
• So, whether you are able to deliver messaging in one, two or five channels, to make the practice of omnichannel more approachable/less complicated and in keeping with our fitness theme, we recommend you adopt the Crawl, Walk, Run approach to begin your omnichannel journey.

First, Crawl.

• Leverage your data/your partners’ data to be more precise and personalized with your HCP engagements.
• This data can help you know what your HCP targets prefer, what they open, who they learn from, and where to find them.
• This makes your marketing more effective from the start.

Next, Walk.

• Next, you want to create a unified experience across channels by sequencing your outreach and layering it across different channels.
• To drive efficiencies at scale, you can create scalable content in different formats, mostly repurposed from approved brand content.
• This creates a more personalized and memorable customer experience.
• You should also consider using trigger engagements (EHR, Search Intent, Behavior-based triggers, etc.) in other channels when you see the desired HCP engagement.

Finally, Run.

• This is where you can optimize the experience by taking what you’ve learned to date and improving campaign performance.
• Make sure you have clear Data Use Agreements in place with your partners so that you can leverage the Physician-Level Data (PLD) and other important insights to fuel seamless next-best actions.

In summary:

• Even if it is hard to envision how you might Walk or Run, you should still start Crawling.
• Use your data to be more precise and personalized. Essentially, whether you work in one channel, or many channels, you want to think about using data to be more precise and personalized to create a unified brand experience…this is your omnichannel mentality.
• Ask for a point of view from your partners on how a recommended channel can and should coordinate with your ecosystem.
• Ask for a metrics report and recommendations for optimization.

When you have success in the Crawling, it is easier to get other stakeholders to sign up for Walking and Running!