A Twitter Campaign Can Reach a Whole New Pharma Marketing Network Audience

Over the past year, I have noticed that Twitter has been used by more and more Pharma Marketing Network advertisers to promote their events, white papers, expertise, and even their products and services.

Many advertisers have their own Twitter accounts, but a few also take advantage of Pharma Marketing Network's Twitter account (@pharmaguy) to have "Pharmaguy" send out tweets on their behalf. DISCLOSURE: In case you didn't know, Pharmaguy is me, John Mack, Publisher of Pharma Marketing News. You can find an archive of Pharmaguy tweets here.

Factoid: The use of Twitter among the nation’s largest corporations has nearly doubled: 60% of companies listed on the 2010 Fortune 500 have a corporate Twitter account with at least one tweet issued in the previous 30 days, up from 35% who did so a year earlier, according to research from the University of Massachusetts at Dartmouth. Meanwhile, 56% of Fortune 500 companies have a Facebook profile.

Over 8,600 people follow Pharmaguy on Twitter as of May, 2011, and that number is growing rapidly. Pharmaguy now has MORE Twitter followers than there are subscribers to Pharma Marketing News (see chart below).

Over the years, the Pharma Marketing News subscriber audience has proven to be very receptive to messages from our advertising clients. I have previously published recommendations on how to improve the response to e-mail ads sent to PMN subscribers (see here and here).

The growing importance of Twitter, however, forces me to consider it as an equally-effective channel for reaching an entirely NEW Pharma Marketing Network audience; ie, Pharmaguy's Twitter followers. To learn more about this audience, every new Pharmaguy follower is asked to complete the Pharmaguy "Getting to Know You Twitter Survey." About 1,400 have complied and given valuable feedback about who they are and what they are interested in (see a detailed summary here).

One way I leverage Twitter is to include with every e-mail blast a tweet from "Pharmaguy" that links directly to a Web page version of the e-mail blast message. Here's an example of such a tweet:

"Fraud & Abuse in Pharmaceutical Sales & Marketing: Current laws & tips on compliance. 30% discount on CD purchase. http://conta.cc/aDBQhz"

Note that at the top of the ad page are several social media "sharing" buttons that make every Pharma Marketing News e-mail blast social media enabled!

A single tweet, however, is fleeting; the vast majority of Pharmaguy followers may never see it. What's better is to have a Twitter "campaign," which is INDEPENDENT of the e-mail ad and links DIRECTLY to the "call to action page." In the above example, the Twitter links to the ad, which links to a registration page for ordering a CD. An independent Twitter Campaign may include SEVERAL tweets that link directly to the registration page.

The typical Pharmaguy Twitter Campaign includes 6  tweets sent on different days/times to Pharmaguy's followers. Each tweet is uniquely worded as in the following example (this campaign is not related to the CD offer above):

Check out the aggregate results of the ePrints Medical Marketing Survey commissioned by Reprints Desk: http://goo.gl/tb94 [Sent 25-Oct, 10:30 AM]

Top 2 uses for eReprints 4 physicians according to ReprintsDesk survey are Websites & portals; slide 5: http://goo.gl/tb94 #epharma [Sent 27-Oct, 10:30 AM]

Multiple contact pts., diff licensing T&Cs r top probs in use of clinical eReprints by pharma says ReprintsDesk survey: http://goo.gl/tb94 [Sent 28-Oct, 10:30 AM]

Good Promotional Practices Alliance (GPPa) is sponsored & managed by Prolifiq Software and Reprints Desk. #gppnews http://goo.gl/X3kO [Sent 28-Oct, 1:45 PM]

#FF @GPPnews For best pharma collaborative practice 4 sales, marketing & reg compliance. Also C http://goo.gl/X3kO [Sent 29-Oct, 9:45 AM]

Visit Good Promotional Practices Alliance forum 4 resources re balanced approach to sales, marketing & compliance. http://bit.ly/dkE10C [Sent 3-Nov, 10:30 AM]

Note the use of hash tags and short, trackable URLs. This helps us track how well the campaign has done (more on that in another post to this blog).

I recommend that you consider adding a Pharmaguy Twitter Campaign to your Pharma Marketing Network promotional mix. Here are a few reasons why:

• The majority (62%)  of Pharmaguy's followers are pharma marketing professionals working within a pharmaceutical company or a pharmaceutical marketing agency or consultancy. These are people you want to reach.
• About half of them are looking for "new ideas" for drug marketing; ie, just the sort of information you may have.
• Only 24% of Pharmaguy's Twitter followers are subscribers to Pharma Marketing News, which means that at least 76% of them may not see e-mail ad supplements that are sent to subscribers.
• It's less expensive than an e-mail campaign, especially when you are considering sending more than one e-mail blast to Pharma Marketing News subscribers. It's even less expensive than a "repeat" e-mail blast.

If you are interested in learning more about ordering a Pharmaguy Twitter Campaign and pricing, please Request a Media Kit & Rate Card here.