Bristol Myers Squibb and GSK: How to Integrate HCP Events into an Omnichannel Journey

Pharma Event Management Tips from Bristol Myers Squibb and GlaxoSmithKline

Events are increasingly important for building and maintaining connections with HCPs. A Forrester study found 72% of pharma marketers regard events as the best way to nurture deep customer relationships. As our industry becomes more global, an HCP engagement strategy may vary to accommodate market preferences.

Executing and managing customized live, virtual, and hybrid pharma events requires insights into HCP preferences across markets, and additional compliance measures to adhere to varying country regulations. Using disconnected systems and processes to manage these pharma events makes customization more challenging. It also raises the risk of non-compliance. Moreover, it hampers biopharma companies’ ability to collect meaningful insights from their events—insights that fuel omnichannel marketing strategies and medical science liaison (MSL) activities.

How can pharma better access the goldmine of HCP behavior data from pharma events? Experts at Bristol Myers Squibb and GlaxoSmithKline (GSK) suggest integrating events into a more holistic engagement strategy and then managing these events through an integrated, compliant platform.

Three Steps to Successful Pharma Event Management from Bristol Myers Squibb

Events are a mainstay for pharma-HCP engagement for good reason. They provide a platform for education, connection, and ideally, engaging new customers. As Jo Cowler, Bristol Myers Squibb vice president for worldwide HCP engagements, events and meetings, explains, a successful event strategy requires clarity across the following areas:

• A clear why. This rationale should guide the scientific content and underlying message.
• A defined target audience. A defined target audience also guides the message, content, and event type.
• An appropriate channel. Determine the event type that will deliver the message with the most impact. A recent poll found about 67% of HCPs preferred in-person or hybrid meetings.

With those pieces in place, the challenge lies in customizing the message to suit a diverse HCP audience.

“What HCPs want differs across the globe,” said Cowler. “Some HCPs have a strong scientific content desire. In other countries, they want to interact with other physicians. The key is to provide value for all these groups while delivering the impact you want as a business.”

Dave Yates, director of global product management for GSK, says those meetings must offer more than a lecture.

“They want an interactive learning environment,” he said. “They want case studies and breakout groups, live Q&A, word clouds, and live polls. They want features enabling them to participate in the sessions, hopefully driving retention.”

How to Gain Insights While Maintaining Compliance from GSK

An event audience that includes HCPs from around the world is beneficial for knowledge-sharing, which helps advance scientific innovation and patient care. However, pharma event managers must understand and cater to a diverse set of preferences when planning events. They must also comply with changing regulations in each market.

To give HCPs across markets their preferred content in their preferred format, GSK implemented Veeva CRM Events Management—a single, global events management solution. The company developed a core module for event delivery while allowing for local customization. This flexible approach enables GSK to deliver compliant content while obtaining more relevant metrics.

“We can analyze events by markets, event types, spend, attendance, and other metrics,” he said. That data is more visible and comparable than when each market had its own bespoke legacy system.”

GSK also feeds HCP engagement data from virtual events into the CRM. Marketers can then pass along information on the most engaged HCPs to field teams and MSLs.

With a complete customer picture across events, the CRM enables end-to-end transparency, facilitating global compliance. Using disconnected systems wastes valuable resources due to multiple hand-offs and difficult analysis and introduces risks of non-compliance. Without a way to evaluate interactions to calculate the accurate total transfer of value, companies risk violating reporting requirements and other regulations.

However, pharma events are one piece within a broader HCP engagement strategy. With a unified view of all engagement activities, pharma brands see the overall impact of their messaging and can fine-tune along the way.

Insights ranging from how often someone commented during a virtual event early to whether they requested additional information can tie back to an individual HCP. This granular data helps commercial teams personalize the next interaction, improving the omnichannel customer journey.

“Measuring and analyzing lack of attendee engagement is also vital for event management success,” added Cowler. “Why did that person switch off? What went wrong there? What didn’t we meet? It’s not about return on investment for us; it’s about return on the objectives.”

Bristol Myers Squibb and GSK: Tips for Future Growth – Maintaining Privacy and Consistency

As pharma marketers work to gain more relevant insights from HCP data, they must do so with respect to GDPR and other privacy rules. Those attendee engagement metrics may have to remain anonymous depending on the market.

Yates said GSK uses Veeva Approved Emails to send messages that link to event registration pages. The company also ensure its events management platforms provide personalized URLs for attendees. With that information connected within Veeva Events Management, GSK can distribute anonymized follow-up surveys to collect event feedback.

Looking ahead, Yates said the company is exploring ways to capture feedback from in-person meetings, such as QR codes scanned from the presentation screen. GSK is also considering developing a weighted engagement score that would allow reps to cater to HCPs’ needs easily.

Streamlining processes internally is important for any successful omnichannel strategy. Cowler emphasizes the additional value of facilitating the HCP experience.

“Success for us is heavily based on automation or simplification of services and delivering a consistent experience,” she said. “When an HCP logs onto a Bristol Myers Squibb event, an advisory board program, or a congress, we want them to see a familiar screen and be able to find what they’re looking for easily. If they don’t have a good experience, they won’t return.”

A focused pharma events strategy becomes even more critical for optimal engagement as one-to-one HCP access becomes more limited. Whether in-person, hybrid, or virtual, events facilitate deep customer relationships.

“Events play a crucial role in omnichannel strategy,” said Cowler. “When you’re clear on what you want to deliver to each market and measure against that, you’ll have more success.”

Find out how to optimize pharma events at Veeva Commercial Summit, Europe, on 28-29 November 2023 in Madrid.