Digital marketing is changing…again, and the marketing guys are going to have to work harder to stay abreast of how to help their clients best implement their digital strategy. We’ll need new UX skills and integrated channel understanding to deliver the ‘connected brand experience’ being driven by device proliferation.

To demonstrate the point, a few months  ago I joined LoveFilm, the online movie/games rental service. You create a list of titles you’d like to borrow and they ship them out to you as the titles become available.

I wasn’t expecting too much from the service, given my previous experiences of Blockbuster and Sky, though that was a number of years ago. Heck was I wrong.

My ability to create, manage and track my rentals via the desktop web, smartphone application and even my PS3, with the additional ability to stream select movies via desktop or PS3 surpassed my expectations of the service.

On top of this, timely and relevant email correspondence to keep me engaged, means that I have grown to really respect the marketing foundation for this business. The majority of preferred touch-points through which I wish to interact with LoveFilm are covered with considerable thought given to each.

Okay it’s missing a few tricks, e.g. a mobile web experience for non-app users and a native tablet environment, as well as leveraging relevant push notifications via other touch-points beyond email would assist the comms effort, but nevertheless a great overall marketing platform exists. LoveFilm is trying to keep the customer at the heart of it’s service and is succeeding.

So what is the relevance for pharma?

Pharma has gone multi-channel and ‘integrated’. Not new by any means, but   In pharma my observations have been that integrated, multi-channel really is the ability to send communications via a select number of channels with little appreciation of how those channels work seamlessly together.

Often no central CRM component exists to tie together the behaviour of it’s audience across channels to drive future outbound communications, and channel selection for marketing efforts is typically based on what has historically always been done.

In order to reshape the mould, we need to change our perception of a healthcare professional. We should assume that today’s HCP carries a smartphone, has a Facebook, Flickr and Twitter account, uses Skype, owns a tablet, watches YouTube, reads RSS content, downloads vodcasts, watches catch-up TV and will buy a smart TV (wi-fi enabled) and NFC enabled phone in 6 months time. By thinking about our customer in this way, and by challenging this new persona with data,  we can start to rethink our marketing challenge.

We should consistently be planning our communications strategy to offer a connected brand experience that has the customer at the heart of the marketing communication. My customer should be able to choose how they connect with my brand via their preferred channel.

How can we give our customers a great experience across these wonderful current and upcoming touch-point opportunities, recognising and informing  one another should I choose to interact with one channel, then switch to another. As a business, what does my operational platform need to look like to stay ahead of the rapid evolution taking place in the digital space? These are the questions and challenges that I hope I’ll be asked to assist clients with in the coming months  …