Pharma-to-physician social media and app marketing will soar by 2018: report

Pharma-to-physician social media and app marketing will soar by 2018: report. Pharma companies are shifting to social media and mobile apps to reach physicians. Pharma companies’ marketing communications to their target audience of healthcare providers are increasingly digital. What is changing, however, is the way pharma reaches doctors, according to an annual report from from healthcare and pharma solutions provider Indegene. The social media investment is already underway, which will power the expected usage jump, Urvi Mehta, strategic relationships manager at Indegene, told FiercePharma. While KOL webinar growth will be smaller at 8.8%, that channel was identified as the best return-on-investment generator by the more than 100 global pharma and life science companies that responded to the survey. Even among the rise in projected spending, seven out of 10 pharma companies noted that demonstrating ROI is the biggest barrier when implementing new communication strategies. U.S. pharma companies are second globally in digital spending, with 31% of companies spending more than 20% of their budgets on digital. By 2018, Indegene expects that to increase to 40% of companies. China leads with 33% of its pharma companies spending more than 20% on digital, and that figure is expected to rise to 50% by 2018.