Two converging and consolidating trends – the amplification of the digital space (social media, messaging apps, microblogs, short video apps, and Q&A destinations such as Reddit and Quora) and patient-centred transformation – are driving largescale shifts in value creation in the pharmaceutical and biotech industry. As such, going digital and listening to the patient voice have become a part of the overall strategy of many large pharmaceuticals, but the industry can mobilize trust further by sustainably embedding these trends throughout its KOL engagement strategy in particular.
Why does KOL engagement need a rethink or any change of strategy at all? The conventional definition of a KOL envisions a healthcare professional, academic, or corporate leader whose influence stems from the fact that he or she speaks from a raised stand (e.g. through publications in high impact factor journals). But just as marketing departments across the board are adopting more participative approaches, with end user-led involvement and innovation front and center, pharma and biotech companies ought to broaden their vision and bring more patients into their KOL mix. This means reaching out to patients not only at the clinical trial stage but also during the marketing and post-launch phases of product development, and managing the new relationships sustainably rather than as one-off, “pop-up” campaigns.
Engaging patient opinion leaders (POLs) has immense value for reaching targeted therapy markets organically. It helps the universe of patients for whom a new treatment is developed feel spoken for and is both educational and empowering to them, since POLs are seen as experts in the management of a health condition. It is also good for business as it allows the industry´s end users to engage in authentic conversations with peers, exchange disease management tips and emotional support, and discuss the benefits of new medicinal products. This in turn adds a patient perspective to the clinical results-driven conversations propelled by traditional KOLs and helps rally engagement around the quality-of-life impacts of pharma innovation, treatments, and care regimens.
On the other hand, the shift towards digital spaces means that many outreach channels for the patient´s mind have moved online. Thus, beyond recruiting patients as opinion leaders, it is key for pharma and biotech companies to also map those among them who are digitally savvy and have a significant followership and influence on digital platforms. One marker of digital opinion leaders (DOLs) is sharing original content frequently and driving high engagement and response rates around it. Like KOLs, DOLs can be segmented by therapeutic area or country of interest and their online activities can be complemented by in-person events organized by the sponsoring company.
So what are effective strategies to strengthen engagement with both POLs and DOLs? It starts with having a clear view of desired metrics to assess the impact of these new categories of influencers, determining a small group of first contacts, and defining a pathway and milestones to implement the outreach in a manner that can be replicated. The last point is important since many promising POL and DOL initiatives have failed to scale due to their being implemented sporadically or as part of product launch campaigns rather than as part of an enterprise-wide engagement roadmap.
If your company is considering expanding its KOL identification efforts to include POLs and DOLs but is not sure where to start, PeakData can help. Building upon our established methodology for mapping KOLs using dispersed public data and automating bibliographic searches, we are expanding our own arsenal of tools to assist pharma and biotech companies with gaining new opinion leader allies. One such set of tools is our proprietary algorithms, which track activities generated by DOLs across social media and detect spikes of activity around topics of interest such as a health condition or a drug. The information is aggregated across multiple data sources and monitored in a longitudinal manner, such that a complete picture of emerging topics and trends can be observed in real time through a specially designed BI-like web platform.
If you would like to know more about how this methodology can give a competitive edge to your company, do not hesitate to get in touch with us – we are always happy to brainstorm creative solutions with and for our clients.
