Accelerate Digital Marketing in the Pharmaceutical Industry

7 reasons pharmaceutical companies are diversifying and investing heavily in digital marketing

Daewon Pharmaceutical introduces ‘Detox’, a medical information platform for health care professionals

More than half of Korean pharmaceutical companies’ medical information platforms open after COVID-19

Daewoong Pharmaceutical’s “Doctorville” academic event attracts 44,000 medical staff

Hanmi Pharmaceutical Promotes Metabus Application to HMP … Digital marketing competition is fierce

The flow of digital marketing in the pharmaceutical industry

The pharmaceutical industry is further strengthening digital marketing even though the situation of the new coronavirus infection (COVID-19) in Korea is heading toward endemic (the endemic disease of infectious diseases). Although many companies have already resumed face-to-face sales and marketing, it is read as an intention to actively utilize their online platform as non-face-to-face marketing methods have taken root in the wake of COVID-19.

Online marketing is characterized by not only cost, time, but also distance. As all purchases are resolved through computers or smartphones, users’ preferences are increasing. Companies are also prioritizing investment in the mobile sector. Beyond why we should do online marketing, we are thinking about how to do it. It is a natural landscape in the era of digital-friendly consumption. The same is true of pharmaceutical companies.

Daewon Pharmaceutical recently introduced a new medical information exchange platform “Detox” for health and medical experts in line with the trend of digital marketing.

Detox, which means communication and conversation with Daewon (D), is a digital platform designed to easily and quickly share meaningful knowledge and information to health and medical experts. It also means “DETOX” through communication.

It can be accessed with various devices such as PCs and smartphones, and consists of menus such as web symposiums, HOT-CLIP, e-DETAIL, and academic information. It not only provides real-time lectures on various topics, including the latest knowledge of famous domestic instructors, but also provides the latest pharmaceutical trends, disease information, issues, and video contents at home and abroad.

In commemoration of the opening of Detox, Daewon Pharmaceutical will hold a web symposium under the title of “2022 Daewon Agora Week” for five days quarterly this year. The Daewon Agora Week Web Symposium will hold lectures on respiratory, circulatory, musculoskeletal, digestive, and psychiatric subjects from Monday to Friday, respectively.

Currently, there are eight domestic pharmaceutical companies that open medical information platform sites and conduct digital marketing, including Daewon Pharmaceutical, #Hanmi Pharmaceutical (HMP), #Daewoong Pharmaceutical (Dr.ville), #Dongdong Pharmaceutical (Hudadak), #Yuhan Corporation (YuMedi), #Jonggeundang (Medi), and #Boryeong Pharmaceutical (Bridge). Among them, more than half of them, including Ildong Pharmaceutical, Yuhan Corporation, Chong Kun Dang, Boryeong Pharmaceutical, and Daewon Pharmaceutical, opened related sites after the COVID-19 situation in Korea began.

These pharmaceutical companies, which operate medical information platforms, are fiercely competing for marketing online by further strengthening related sites as the importance of non-face-to-face marketing has grown due to the prolonged COVID-19.

At the end of last year, Dong-A ST refurbished Showtime, a medical information site that was previously operated, and newly introduced it under the name of “Mediplex.” As academic events such as offline seminars were suspended due to COVID-19, the contents that were centered on products were composed of information on pure diseases, video contents related to medical knowledge, webinars, and web symposiums.

Ildong Pharmaceutical launched an additional healthcare platform for pharmacists in March, following “Hudak Health” for the general public and “Hudak Doctor” for medical personnel. It is a stepping stone to strengthen the communication infrastructure by providing a virtual space that allows multi-faceted communication between the three parties, including pharmacists, patients, doctors, and pharmacists.

Boryeong Pharmaceutical signed a business agreement with K-DOC, a medical platform, at the end of last year to strengthen bridge’s online content. K-Dak is a medical platform that provides various contents for medical personnel who wish to enter overseas markets, and Boryeong Pharmaceutical will be able to jointly broadcast K-Dak’s various online lectures through the agreement.

The reason why domestic pharmaceutical companies are introducing and strengthening medical information platform sites one after another is that the number of medical personnel who prefer non-face-to-face seminars and marketing has increased significantly.

In fact, Daewoong Pharmaceutical held the “Daewoong Medical Festival” (DMF) through its medical information platform, Doctor Bill, for five days from February 14 to 18 this year, and as many as 44,000 medical staff attended the academic event. It is a crowd of people that is difficult to expect at offline events held by individual pharmaceutical companies. This is why domestic pharmaceutical companies are further strengthening their medical information platform even when the COVID-19 Endemic is close.

Recently, pharmaceutical companies have even emerged to apply “metabus” to their medical information platforms. It is Hanmi Pharmaceutical. Hanmi Healthcare, an affiliate of Hanmi Pharmaceutical Group, signed a business agreement with Com2bus, a metaverse company, earlier this month.

Metabus refers to a virtual world that partially or completely replaces the real world. Based on Com2bus’ metaverse platform, Hanmi Healthcare plans to find a business model to expand various healthcare businesses currently underway, such as pharmaceutical businesses, into a three-dimensional virtual world, as well as apply the platform to its HMP platform.

An industry official said, “Currently, in the industry, offline and online sales and marketing have become a trend,” adding, “As digital marketing methods have already been established, online marketing competition among pharmaceutical companies will continue even if COVID-19 enters an endemic.”