My First Day: ePharma Summit 2012

My first day at Klick began in early February, at 6am, arriving at Toronto’s Pearson Airport. I lined up for customs, drank a very large coffee, and prepared for day one of the 2012 ePharma Summit in New York.

As first days go, starting in the airport was definitely a good sign, as was attending an event that offered a great update on the state of digital marketing in pharma. While the high points of day one were covered in a previous Klick Health blog post, I think there’s some value in sharing my impressions on the event, and what I learned on my first day not-quite-in-the-office:

• A ‘trend’ can mean many different things: A general consumer trend isn’t as important as a trend for HCPs or ePatients. Given how often we hear about tablets taking off, it’s great to have an off-the-cuff conversation about increasing interest in purchasing iPads, in one of our target markets.

• In communications technology, new isn’t as important as trusted: Email Marketing was a very high value topic at ePharma. While this is a very evolved digital communications medium, it’s important to remember that it has a very high adoption rate (who do you know without an email address?), and very strong performance in most categories – why go full steam ahead starting a Pinterest board, when there’s still significant digital low hanging fruit? And there’s still an innovation play, as 40% of mobile usage is email related.

• Statistics can be misleading, even if well-meaning: In one survey, 35% of physicians surveyed indicated they used Google+ for professional reasons. Given the currently available data on Google+, I have to assume that many respondents assumed the question was about Google’s search engine. Without a clear look at the methodology or question asked, it’s important to remain skeptical, and second guess information that doesn’t align with existing data.

• Simple is still better than flashy: With all that we can do in digital marketing, it’s at times difficult to remember that not everything needs to be a rich media experience. Despite the result being less visually interesting, half of doctors prefer a plaintext email to an HTML version.

While I didn’t get to attend the remainder of the conference due to other commitments, it was in many ways the perfect start to my time at Klick Health. A ton of exposure to great ideas, new information, sharp minds, and good people.