Is Social Media making Customer Databases Irrelevant?

In the good old days every company and self-respecting salesman had a card index file of contacts.
Rolodex Ruled OK.

And nobody's, but nobody’s desk was complete without one. 

Did Pharma Sales Reps make Rolodex rich?

As the electronic database grew, the complexity of fields increased.

I remember my first database (run on Smart integrated software, Sigh...) A new field meant copying the entire database to a floppy disc, create a new field and then merge the data back in. 

More Sighs…..I loved that database. 

Now, I have an increasing numbers of people on my database stored in a 'catch-all' category called "Blogger" or "Freelancer". 

There are nearly 60 people who don't work for ‘an organisation’, I connect with regularly and they don’t fit into the data fields provided. 

Can the Pharma CRM ……………..

Can the Pharma CRM Chappies HELP?

A Series of Dilemmas

Dilemma: Should I create a fake organisation name (Blogger)?  

But, there’s no organisation called “Blogger” and they don't all work in the same organisation. 

Dilemma: What about the people with whom I correspond via Social Media?  

Yes, I know, it’s easy to add a field called "Twitter ID" or "Facebook Profile Link".  

Dilemma: What's the point? 

• I don’t want to mail/contact them in a mass mail-out
• I can contact them from inside the social media app any time I need without having to remember their data, just their name
• I can't contact them using links from inside my database (it only has an internal email function)
• The style of contact in Social Media doesn't encourage a mass mail-out approach – got the message?

Dilemma: Are the days of a single customer database aggregated from across the organisation dying? 

The CRM Challenge

During the past 10 years Pharmaco’s have spent millions creating and managing centralised databases.

There are ‘silos’ of data for, physicians, health organisations, patients etc but they grow out of date at an exponentially faster rate as records numbers increase.  What does that cost?

Welcome to the interim new world of a distributed contact database and aggregators to enable cross-platform viewing. 

Sounds complex?  

It isn’t if you understand how Social Media works using networks and nodes.

(Note: This is an interim measure as we move towards consumers holding their own personal healthcare information and organisations build trust in order to access it i.e. VRM which I mentioned last week).

So How Might it All Work?

Social Media has some key attributes that are very different from old-world Pharma marketing communications: 

• Sharing and discovery
• Real-time information
• Feedback and re-iteration

Now, these factors aren’t present in traditional marketing communications campaigns or with database marketing techniques, except for long timeframe programmes.

So, won’t we need to change the nature of our "campaigns"? 

And won’t the term become a misnomer?

Won’t ‘conversations’ become the norm?

There's a spectrum of information from broadcast (fixed point in time and not editable) to one-to-one conversations (infinitely editable, fast-moving and continuing over time).

Future campaigns may start in the broadcast mode but will need to move through the middle ground, where peer-to-peer conversations and social media sharing is the broadcast medium, and then move back to the organisation on an individual conversation basis as the moment of transaction gets closer.

New Rules - OK

Campaigns, based upon databases will be a "conversational stimulant" not just a marketing message. 

Arguably, the anatomy of a "conversational campaign" will comprise of:

• Time-co-ordinated: judged to be delivered, developed and amended in real time
• Some broadcast channels plus easy sharable content for Social Media
• On-the-fly improvements and changes as the peer-to-peer messaging happens
• Tracking and measuring must monitor broadcast, peer to peer and direct conversation with the brand
• The customer contact team (For example a Call Centre) will be part of the delivery team at the conversational end to close the marketing loop and fulfil the transaction

So does this leave unresolved Issues and Changing Behaviours? 

Unresolved issues and changing behaviours

For Example, how to:

• Segment audiences by behaviours not demographics? 
• Send messages to only parts of your Social Media profile?
• Get an overall view of audiences and conversations from a multiplicity of sites for your brand/organisation profile?
• Maintain your company database as its utility slowly dies?
• Just track numbers and not record them centrally until near the point of transaction?
• Anticipate the rise of customers controlling data and feeding it to brands and organisations based upon trust?

What Pharma might do NOW?

• Get a presence on Social Media platforms
• Sign up to an aggregation platform like Friendfeed
• Track changes in numbers of subscribers
• Run old campaigns with a SM link-in
• Run new campaigns on Social Media
• Practice good database marketing but track customers who are on both Social Media and old database – thereby giving clues to take-up 
• Stop buying data lists.

Pharma – OK?  Possibly?

(Tomorrow’s Blog: Thinking Pharma Thoughtware: Pharma Social Media – Trouble in the Playpen)