Opinion

Relationship marketing is exactly what is sounds like. Its marketing that involves an ongoing relationship between customer and company. Relationship is of course the key word, but often times, its really just a one-way communication:company to consumer. Thats going to have to change.  A few trends in pharma and healthcare are going to make this happen whether we like it or not. Understanding these trends is going to be critical if your relationship marketing program is going to bring value to customers or be piled in with the rest of the spam out there.

Here are six emerging trends that every pharma and healthcare company needs to consider not just in regards to their relationship marketing programs, but in all their marketing efforts.

• Healthcare Information 24/7  The information that consumers will have access to and will use to make decisions will continue to increase in volume and availability.


• Consumers As Physicians With the staggering increase in bloggers, user-generated media (such as YouTube), and social networking, end users are creating and controlling more and more of the content available online.


• Internet = Trusted Source All other forms of media already fall behind the Internet as a source for healthcare information for most Americans.


• Its Their Data, Not Yours In the future, consumers will have more control of their healthcare records and history.


• Healthy Social Networking Because of the sheer number of people utilizing the Internet, it is possible to find people who share the same experiences as you.


• Constant Contact, Constant Care Some technologies to monitor patients health, now in early development, which still are largely cumbersome and not embraced by the public, will become more widespread.

If you want more information on each of these trends, then you can download my full white paper on this topic: The Future of Healthcare Relationship Marketing  (256 downloads)

Stay tuned for a presentation on this topic coming soon.

Jonathan is Director of Business Development for Bridge Worldwide, a leading digital and relationship marketing agency, and regularly writes about pharma marketing on his blog Dose of Digital. Feel free to send him a tweet to @jonmrich.