Healthcare communications agency Virgo Health hosted a healthcare marketing event last week, revealing how pharma can tap into the potential of influencer marketing.
Held at Virgo and Golin’s head offices in London, UK, the event consisted of a diverse panel including John Wahba, a medical advisor at German pharma group Bayer, Steve Gray, managing director at Compliance hub and social media influencer Hayley Hall .
The discussion zeroed in on the challenges of navigating through the highly regulated, risk-averse pharma environment to create successful influencer campaigns.
Chairing the event was Virgo Health’s director Beth Whitworth, who believes influencer marketing is fast becoming a key component of campaigns across many industries, but when it comes to healthcare, the potential is still very much untapped.
She said: “As patients are increasingly at the centre of campaigns, it seems like a natural next step for healthcare communications. However, due to the complexities of compliance, there’s an understandable nervousness amongst pharmaceutical companies.
“We brought together a panel of experts to share their advice and experiences with representatives across brand and communications teams so we could better understand how pharma can successfully and compliantly collaborate with social media influencers to deliver messages to patients, the public and healthcare professionals.”
The term influencer marketing refers to a strategy to sway the opinion of a desired audience, and some pharma companies, including Janssen, are already engaging with influencers.
Whitworth adds: “We were delighted with how successful the event was. As influencer marketing is still so new for pharma, I don’t expect it to explode overnight, nor would I want it to. But by starting small, for example collaborating with one trusted social media influencer and working closely with internal stakeholders to bring them along on the journey, you can test success, learn from mistakes and refine the process before scaling up.”
Also on the panel was Virgo’s own digital creative strategy lead Nicole Burns and Golin’s Jonny Bentwood, Global Head of Data & Analytics.
Burns adds: “It was great to see so many pharma marketers with an interest in newer, more innovative kinds of communications. We hope this event has inspired a whole wave of compliance friendly messaging and relationships with pharma/healthcare and the influencers that can help perpetuate their messaging.”