European marketers are feeling the squeeze, with a combination of shrinking budgets, rising targets and tightening compliance requirements piling on the pressure, according to a survey.
M3, a medical communication company, surveyed 400 pharma marketers in the U.K., Germany, France and Switzerland to understand the current landscape. Around 90% of respondents said they have at least 12 areas of responsibility for budget allocation that they need to consider. Areas of responsibility include digital advertising, sales materials and content creation.
More than half of the respondents told M3 they need new marketing materials at least every two months. Consistency in tone and style, localization and translation, time constraints, quality control and scalability are the top content production challenges.
M3 cited research showing physicians typically want to see six different pieces of information before they prescribe a therapy for the first time to contextualize the need for marketers to pump out content. Doctors want to see efficacy and safety data, assessments of benefits and challenges versus the current treatments, prescribing information, details of the mode of action and more.
Knowing where—and where not—to place content is a challenge too. Half of the respondents told M3 the risk of channel overload is a key obstacle. Marketers have more options than ever but, M3 said, “need to walk a fine line between underutilization of digital sources and channel overload.”
More than 80% of marketers rely on market research to inform decision-making, according to the survey. M3’s survey found evaluations of field force performance, brand positioning, patient journey mapping and customer segmentation are the most common uses of market research.
Tim Russell, executive vice president of M3, said in a statement that “with shrinking budgets, higher expectations and a rapidly evolving digital landscape, pharma marketers are navigating a perfect storm.”