When addressing the unique needs of patients with rare diseases in the biopharmaceutical industry, the concept of “omnichannel” can feel daunting. It’s easy to confuse omnichannel with simply using multiple channels to deliver messages, but the two concepts are fundamentally different. Taking a customer-centric approach to omnichannel, ensuring every interaction is tailored to the needs of healthcare providers (HCPs) and patients alike is critical. Let’s explore how we define omnichannel, its benefits, and the barriers we see most often in the rare disease space.
Defining omnichannel
Omnichannel is not simply the use of multiple channels at the same time. While multi-channel marketing may use several platforms, each channel often operates independently, delivering siloed and sometimes disjointed messages. Omnichannel, on the other hand, seeks to orchestrate a seamless, cohesive, and more personalized customer experience across all channels. This is inclusive of both personal and digital engagements and even across multiple customer-facing functions within a biopharmaceutical company.
At its core, omnichannel means mapping out a customer’s journey through the channels with which they are likely to engage. Each step in this journey should serve as a building block, presenting information in new ways and formats to engage customers and help them learn and make decisions more effectively.
Creating an orchestrated, customer-centric experience requires every team within the organization to actively contribute. An omnichannel strategy is far more than just a “marketing” or “digital” initiative—it’s a comprehensive organizational effort. For instance, delivering a seamless experience may involve collaboration across medical affairs, HCP marketing, patient outreach, patient services, market access, corporate communications, and the field sales force. Each team brings a unique perspective and opportunity to contribute to a unified and impactful experience for both HCPs and patients.
Another key component of omnichannel strategy is segmentation. Rare disease patients, caregivers, and the HCPs who treat them have unique needs, expectations, and challenges. By leveraging data and insights, organizations can create tailored segments, allowing them to deliver personalized messages that resonate deeply with each group. This segmentation helps refine the customer journey, ensuring every interaction adds value and builds toward the desired outcomes.
Most importantly, omnichannel strategies should aim to deliver the best possible customer experience. For pharmaceutical organizations, achieving this means anticipating needs, personalizing interactions, and seamlessly orchestrating touchpoints—not just across channels but across every function engaging with customers.
Omnichannel strategies: Rare diseases vs. more common conditions
Implementing omnichannel strategies for rare diseases differ significantly from approaches used for more prevalent conditions like diabetes. Identifying and reaching these smaller patient populations can be challenging due to limited awareness and diagnostic complexities, and as such, necessitates a more personalized and precise approach.
In contrast, more common conditions with larger patient populations typically benefit from broader public awareness. allowing for more generalized messaging across various channels. However, for rare diseases, the focus must be on delivering highly targeted content that addresses the specific needs and concerns of patients, caregivers, and HCPs involved in their care.
The benefits of omnichannel
When executed effectively, omnichannel strategies offer tremendous benefits for pharmaceutical companies, particularly those addressing rare diseases:
- Customer-centricity: Omnichannel strategies create an improved customer experience by connecting channels and content in ways that are rooted in the needs of HCPs and patients. This approach fosters trust and deeper engagement. It also allows for a deep understanding of the customer journey, identifying pain points, needs, and opportunities. This ensures every touchpoint contributes to advancing the customer toward better outcomes.
- Segmentation and personalization: By identifying distinct customer segments, organizations can deliver relevant, personalized interactions that meet the specific needs of patients, caregivers, and HCPs.
- Data-driven insights: By tracking customer engagements and message exposure across touchpoints, organizations can continuously optimize their approach and continue personalizing even more deeply with each subsequent customer engagement.
- Efficiency: Delivering the right message, to the right person, at the right time ensures resources are used effectively and eliminates wasted effort on irrelevant or mistimed communications. Creating automated, personalized experiences at scale is possible with the right mindset and technology platforms.
The biggest barriers to omnichannel in pharma
Despite its clear advantages, implementing omnichannel strategies in the pharmaceutical space—especially for rare diseases—comes with its own set of challenges. Here are the most significant barriers we’ve observed:
- Cross-Functional understanding and funding: Omnichannel is an organizational effort, not just a marketing initiative. Achieving buy-in from multiple teams and securing adequate funding often proves challenging, particularly when budgets are fragmented, or priorities differ across departments.
- Operational challenges: Connecting platforms, integrating data, and building analytics capabilities remain significant hurdles. Adding new channels or tools can also create operational strain if systems aren’t seamlessly integrated.
- Bridging strategy and implementation: A well-defined omnichannel strategy is only as good as its execution. Many organizations struggle to translate high-level goals into actionable, scalable plans that teams can implement effectively.
- Privacy concerns: In rare disease contexts, maintaining patient confidentiality is crucial. The small patient populations mean that individuals can be more easily identifiable, necessitating stringent data protection measures to ensure compliance with privacy regulations.
Moving forward
For biopharmaceutical companies serving rare disease patients, omnichannel presents an opportunity to improve engagement, drive better outcomes, and create long-lasting relationships with HCPs and patients. By prioritizing the customer journey, leveraging segmentation to personalize interactions, and fostering cross-functional collaboration, organizations can develop strategies that deliver meaningful, measurable results. While the barriers to implementation are real, they are not insurmountable. By maintaining a clear focus on customer needs and aligning all internal functions, CG Life has successfully partnered with biopharmaceutical companies to harness the full power of omnichannel, transforming the way they serve rare disease communities.
Our team is ready to help you take the next steps. Reach out today and let us help you move your organization forward.
