Executional Omnichannel: The 5 Key Players for Delivering a Seamless Patient Experience

The Five Key Players for Omnichannel Success
Here in Philadelphia, our 76ers are once again taking to the court in their quest for championship glory. ( Hope springs eternal.. !)  Like a championship basketball team, Executional Omnichannel requires the right mix of five highly skilled players:

1. Mature Martech Stack
A unified martech stack to ingest, analyze, and activate data across touchpoints. Open architectures allow adding emerging tools.

2. Excellent Data Hygiene 
Rigorous processes to maintain accurate, compliant, and integrated data across channels. Clean quality data connects experiences, and can be amplified with real-time intent signals.

3. Robust Metrics Tracking
Connect marketing and operational data to measure engagement, sentiments, and business impact across channels. Optimize based on cross-channel performance.

4. Aligned Human Resources
Change management is needed across teams to align on shared metrics, workflows, and omnichannel content strategies. Foster collaborative culture and effectively integrate agency partners.

5. Omnichannel Content Commitment 
Willingness to evolve content operations to create assets tailored for integrated cross-channel use. Commit to more personalized, reusable content, at scale – and deeply educate your regulatory teams in the omnichannel vision.

Getting these key players right unlocks the potential for game-changing omnichannel success!

How to Deliver a Winning Season?

Even after getting your five key players “onto the court” – it doesn’t necessarily mean you’re going to win! (Sixers fans know this all too well… ) As we head into the 2024 season, everyone agrees that the omnichannel challenge is critical – but what are the specific areas to focus on? We have consistently seen some major gaps across all of our clients – from small biotech startups to the largest pharma brands:

– Channel-specific content vs. integrated strategies

– Inconsistent messaging and offers  

– Limited cross-channel analytics  

– Misaligned channel-specific teams

– Privacy/compliance barriers to data connectivity

Orchestrating the Complete Omnichannel Journey
To address these critical gaps, “Executional Omnichannel” must be laser-focused on planning, delivering and measuring tailored engagement across the journey, not just on spending budgets on programmatic ads and/or low response eMail campaigns. Bulk programmatic buys combined with “pray and spray” eMail campaigns basically turns powerful digital ecosystems into little more than semi-efficient broadcast/impression platforms. 

Executional Omnichannel takes a different strategic approach by focusing on:

1. Holistic Audience Understanding
Teams need to build unified profiles combining attributes from all channels – demographics, interests, past interactions. Eliminate data silos.

2. Responding to Signals in Real-Time (The Where AND The When)
Real-time intent and behavioral triggers can be used to engage customers anywhere along their journey with relevant content or outreach. Meet customers where they are at the moments when they are fully engaged. Determine not just which channels customers are using in, but when are they brand engaged?

3. Optimizing Based on Past Interactions  
If data and insights are truly integrated across the tech stack, then past engagements can inform future actions through cross-channel analytics. Recognize individuals and tailor next based actions based on a specific relationship and history, and whenever possible, infuse next best actions with real-time intent intelligence.

4. Maintaining Relevance Across Channels
Executional Omnichannel is about delivering messaging that feels cohesive. Touchpoints need to be moments of engagement that continue conversations, rather than simply broadcasting the same non-differentiated messages over and over and over again.

The Potential Role of AI
It’s still “early days” but emerging generative AI has the potential to transform omnichannel content creation and further fuel the success of Executional Omnichannel. Tools like ChatGPT can generate personalized content aligned to audience needs, channels, and past interactions. AI can maintain message consistency at scale. Obviously, brands and regulatory teams need robust human oversight for quality and branding, but AI promises major efficiency gains.

The Future of Pharma Omnichannel 
There’s no way around it – today’s patients and HCPs expect continuously aligned interactions that add value across their entire online journey. Brands embracing and executing on omnichannel excellence will gain a clear competitive advantage. By focusing on Executional Omnichannel, pharma brands can start and maintain lasting online relationships, at scale! 

As we’ve seen, this strategy requires a deep commitment to unifying data, teams, and technologies across the entire ecosystem. But for teams willing to put in the work and assemble the right players, and focusing on critical executional areas, championship level results are just around the corner!