Content Marketing: Why Pharma Needs it

In an attempt to understand and unlock the opportunities presented by Content Marketing within the pharmaceutical industry, Radhika Jindal, Community Manager at Pharma Logistics IQ, interviewed Karim Binon, Digital Marketing Manager at Oceasoft for his insights and experiences.

Karim specialises in digital communication strategy at Oceasoft, a leading provider of high-quality temperature monitoring solutions based in Montpellier, France.

Radhika Jindal (RJ): Why is content marketing important for your marketing strategy? What do you hope to achieve?

Karim Binon (KB): Modern marketers need to adapt to the evolution of customers & prospects needs and behaviour. Traditional advertising, aka outbound marketing, is getting less and less efficient. Today, most people are used to educate themselves before making any purchase. They read studies, compare solutions, look for accurate answers to their questions. Consumers, in both B2C and B2B markets, want high-quality content that helps them make the right decision.

As OCEASOFT's Digital Marketing Manager, my goal is to build a complete content marketing strategy that addresses our audience at each stage of what Inbound specialists call “the buyer’s journey”.


RJ: That's very interesting! What are the opportunities do you see with the Buyer's Journey?

KB: Let’ first have a quick reminder of the three main stages of the buyer’s journey:

• Awareness
• Consideration
• Decision

By offering our audience content related to each of those stages, we increase the number of entries in the buying funnel. We also make sure the discussion we engage in with our prospects is based on an accurate identification of their needs.

A strong online content marketing strategy is also the key for SEO. Google’s algorithm keeps on evolving to better promote web pages with high-quality content. When I perform training related to SEO for any colleague or client, the very first sentence I write on the whiteboard is “Content is king!” 


RJ: What kind of content do you think rules digital marketing within pharma?

KB: Videos!

According to the latest studies, video will claim more than 80% of all web traffic by 2019. Add videos to your emails or to your landing pages and you’ll see your conversion and click-through rates literally explode.


RJ: What success have you seen with using videos?

KB: Our webinars are real hits! People – prospects and customers – love that format. It helps them understand the market’s trends, issues, and challenges, while also providing information about the kind of solutions we offer to help them improve their cold chain monitoring.

Oceasoft's webinars:

Simpler, faster, less expensive – yet compliant: how IoT is shaking up cold chain management

How the Cloud helps aggregate data gathered by both mobile and stationary monitoring sensors

Cold chain logistics: how IoT helps match monitoring tools to your shipment types

RJ: I completely agree, we have seen the same engagement with webinars within our community! That being said, how well developed is content marketing within pharma? Is the market well educated?

KB: In comparison with other sectors, the pharmaceutical market is fortunate to already rely on a long tradition of rich and high-quality content. Scientific and technological publications are not lacking. And the interest for these, for educational purposes, has always been present.

This should allow a fast and efficient development of the content marketing in the pharma industry.


RJ: Do you have any tips or golden rules for others in the industry?

KB: Yes, use videos!

Do not be afraid of long-form content. According to studies, the average word count of Google first page result is more than 1,800 words.

"By identifying and correcting our SEO issues, we almost doubled organic traffic in less than 10 weeks"

Use videos!

While short articles were the rules during the first ages of the web, it is not the case anymore. Scrolling has become a habit thanks to the use of smartphones. People are not afraid anymore to read long studies or analysis on their large desktop screens, on their tablets or even on their smartphones.

Oh – and use videos!


RJ: And are there any key pitfalls others should be looking out for? 

KB: We have already talked about the close link between content marketing and SEO. But posting great content on a website that is technically not optimized is like riding a Harley Davidson equipped with a scooter’s engine. It won’t go very long…and not very fast!

I regularly perform punctual missions as a Digital Marketing consultant. In one of them, I have been asked to improve the traffic on a blog, owned by a biotech company, related to microbiotics. The blog’s content was already dense and highly qualitative, since it was written by specialized doctors. But it suffered from severe technical issues that harmed its SEO. By identifying and correcting those issues, we almost doubled the organic traffic in less than 10 weeks.  So there was plenty of fuel but the engine was not effective enough!


RJ: Lastly, how do you maximize investment?

KB: Every two or three months, we focus on a piece of Master Content. This is the basis of all the content we create during that period. Whether the Master Content is a webinar, a white paper or a study, the information we collect to create it is used to create several annex pieces of content: blog posts, case studies, infographics, and more.

A strong analytics strategy also give us insights on the most relevant and effective promotion channels.

Its clear that video marketing is key to Oceasoft's success with digital marketing and that webinars are the best format for lead generation and thought leadership. Having a strong content marketing strategy is essential to drive customer through the buyers journey, converting them from the awareness stage through to the point of purchase.

To find out how you can run your own content marketing campaign with Pharma IQ contact us here.