Is Your Healthcare Video Multitasking?

video-in-monitorHealthcare videos are a vital tool in pharmaceutical marketing. They are a great way to show your audience why you do what you do. But if they’re not seen by the right people, then you won’t have much success. Unfortunately, the strict regulations of the pharmaceutical healthcare industry can make distribution a challenge. Here are a few tools that will increase your reach while maintaining compliance.

 Email

Email is a great way to ensure that your healthcare video is getting to the right audience at the right time. Hopefully you’ve segmented your email list leveraging your multi-channel marketing data and analytics. As far as implementation goes, try not to embed your video in the HTML of your email. As we all know, not all web browsers are created equal and they will display (or NOT display) your email differently. Your best bet is to host the video online and provide a link. The best way to do this is with a clickable image. Images are more compelling. You don’t want to reduce your viewership with a weak call to action.

 Print

Interestingly, print is a very popular method of healthcare video distribution. Using a QR code, you can send your audience from a brochure to your video to your product website. If implemented properly, it’s a great way to bridge the gap between print and digital.

 Social Media

Contrary to what many believe, the pharmaceutical industry is using Social Media. And they are having success! In fact, the FDA just released draft guidance on the subject. While draft guidance is not official regulation, it does provide some insight into where the agency is headed.

Here’s a brief overview of what the FDA is suggesting:

  • The guidance covers all “real-time” communications and interactions. This includes blogs, microblogs (i.e., Twitter), social networking sites (i.e., Facebook), online communities and live podcasts.

  • A company is responsible for their own content and any content developed by any representative of the company, including employees and external agencies

  • If a company exerts any influence over the content or layout of a third party site, they are responsible to submit all content to the FDA. If they are only funding the site (i.e., through an educational grant), they are not responsible to submit the content.

For more information on the FDA’s guidance on Social Media, click here to see the FDA document.

 Accessibility

Of course, the most important way to ensure your video gets seen is to make it accessible to the people viewing it. That means one file that can be viewed in any browser. When Apple made the iphone and iPad incompatible with flash, it caused issues with videos not playing on those devices. HTML5 video players are an attempt to standardize video so it can be viewed with the same user experience on all devices. HTML5 video players correct inconsistencies across browsers while providing additional features like: full-screen viewing, subtitles, or social sharing.

 Closing Thoughts

An important component to a successful video campaign is not just reach, but reaching the right audience. If you are sending your video to 1 million viewers with no interest in your product, you’re not really winning any points. That’s why video should be used as part of a larger multi-channel marketing campaign. With QR codes, email, and social networks, you can reach the right audience through the right medium to really achieve the best ROI from your video.

Creative MediaWorks has decades of experience in multimedia web design, development, and video production. We specialize in healthcare and pharmaceutical marketing materials, including video production, pre-production planning, and post-production editing. If you have any questions about what you’ve just read or would like to learn more about our services, send us an email at info@creativemediaworks.com. Or give us a call at (800) 737-1123 to speak to our Multimedia manager about your next project. Click here to sign up for our weekly newsletter.