Marketing during COVID-19: A guide for solution providers in pharma

Marketing during COVID-19:

A guide for solution providers
in pharma

Visit eyeforpharma.com
Visit eyeforpharma.com to learn moretonow
learn more now 1
Marketing during COVID-19: A guide for solution providers in pharma

Contents

About Reuters Events.........................................................................................................3

Marketing during COVID-19: A guide for soltuion providers in pharma.........................5
The Global Economy & COVID-19......................................................................................6
Pharma’s Reaction to COVID-19.........................................................................................8
Lessons Learned: How Crises Impact Marketing Investment (1930 to 2008)................10
Lessons Learned: Marketing for the Recovery................................................................14
No More Face-To-Face Marketing................................................................................14
Decision makers working from home.........................................................................15
The value of content marketing in lead generation...................................................16
Adjusting your content marketing strategy for COVID-19.........................................17
Reaching new audiences..............................................................................................17
Planning for and boosting ROI.....................................................................................19
Promote use cases & performance data.....................................................................20
Next steps .........................................................................................................................21

DISCLAIMER
Views expressed by our experts represent their sole thoughts on the topics at hand. They do not necessarily represent the views of their
current organizations and should not be seen as an endorsement of any group, product or strategy. The information and opinions in this
document were prepared by Reuters Events and its partners. Reuters Events has no obligation to tell you when opinions or information
in this document change. Reuters Events makes every effort to use reliable, comprehensive information, but we make no representation
that it is accurate or complete. In no event shall Reuters Events and its partners be liable for any damages, losses, expenses, loss of data,
and loss of opportunity or profit caused by the use of the material or contents of this document.
No part of this document may be distributed, resold, copied or adapted without Reuters Events prior written permission.

Visit eyeforpharma.com to learn more now 2

Marketing during COVID-19: A guide for solution providers in pharma

About Reuters Events

Reuters Events (formerly FC Business Intelligence/ FCBI) is the company behind major industry
brands and publications; including Petrochemical Update, eyeforpharma, New Energy Update,
Nuclear Energy Insider, DecomWorld, Upstream Intelligence, eyefortransport, eyefortravel, Insurance
Nexus, Incite Group, Ethical Corporation, VR Intelligence and more.
Reuters Events Pharma combines Reuters globally trusted news brands, scale and editorial
excellence with eyeforpharma’s deep expertise in highly specialized events, content production and
digital marketing services.
Companies can work with Reuters Events brands to cut through the noise with purpose-driven,
customer-centric marketing by taking advantage of our Digital Content & Marketing Packages.
Harnessing a combined global network of major industry decision-makers and countless industry
professionals through our partners, sponsors can benefit from laser-targeted messaging directed
at the key decision-makers that matter most.
Customers don’t want to be preached to or bombarded with information. They want brands to reach
out with personalized, relevant and exciting interactions. Reuters Events is here to help you deliver
bespoke marketing that is helpful and forward thinking, rather than unwanted digital noise.
As pioneers in the use of content for community development and marketing, we foster year-round
contact with our customers. The quality and value of the information we generate drives loyalty and
underpins why our brands are considered the leaders in the market.
Are you interested in creating high-quality webinars, infographics, whitepapers or need help to
promote your brand’s existing content?
Or is your brand keen to explore virtual events and online workshops to increase the number of top-
decision makers you’re engaging?
Either way, download our full digital marketing prospectus now to understand how our
brands, experience and marketing expertise can get you started.  

Visit eyeforpharma.com to learn more now 3

Marketing during COVID-19: A guide for solution providers in pharma

CREATE DIGITAL EXPERIENCES THAT

IMPACT, ENGAGE AND ADD VALUE
Position yourself at the forefront of the industry

i
LEARN MORE &
DOWNLOAD THE
PROSPECTUS NOW

WHY SPONSOR REUTERS EVENTS PHARMA

DIGITAL MARKETING OPPORTUNITIES?

1 Build a year-round event and digital marketing plan with us

2 Let us do the heavy lifting, we curate industry leading content for you

3 Associate yourself with senior-level voices

4 Gain access to our network of Reuters Events Pharma professionals

5 Access leads engaged in subject matter relevant to you

Trusted by leading brands including:

Marketing during COVID-19: A guide for solution providers in pharma

Marketing during COVID-19:

A guide for solution providers in pharma
As with everything else, the current coronavirus pandemic has seemingly turned the world of
marketing upside down.
All the while, the power plants, healthcare, factories, refineries and global supply chains upon which
we all rely are working harder and leaner than ever before.
It’s in this environment that marketers should thrive, promoting solutions to significant operational
problems that can increase efficiency and productivity right across their client’s business. Instead,
marketing managers the world over are battling against suspended client investments, cancelled
trade events and a customer base that is mostly working from home.
As a result, getting in touch with customers has never been more technically challenging, precisely
at a time when reliable revenue is needed most.
And it’s not just glitchy Zoom meetings that are holding them back. In times of crisis, marketing is
historically the first department to see a dramatic budget cut.
That’s not to say that cuts to marketing budgets are not understandable. Businesses should rightly
prioritize the salaries and wellbeing of their workforce, and marketing expenditure is a variable outlay
that can be frozen quickly without cutting the workforce itself.
Still, an understanding of the economic impact of marketing during a crisis appears to be lacking,
and lessons learned are hard to find. All this despite the frankly absurd regularity of major economic
recessions or crashes that take place globally.
So how then can marketers rise to the challenge? How can they best support their businesses and
make a case for brand building through a lockdown and prepare their business units and product
lines to take advantage of recovery?
These are the questions that this report will tackle directly, compiling lessons learned by marketers
reacting to crashes, recessions and depressions since the 1930s.
We will explore the core concepts and straight forward steps you can leverage right now to help you
adapt to the COVID-19 crisis. What’s more, we will offer tips and guidance to help you protect, or
even improve, your brand’s competitiveness ready for the recovery period and beyond.
 

Visit eyeforpharma.com to learn more now 5

Marketing during COVID-19: A guide for solution providers in pharma

The global economy & COVID-19

It’s far too early to know whether the current coronavirus induced economic turmoil will equal or
surpass that of the Global Financial Crisis of 2008.

*
* The Great Depression

Figure 1. List of U.S Recessions from 1873 to 2009 including consecutive months of recession

It’s argued that the unprecedented actions of governments to prop up employment and bailout
critical industries will allow us to collectively “bounce back” once the crisis ends.
But, while these packages provide invaluable short-term support, economists can’t give a clear
picture of when we will return to normal, or even whether normal is possible anymore. Indeed,
economists have predicted the recovery taking the form of anything from a sharp recovery “V”, to a
long U-like period of sustained decline.
In between, we could experience a double-dip recession “W” as unemployment and corporate
bankruptcies bite, not to mention the prospect of a second or third wave of COVID-19 infections
and repeated lockdowns. Alternately there could be an “L” shaped forecast which occurs when
governments struggle to stimulate their economies’ normalization over a more extended period.
Finally, Reuters and the World Economic Forum report that recovery could even resemble more of a
“SWOOSH” or “tick” as lockdowns get lifted far more gradually than their implementation.
Certainly, the SWOOSH recovery looks increasingly more likely as the weeks into lockdown start to
slowly tick over into months...

Visit eyeforpharma.com to learn more now 6

Marketing during COVID-19: A guide for solution providers in pharma

Needless to say, as reported in Vox, the “overall record of macroeconomic forecasting as a discipline
is not very good...” Continuing, they argue “...and in this case, economists are looking at a situation
they have no real experience with.”
Put simply, coronavirus induced uncertainty is rife and will remain so for the foreseeable future.
Therefore, if uncertainty is the only thing we can be sure about, what lessons learned and best
practices should we take from previous crises?

Visit eyeforpharma.com to learn more now 7

Marketing during COVID-19: A guide for solution providers in pharma

Pharma’s reaction to COVID-19 and what it

means for B2B marketers

While the pharmaceutical business has been in the headlines during the pandemic for its key role in
helping develop treatments and vaccines to COVID-19, behind the scenes the global emergency is
serving as an accelerant for many trends that were already changing the way pharma worked.
We’ve spoken to key decision makers from across pharma to understand how their businesses are
adapting to COVID-19.
What is clear from this exercise is that the drive to becoming more customer centric and the move
towards engaging with customers remotely via digital means has taken a massive step forward in
the last few months.
Necessity has been the mother of invention as face-to-face access to HCPs became all but impossible
and as patients cried out for more help and information online. In fact remote engagement to all
stakeholders whether clinical, patient, medical and market access related has been the only option
in many cases.
The conditions created by the global response to the pandemic have shown that the old excuses
for pharma’s relative lack of digital transformation and innovation in general, prior to the pandemic,
will no longer fly. The workarounds pharma teams have come up with have demonstrated the art of
the possible within the regulations. They have demonstrated that it is possible to act with speed to
effect great change and accelerate innovations.
Meanwhile pharma is doing less of other things. Two thirds of respondents to Reuters Event
Pharma’s Pulse of the Industry survey conducted in May 2020 either agreed or strongly agreed that
budgets for attending and exhibiting at medical congresses were set to fall, while half predicted that
field force headcount would decrease.
Decision makers in pharma are changing their own behaviour too. The vast majority (84%) predict
that remote working will increase permanently and they are engaging in greater numbers and for
greater time with digital content - 81% of those surveyed said they watched webinars, while 36%
said they attended multiple online conference sessions.
What are the implications for those seeking to reach and engage with them?
One likely lesson is the need for focus. At a time when many marketing budgets are under pressure,
general brand-related marketing is likely to lack the measurable impact of more targeted work in
terms of lead generation that will support sales and product development cycles and generate
meaningful engagement that leads to results.
Perhaps the most important implication might turn out to be that what looks like an emergency
right now, is actually a time of great opportunity for those marketing their services and products to
pharma.
A 2019 Gartner survey revealed that the majority of complex B2B solutions purchases are made
within the context of organisational change and the pandemic looks to have ushered in the most
dramatic period of rapid change in living memory.

Visit eyeforpharma.com to learn more now 8

Marketing during COVID-19: A guide for solution providers in pharma

Gartner explains: “In times of uncertainty, customers value content that helps them make sense of
all of the disruption going on around them. B2B brands should create and deploy content that helps
customers navigate through times of uncertainty with greater confidence.”
Digital content marketing solutions provide just such value and are very much to the fore when it
comes to reaching pharma now. The line is blurring between the virtual and the physical as events
and content are now being consumed online by more people and for much more time.
With the explosion of webinar engagement and virtual events, such content now has far greater
reach, with a far greater opportunity for messaging to travel further and reach a broader audience
given how widely online content can be distributed and shared.

Visit eyeforpharma.com to learn more now 9

Marketing during COVID-19: A guide for solution providers in pharma

Lessons Learned: How crises impact

marketing investment (1930 to 2008)

No matter which shape it takes, recessions like the one we are sure to experience have traditionally
proven fertile ground for opportunistic marketers. Research clearly shows that companies who are
prepared and able to invest in their brands grow much faster than their competitors once markets
improve.
Some of the most important research conducted on the value of marketing in a downturn includes
‘Marketing in the American Economy ’ by Roland Vaile and Reavis Cox in 1952. By following 250
companies in the early 1920s, Vaile concluded that companies who increased their advertising
budgets during the downturn were able to grow their sales far quicker as the market improved.
Critically, companies that were either unable or unwilling to invest in the burgeoning advertising
markets of the post-war years saw a corresponding reversal of fortunes. The market logic followed
that those companies that did invest in their brands were able to capitalize on a quieter market,
and by doing so, increase market share.
This logic works on the basis that marketing and innovation are the only functions which generate
business revenue. At the same time, the latter relies on the former to ensure that consumer uptake
matches the potential of any new product. As such, companies which invest in communicating
with, engaging and supporting their customers will find that their lead generation potential is more
robust in the long term. Conversely, companies that turn off the taps struggle to generate new
prospects versus their competitors.
Understandably, not every company will be in a position to invest right away. We are currently
experiencing a sudden social and economic shock that was largely unforeseeable to the workforce
and the business community. Unlike in 2008, the current restrictions on the economy are self-
imposed and uniformly applied across all sectors. As a result of the downturn, many companies’
moral prerogative should be to ensure the safety and financial security of their workforce. Yet at
the same time, attention must be given to the long-term viability of the company — both during
the crisis and as we prepare for recovery.
However, it appears as though these lessons learned are forgotten just as we enter each downturn.
Last month, Marketing Week surveyed its members to gauge the mood of marketers. The outlook
was overwhelmingly negative, with 9/10 respondents either delaying key promotional campaigns
(39%) or placing them under review (38%). Additionally, they noted that 69% of North American
marketers predicted that their customers would be postponing significant spending commitments.
These sentiments echo our recent Reuters Events survey data, where COVID-19 has negatively
influenced the plans of 72% of all vendors surveyed.

Visit eyeforpharma.com to learn more now 10

Marketing during COVID-19: A guide for solution providers in pharma

How would you describe the impact of the COVID-19 pandemic on your business?

2% Positive
27% Neutral
19% Very Negative
53% Negative

Figure 2. Reuters Events Survey of Solution Providers, April 2020

The above is as likely to be true for Business-to-Business (B2B) markets as it is for Business-to-
Consumer (B2C) markets as businesses and consumers alike become more protectionist with their
cash flow.
However, B2B markets operate differently in a few key areas that are critical for shaping our
understanding of how to market in a crisis. While emotional factors mostly drive B2C marketing
(FOMO included), the B2B market sees investment and contracting decisions based mainly on a
reasoned return-on-investment approach. Especially as B2B marketing tends to appeal directly to
the economic benefits of a technology or service, particularly where costs and processes can be
optimized, or productivity increased.
The longer buying cycles of B2B markets lend a further advantage. Where B2C marketers struggle
in environments where demand drops sharply or is restricted, B2B vendors operate in more stable
markets.
The strategy of continual investment in marketing to weather a downturn is referenced again in a
2009 report that highlights evidence from six recessions. In the paper, academics Raji Srinivasan and
Gary Lilien analyze the performance of 3,804 publicly listed US firms from 1969 to 2007.
In their results, they find that for B2B firms, increasing advertising during a recession increases
profits during the downturn and then continues to yield improved earnings in the year following the
recession.
What happens then if a company stops investing in marketing? The Institute of Practitioners in
Advertising tackled this question and presented their findings in a 2008 study. The IPA determined
in a series of modelling case studies that after cutting marketing spend, a business will “continue
to benefit from the marketing investments of previous years”. Mostly because B2B companies may
find short term wins as a result of focusing more resources on their current pipeline. However, they
warn that this short-term profitability may be “dangerously misleading”.
The model assumes a drop in marketing spends for 6 to 12 months. As a result, the IPA predicts that
the business will take 3 to 5 years longer to return to pre-crisis levels of profitability. Furthermore,
they calculate that the effect on foregone sales to be some 4.5 times that of the budget saved.

Visit eyeforpharma.com to learn more now 11

Marketing during COVID-19: A guide for solution providers in pharma

Regarding COVID-19 and the latest impending recession, the IPA released their Bellwether Report
for Q1 2020 (April 22, 2020). Tellingly, the paper noted that total marketing budgets for Q1 2020
declined at their fastest rate since the global financial crisis.

Breakdown of revisions to current budgets

% of all companies reporting an upward revision to current budgets
minus % reporting a downward revision

-6.1% Total

-6.6% Direct Marketing

-7.2% Sales Promotions

-9.9% Main Media Advertising

-14.3% PR

-15.9% Events

-20.9% Other

-21.0% Market Research

Figure 3. IPA Bellwether Report Q1, 2020

Visit eyeforpharma.com to learn more now 12

Marketing during COVID-19: A guide for solution providers in pharma

These results indicate that perhaps short-term protectionism is taking root in businesses nationwide
even though research suggests this is harmful to long-term profitability.
To emphasize the difference in approaches, consider the responses of two major brand conglomerates.
As of April 22, Coca-Cola has paused all marketing spend and plans to re-engage with consumers
“when [the] timing is right”. Their strategy appears to be driven by a significant decline in revenue
in Q1 of 2020 as bars, restaurants, movie theaters, sports and retail sectors were globally locked
down. Moreover, most companies lack the brand recognition and customer loyalty of the Coca-Cola
family.
Conversely, Proctor & Gamble’s CFO; John Moeller asserted “this is not the time to go off-air”.
They’ve calculated that if P&G pulled back on marketing, the reduced face time with consumers
would risk their brand’s visibility and recognition, not to mention potential market share.
With competing approaches gaining attention worldwide, IPA director-general Paul Bainsfair offered
a warning. “When recession looms, it is understandable if businesses try and shore up short term
profits by cutting variable expenditure, such as advertising.”
However, “unless companies are saving cash simply to survive, or because they can no longer supply
advertised services, cutting ad budgets - relative to competitor spend - is a high-risk strategy”.
Instead “those brands that hold their nerve will gain [an] extra share of voice which will achieve
competitive gains.”
 

Visit eyeforpharma.com to learn more now 13

Marketing during COVID-19: A guide for solution providers in pharma

Lessons learned: Marketing for the

recovery

In a letter to shareholders in 1986, Warren Buffet gave us an idiom that has made the rounds in every
downturn since; “be greedy when others are fearful”, but the full quote feels even more prescient.
“Occasional outbreaks of those two-super contagious diseases, fear and greed, will forever occur…
The timing of these epidemics will be unpredictable” he continued. “And the market aberrations
produced by them will be equally unpredictable, both as to duration and degree.”
“Therefore, we never try to anticipate the arrival or departure of either disease,” he added. “Our
goal is more modest: We simply attempt to be fearful when others are greedy and to be greedy
when others are fearful.”
The message is clear and made more so by the supporting evidence already delivered in this paper.
Make the case to invest in marketing if your business is able and reap the rewards in the future as
your brand builds traction with key clients during a period of turmoil.
But what is the methodology for marketing in a recession? Moreover, what strategies will increase
the engagement of the right decision-makers and gatekeepers?
As a business that relies on successful marketing, in addition to offering turnkey content marketing
services, Reuters Events draws on a rich history of responding to global and sector downturns.
That’s why, to help you plan to ride out the storm and position your brand for long-term success,
we’ve detailed our critical lessons learned in this next section.

No more face-to-face marketing

The challenge caused by COVID-19 is that traditional routes to market are mostly impractical.
Face-to-face meetings are the backbone of business development, and marketers focus their
strategies and resources accordingly. A 2015 Forbes article notes, non-verbal cues drive some 93%
of communication effectiveness. Regardless of the more “reasoned” approach to B2B investment,
we ultimately do business with people. Therefore, the small nuances in emotion and body language
are easier to notice face-to-face and have a considerable impact on a marketer’s ability to respond
to objections and deliver.
For this reason, conferences and exhibitions are invaluable. Trade shows allow marketers to capture
the attention of key industry decision-makers in one location. At the same time, on-site product
demonstrations provide a literal foot in the door for B2B sales teams.
The world of B2B marketing, despite the rise of digital marketing, is still mainly driven by contact
books and the interpersonal skills of sales professionals directly. So powerful is face-to-face marketing
that any opportunity to find new clients or engage customers directly gets a straightforward gut-feel
appraisal when calculating return-on-investment.

Visit eyeforpharma.com to learn more now 14

Marketing during COVID-19: A guide for solution providers in pharma

However, under lockdown conditions, one-to-one (1:1) opportunities evaporated rapidly as travel was
restricted, and flagship events cancelled or postponed. As a result, industries that are typically so
reliant on face-to-face client interactions are now scrambling to identify new routes to market.
The change in priorities is shown in our Reuters Events survey of vendors, finding that Conferences
& Events have dropped from being a primary tool for 82% of marketers to just 10% during COVID-19.
Likewise, 1:1 customer meetings outside of events fall from being the route of choice for 11% of
marketers to 0% during COVID-19.
As marketers cannot leverage their prime source of qualified leads, they must look to digital channels
to fill the gap. That is, of course, reliant on whether the arguments made earlier were successful.

Decision makers working from home

Side note - the linguistic impact of COVID-19 has been so significant that the Oxford English
Dictionary was updated in April to include WFH, social distancing and self-isolation!
As the global economy adapts to lockdown, more workers than ever before are working from home.
While critical industries such as energy utilities, petrochemicals, public health, pharmaceuticals,
transport and supply chains require personnel on-site to manage operations and production, the vast
majority of executive decision-makers are working from home (WFH).
The impact of working from home has had a profound effect on the way that we consume digital
information and services.
In a bid to offset the impact of home working, workers have become dramatically reliant on services
such as Zoom and Microsoft Teams to maintain some element of face-to-face interaction.

Visit eyeforpharma.com to learn more now 15

Marketing during COVID-19: A guide for solution providers in pharma

For marketers, these apps are not a viable solution to replacing in-person contact. Unfortunately,
as many companies are coming to realize, video calling doesn’t carry the same effect as a genuine
face-to-face interaction. Much publicized teething problems include glitchy internet connections,
background distractions and visible participant discomfort, caused mostly by an inability to measure
and respond to body language. None of any of this aids marketers in building trust between
themselves, the brand, and the client.
For marketers increasing time on the phone instead; the battle is now against an increasing aversion
to answering. Of 1005 Americans surveyed by Pango, only one in four (22.6%) would consider
answering the phone to an unknown caller.
It is evident in both cases, though, that marketers require qualified data (typically; name, title,
company, phone or email ) to make the connection in the first place. These are existing customers
and contacts, not new leads or prospects.
Given that we’ve shown relying on an existing pipeline to be unsustainable in the long run, how then
can marketers continuously refill their funnel with new qualified leads throughout the COVID-19
crisis?

The value of content marketing in lead generation

An increasing amount of time spent online during work over the past two decades has led directly
to a proliferation in digital content marketing.
Typically taking the form of industry whitepapers and webinars, the aim is to provide content that
appeals to your target audience and establishes your brand as a thought leader. As with interactions
at a conference presentation or with traffic visiting a booth, the hope is that customer interest
converts into future sales.
Experienced marketers will already be taking further steps. Content can be hidden behind web
forms or subscription systems to encourage interested consumers to provide their contact data in
exchange.
Reuters Events has taken its content marketing strategy further. Using a layered method of continual
requalification helps us to understand the mentality of the customer over time, mainly as that
mentality amounts to their sales-readiness. But the principles of content marketing remain broadly
the same.
The key, however, is providing content that will appeal to your target audience, so take the time to
understand their needs. As a result, your content will become more timely, business-critical and
engaging.
In short, content marketing is the tool most likely to drive scalable lead generation and is embraced
wholeheartedly by our business.
Given that COVID-19 has forced more decision-makers to go digital, there are far more opportunities
to engage with and consume online content than ever before. Marketers should take advantage
of this and look to understand how their typical customers’ new working habits have changed and
adjust their brand visibility accordingly to optimize leads.

Visit eyeforpharma.com to learn more now 16

Marketing during COVID-19: A guide for solution providers in pharma

Adjusting your content marketing strategy for COVID-19

It’s essential to understand the principles of “Rule of 7” when content marketing and brand building.
Whether seven truly is a magic number or not, the logic is simple. It suggests that it takes multiple
touchpoints before a customer will internalize your brand’s message or act upon your call-to-action.
As such, to be effective, a brand must reiterate its message through a variety of formats over a
sustained period.
In content marketing, this can mean remarketing a piece of content through different advertising
channels. For many, promoting webinars, whitepapers or any form of thought leadership means
setting up a direct email campaign using the company database. More effective marketers will also
ensure that all brand channels get utilized. They’ll ensure that all company social media channels,
newsletters and other in-house user groups get the message too. They’ll also get their sales teams
to mention and share the content directly over phone calls and virtual client meetings.
This application of the “7 touches” strategy is proven to increase engagement with customers and
increase the number of leads that respond to your call-to-action. However, this only works with
existing or known customers and does little to generate new growth opportunities long term.

Reaching new audiences

To reach new audiences, marketers should replicate the above in principle, but leverage a more
comprehensive array of routes to market.
Trade media publications are a valuable traditional route, as is an investment in paid advertising,
retargeting and social media. But of course, the impact of COVID-19 and subsequent pressure on
budgets means a more targeted and efficient process is necessary.
As it happens, targeted online advertising through social media has never been easier. Paid for social
media advertising allows companies to focus on valuable demographics (age, location) but also the
prospect of pinpointing critical business data such as business type, industry, company name, job
title keywords and more.
Beyond social media, publishers with proven databases of industry decision-makers are a safe
bet. With strong brands themselves, companies can leverage sponsored marketing packages with
confidence that the decision-makers at the other end will respond positively to any call-to-action.
What’s more, members of these databases are opt-in and well-practiced in getting the most out of
digital content such as whitepapers, reports, webinars and virtual forums.
Additionally, publishers and digital marketing providers don’t just hold invaluable experience at
efficiently generating content. They also have an intuitive industry awareness that allows them
to build content that is engaging as it is informative. Combined, publishers that double as digital
marketing providers can further increase the total and quality of leads generated.
Of the most effective formats, webinars are king right now. Bringing together thought leadership
and direct lead generation, webinars were the preferred product of choice across all our Reuters
Events brands.

Visit eyeforpharma.com to learn more now 17

Marketing during COVID-19: A guide for solution providers in pharma

Figure 5. Reuters Events Vendor Survey, April 2020

Digital networking products, whether at the hyper-targeted end with niche online workshops or
virtual events at the other, are also rapidly gaining popularity with B2B marketers.
Often curated by a well-known digital publisher, virtual networking products allow sponsors to take
advantage of a mixture of thought leadership, branding and 1:1 networking opportunities all in one
cost-effective package.
In creating and promoting a premium digital workshop, marketers can screen the quality of and
engage attendees in advance with supplementary content. Combined with targeted marketing,
sponsors can be confident that these products will add valuable new leads to their pipeline.
On the other hand, in sponsoring virtual events, companies leverage incredible scale. Flagship
industry events already boast attendances in the thousands. Yet, virtual iterations have consistently
been bringing in triple or quadruple the attendance numbers of their physical counterparts.
For example, our recent eyeforpharma Barcelona and Philadelphia events (Reuters Events) recently
brought in 17,500 and 11,000 attendees respectively, upwards of 900% and 1000% on 2019 attendee
figures despite converting to virtual at late notice.
Simply put, virtual events allow more eyeballs on sponsor brands at one time than has ever been
possible before in a controlled setting. Working with events coordinators, marketers can also promote
their sponsored sessions to particular attendee profiles. This approach further ensures their brand
message is being received and acted upon by the industry executives that matter most to them.

Visit eyeforpharma.com to learn more now 18

Marketing during COVID-19: A guide for solution providers in pharma

Planning for and boosting ROI

We’re spending far more time online than ever before. Forbes even found that internet usage rose
50-70% in just the first weeks of lockdown on top of our record levels. Furthermore, the costs of
digital advertising have been falling since the start of the coronavirus crisis.

Figure 6. EZOIC (Last Updated April 24, 2020)

As more companies follow the likes of Coca-Cola and pause or delay key advertising campaigns, the
environment for marketers has never been more fertile. Increased affordability and a surge in online
traffic means that marketers have never been more able to reach consumers.
However, there are a few dangers or common marketing mistakes to keep an eye on.
For starters, the last thing your brand needs to do is bombard your customers. Unlike in mass
consumer marketing, where brand visibility and recognition require near-total coverage of all available
channels, B2B can take a more considered approach. The “rule of 7” still applies, but the timelines
can be elongated.
A buyer is unlikely to make an emotive purchase decision unless the need is critically urgent. Instead,
you should look to nurture your target audience through the marketing funnel slowly. By gradually
qualifying data until you have a core group of relevant, high-quality sales-ready leads, you stand a
much higher chance of success.
In practice, this strategy might involve releasing an introductory whitepaper or article that provides
the foundations for thought leadership. Readers are then encouraged to sign up for a webinar, or
virtual workshop, where they can go through the principles in more technical detail with company
representatives directly. Overlaid on this, advert retargeting before and after the webinar helps to
drive traffic to the host company using different calls-to-action (CTA).
Before the webinar, prospective customers may be encouraged to access a larger pool of technical
resources. Then after the webinar, retargeting advert CTAs can direct customers to book live demos
or introductory calls with sales teams. This approach requires greater agility of messaging but will
ensure your team is more responsive to customer needs than ever before.
Lead nurturing as a discipline can also help prevent the rise of a critical issue in B2B and B2C
marketing - digital or brand fatigue. No one needs to be hounded by a brand, particularly by an

Visit eyeforpharma.com to learn more now 19

Marketing during COVID-19: A guide for solution providers in pharma

industry service provider. It is critical then to ensure that your strategy is fine-tuned to hit as many
touch points as possible, but not appear intrusive when doing so. Too aggressive an approach and
you risk turning customers away from your brand for good.
Avoiding digital fatigue requires a delicate balancing act that Reuters Events knows all too well. In
finessing the art of event promotion over the years, our brands have had to be cognizant of the risks
of pushing too hard too fast. You can add urgency in other, more subtle ways that allow the customer
to feel engaged and encouraged to act, rather than feeling coerced. Well planned content marketing
and lead generation campaigns that file down a broader customer group into a workable set of sales-
ready leads are nearly always the solution.
Similarly, expect that your customers won’t be rushed into a purchase decision and market to them
accordingly. The one thing that COVID-19 lockdown has provided all businesses is a chance to
breathe, so use this time wisely and be prepared to wait.
Note that attending a webinar or virtual workshop is much less of a statement of interest than
attending in person. So just as total attendance is likely to be higher, adjust your expectations of
immediate return-on-investment accordingly. Much of the effort driven at lead generation through
content marketing will be ‘top of funnel’ or directed at generating ‘net new’ data. As such, it might
take a bit longer or more touchpoints with the customer to work them through the sales funnel,
and gauge sincere business interest. Likewise, you should judge return-on-investment for leads
generated through COVID-19 marketing more leniently than if they came from in-person events or
face-to-face meetings.

Promote use cases & performance data

Finally, the best practice derived from the Global Financial Crisis in 2008 finds that in a downturn,
gimmicks are out.
The Harvard Business Review of lessons learned finds that B2B messaging should emphasize
reliability, durability, safety and product performance. Where at all possible, brands should appeal
directly to use cases and have performance data accessible.
As this might require a more transparent marketing approach than usual, a layered content marketing
package offered by a 3rd party publisher as described above may, therefore, be required. You can
screen incoming leads and qualify them against your agreed customer profile.
As a result, you can be confident that you’re only sharing technical or proprietary data with customers
most likely to buy, and not competitors. In this way, digital content marketing replicates the systems
used by sales staff on an exhibit booth, just with vastly increased scale.

Visit eyeforpharma.com to learn more now 20

Marketing during COVID-19: A guide for solution providers in pharma

Next steps

The coronavirus pandemic has rapidly and unexpectedly emerged as the defining crisis of our
generation. On top of all the social and economic challenges, business viability through COVID-19
will require marketers to be more creative, agile and accountable than ever before.
Remember, investment in marketing is essential to ensure that you’re priming your business for
recovery. There is no doubt that face-to-face will continue to be the most valuable form of marketing
after the market recovers. However, we hope you’ll take away critical best practices you can use
right now to succeed as a B2B marketer in the weeks and months to come.

In short, here are our key lessons learned.

1. Don’t cut the marketing budget if you can avoid it. Invest in marketing to maintain or improve
market share.
2. Embrace digital content marketing as a proven strategy for long term lead generation and
sales nurturing.
3. Know your target audience and target them directly. Work with partners to produce and
promote content that will engage and qualify them through your sales pipeline.
4. Adjust your expectations. New leads are essential to business growth but understand that
digital leads require more nurturing to get them sales ready.

Remember, Reuters Events Pharma offers you the chance to harness a global network of 30k+
major decision-makers directly and 200K industry professionals through our partners.
What’s more, as a Reuters Events brand, our team has access to nearly 30 years of experience as
leaders in both conference, events and digital marketing.
Our sponsors can benefit from laser-targeted messaging directed at the key decision-makers that
matter most.
Customers don’t want to be bombarded with information; they want brands to reach out with
personalized, relevant and exciting interactions. Reuters Events is here to help you deliver bespoke
marketing that is helpful and forward-thinking, rather than unwanted digital noise.
As pioneers in the use of content for community development and marketing, we foster year-round
contact with our customers. The quality and value of the information we generate drives loyalty and
underpins why our brands are considered the leaders in the market.
Are you interested in creating high-quality webinars, infographics, whitepapers or need help to
promote your brands existing content?
Or is your brand keen to explore virtual events and online-workshops to increase the number of top-
decision makers you’re engaging?
Either way, download our full digital marketing prospectus now to understand how our
brands, experience and marketing expertise can get you started.

Visit eyeforpharma.com to learn more now 21

Marketing during COVID-19: A guide for solution providers in pharma

CREATE DIGITAL EXPERIENCES THAT

IMPACT, ENGAGE AND ADD VALUE
Position yourself at the forefront of the industry

i
LEARN MORE &
DOWNLOAD THE
PROSPECTUS NOW

WHY SPONSOR REUTERS EVENTS PHARMA

DIGITAL MARKETING OPPORTUNITIES?

1 Build a year-round event and digital marketing plan with us

2 Let us do the heavy lifting, we curate industry leading content for you

3 Associate yourself with senior-level voices

4 Gain access to our network of Reuters Events Pharma professionals

5 Access leads engaged in subject matter relevant to you

Trusted by leading brands including: