Docs comfy with e-promotion, and many prefer it, says study

source: Medical Marketing & Media

author: Ben Comer

Sixty-seven percent of physicians had a positive attitude toward electronic promotional activities, up from 62% a year ago, according to an SDI study.

 

Additionally, 73% of the physicians surveyed for SDI's ePromotion Annual Study 2008 said pharma's electronic promotional activities (or ePromotion) were equal or superior to traditional face-to-face encounters.

 

“Through ePromotion, physicians have more time to review product information and review disease state information at their own convenience – at night time or on the weekends,” said Heather Alba, senior manager, promotional audits at SDI.  Other findings from the report include:

 

• Sixty-nine percent of the physicians surveyed participated in electronic promotional activities in the evening, outside of office hours.

• In 2008, the average amount of time spent by a physician on a single ePromotion activity was 18 minutes.

• Physicians ranked Merck as the leader in terms of the best ePromotion activities, followed by Pfizer and AstraZeneca respectively.

 

The study, which included feedback from approximately 1,000 physicians across 14 specialties, defined ePromotion in three categories: virtual details (promotions without live communication); video details (live online promotion or telephone-assisted internet browsing), and virtual events (seminars, CME and KOL events, web conferences and group discussions).