For those of us who have built careers in the healthcare field and driven successful consumer-facing marketing campaigns for the bio-tech, pharma, or nutraceutical industries, we know that this is a dynamic and fast-evolving business category. There are multiple reasons why healthcare marketing also demands, in and of itself, extraordinary attention to detail when it comes to external communications.

Most marketers agree that customer loyalty is driven by delivering value. And while driving value through product offerings largely takes center stage, most pharma manufacturers have also invested consistently in traditional learning arenas such as CME programs and speaker training. The question is, can learning programs be structured to deliver customer loyalty? And if so, what would be the differentiating characteristics of such a learning platform?

Today, most people begin their search for health and medical information on sites like Google and Bing. While these properties are helpful, many find the online health search to be a frustrating and tedious process. However, a day is coming when many may no longer rely on search engines to find health content. Instead, they will receive relevant and personalized health information automatically - sometimes prior to when they start looking for it, or just before it's needed.

The primary challenges with adopting social media for makers of prescription products are operational. Though much is made of the absence of an explicit Food and Drug Administration guidance on social media, we know the answer to most of the questions about the regulatory requirements for social media activity.

Technology is creating massive change and disruption that have forever altered the way consumers and businesses interact. The healthcare industry is no exception as we are seeing lightning-fast innovation from data digitalization, mobile applications and self-service consumer platforms. Perhaps no other time in history has technology so rapidly changed how we learn, collaborate and communicate.

It is almost standard-issue for most every healthcare advertiser to flood the web with every bit of resource and information possible these days.

Over the last couple of years, responsive design has become the new trend to ensure customers can see our message any time from any device. As we know, healthcare professionals are uber users of hand-held devices, and so responsive design has become essential. The term also refers to the way digital design, leveraging the "agile" method, favoring smaller, cyclical bursts of development and rapid testing, is developed.

When we look at those who ride the wave of major market booms - whether it was the dot com of the late '90s or housing or stocks in the early 2000s - the one thing they have in common is they were not on the sidelines waiting to see what happens. They were on the pitch - being proactive, knowing a shift was coming and charging to get to it first.

Taking treatment personally.

Social media marketing has quickly become a valuable tool in every marketer's arsenal because in addition to being relatively inexpensive, it has the potential to reach very targeted (and engaged) audiences. People are flocking to online communities to share experiences and opinions about everything from television shows and movies to restaurants, retail outlets, social issues, health, national tragedies and more. As these online communities become more ubiquitous, there has clearly been a great deal of change in where people turn for advice.