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Content authoring in pharma means a solution for creating marketing and non-commercial materials. It is an easy-to-use tool to build tactics at speed. Healthcare companies, agencies and other partners use a pharma content authoring solution to generate commercial and medical content for many different channels, including eDetailers, approved email, webpages, automated HCP engagement systems, and social media content.
Content authoring differs from previous design software in that it is intended to be used by everyone, not just specialist designers. This usability is achieved with a user-friendly interface and an all-in-one approach that provides a complete 'design system' comprising: templates, fonts, colours, images, video, and pre-approved content elements in a single place. In this way, content authoring solutions democratize design and content building.
As a result, content can be created faster, more cheaply, and in greater volumes than was possible before. The use of common standards and design elements also improves brand consistency across markets.
While many content authoring products are created for general use across industries, pharma's regulatory requirements call for specialized solutions that meet the needs of the healthcare sector. Specific content authoring pharma features include tools to accelerate Medical / Legal reviews (MLR) — such as the ability to quickly trace the approval status of every content element in a tactic, and even 'risk-based' MLR assistance that automatically flags potentially problematic content for close review.
Other specific pharma content authoring features include localization tools that assist affiliates with content adaption by providing translation capabilities and side-by-side views that enable easy comparison between the original 'master' content and local versions.
Content authoring pharma tool example: Anthill Activator
• Speed: Generate assets quickly with a design system that provides templates, images, videos, fonts, colours, and content modules in one place• Costs: Enable efficiencies to reduce production costs and use content repurposing to improve asset ROI
• Content volume: Increase marketing asset production to meet the demands of content-hungry omnichannel marketing strategies
• Collaboration: Work effectively with colleagues in commercial operations, MLR, and agencies by using the same system
• MLR: Accelerate approvals with MLR review features and greater use of MLR-friendly modular content
• Marketing agility: Respond to data faster with a user-friendly system that speeds pharma content editing
• Brand consistency: Use content authoring to provide a clear brand image and consistent standard for HCP engagement
• Localization: Enable local markets to speed up content translation and adaption with easy-to-use localization features
• HCP engagement: Increase both HCP contact frequency and engagement relevancy with the ability to release continually refreshed content and more personalized materials
Discover how a leading healthcare company used content authoring to transform approved email production
Learn how they achieved a 65% open rateUser-friendly interface: A ‘solution that everyone can use’ is an essential requirement for any content authoring solution. However, in pharma, there is a wide diversity of users, including marketing teams, medical affairs personnel, agencies, affiliates, and MLR. That makes an intuitive interface that can be learned quickly by anyone particularly important.
Without usability and features required by all user groups, the solution may not be fully used. If that happens, the content supply chain is disrupted, and the benefits of content authoring in pharma are not realized. Therefore, assessing the user-friendliness of general content authoring features — building, sharing, and updating content — and how the solution meets specific pharma stakeholders' needs is essential.
Marketing channels: In addition to standard marketing channels that apply to all industries — websites, social media posts, landing pages for conversion — there are specific pharma HCP engagement tools such as eDetailing and approved email. To work effectively in pharma, a content authoring solution must cover both general channels and those designed specifically for HCP engagement.
In addition, new channels are continually coming online as technology opens up new opportunities. For example, automated HCP engagement solutions that provide on-demand eDetailing experiences guided by 'chatbot' assistants are now available. Such solutions will increasingly become standard practice in pharma and therefore should be covered by a content authoring solution.
Collaboration capabilities: The global and regulated nature of pharma communication results in a complex content supply chain with multiple stakeholders pursuing specialist tasks. However, there are many handover points when different functions need to work closely together.
For example, global marketing functions regularly collaborate with content agencies, MLR, and local markets, among other groups. Therefore, a pharma content authoring solution must make collaboration simple and transparent.
Localization tools: Pharma’s global content supply chain means that content must be translated and adapted for local markets, which traditionally is a complex and slow process. Pharma content authoring should fix this. When designed for pharma's specific content supply chain, content authoring efficiencies speed up content localization, just as it does content creation.
Specific localization features include translation built-in workflows that enable best practices, and some solutions will have an 'auto-translate' feature. Other pharma-relevant capabilities include a 'side-by-side' view that facilitates faster content reviews and simplifies translation processes — providing a useful comparison of text lengths, which change significantly across languages.
MLR acceleration: Many pharma companies are already experiencing an 'approval bottleneck' as colleagues in MRL struggle with an ever-increasing workload. As a result, it can often take up to two months for an asset to get approved and ready for deployment. That is why specialized content authoring in pharma solutions must enable companies to accelerate MLR processes in parallel with boosting asset production.
What’s required is an immediately available and complete development history and a crystal clear overview of the review status of all content elements. With that, MLR no longer has to hunt for information, and much friction is removed from the pharma content review process — speeding up content approvals significantly.
For example, Anthill’s Activator content authoring solution provides clarity over versions of every asset, enabling MLR to quickly see how it developed over time. Further, a ‘traffic light’ system (green approved, yellow modified and red unapproved) helps MLR quickly overview tactics and focus their attention where needed.
Modular content: A pharma content authoring solution must be able to handle modular content, both to speed up the production of tactics and simplify MLR processes.
Modular content is reusable "blocks" that can be used to quickly build tactics across channels. You simply pull modular content available in your content authoring solution into templates to build tactics. Crucially, each module is fully referenced and pre-approved. As a result, content creators can work faster — applying modules with confidence. And later, MLR avoid unnecessary duplication of work because they can focus their attention where it is needed on non-modular content.
DAM integration: Most leading pharma companies now work with digital asset management (DAM) solutions — such as Veeva Vault — as central content repositories to enable efficiencies and ensure content security. It is, therefore, essential that content authoring pharma solutions integrate seamlessly. If not, content must be copied for editing elsewhere — resulting in multiple versions of assets and your DAM no longer being the ‘single source of truth’. Content authoring solutions must avoid this practice and be designed to keep content safely in one place.
For example, Anthill’s content authoring solution, Activator, connects to Veeva Vault through an API. In other words, you use Activator to edit content directly in Vault. That ensures that assets remain secure for their entire lifecycle. This direct connection also enables Activator to 'see' all the content in Vault and provide an overview for users — improving content findability, increasing asset use, and boosting content ROI.
Generative AI: While perhaps not yet considered completely essential, vendors will soon be required to include generative AI capabilities in their content authoring solutions. This will enable pharma companies to leverage AI’s potential safely and in full compliance with regulations.
Crucially, generative AI must meet pharma's established procedures in a way that removes any possibility of ‘hallucinations’ producing false or misleading content. Achieving this requires a deep understanding of pharma’s regulatory environment combined with a visionary mindset that sees the potential of AI in transforming HCP engagement.
More on pharma content authoring essential features
Content authoring in pharma often requires a specialized industry-relevant solution
Omnichannel: Many pharma companies introduce content authoring solutions to meet the demands of content-hungry omnichannel strategies. Switching from one-message-for-all to more personalized experiences necessarily requires increasing content volume. Content authoring provides a way to do that efficiently — enabling great personalization while meeting budget and marketing organization resource constraints.
MLR acceleration: With the right solution, content authoring can simplify review processes for colleagues in MLR. Enabling increased use of modular content simplifies approval processes considerably — as does approval status transparency and functionality to automatically flag content elements for closer review. As MLR workflows are simplified, approval speed can increase.
Product launches: Content creation efficiency and approval speed are especially essential during the initial months of a pharma product launch when companies need the capacity to rapidly update materials in response to market data. And with the number of 'micro-launches' increasing, more content is required as more brands require assets and tactics. The production efficiency of content authoring in pharma enables companies to realise the full market potential of their innovations.
Content excellence: Companies looking to update their content supply chain for the digital world use content authoring to unify different content excellence initiatives in one solution. For example, a content authoring pharma solution can combine design systems, modular content, and pharma-specific MLR and localization tools into one easy-to-use solution.
AI integration: Pharma companies are increasingly looking to leverage generative AI in asset and tactic production. However, as Anthill CIO Tor Kristensen has pointed out, "There is a world of difference between using ChatGPT to generate a few social media posts and an efficient content generation system for pharma's highly-regulated ecosystem." In other words, GenAI must be integrated into pharma's existing content supply chain and production workflows. If you have one in place, this is precisely what a pharma content authoring solution can provide.
Get a short introduction to Anthill’s pharma content authoring solution, Activator
A pharma content authoring solution works across the supply chain and, therefore, involves many different stakeholders. These groups include marketing, sales, and agency partners, as well as MLR, procurement, and other parts of the organization.
Introducing a content authoring solution will, therefore, impact many people's workflows in different ways. Consequently, you can't just 'switch it on' and expect everyone to use it. People first need to understand why you are introducing the solution and how they will benefit, and then receive sufficient training to become confident users. In other words, there needs to be a change management process.
A small investment in change management goes a long way. Anthill’s experience helping companies implement content authoring world is that backing a new content authoring solution with a brief change management process avoids pitfalls, gets the system embedded faster, and provides the best long-term results.
The change management process doesn't have to be complex. If you work with an experienced vendor who understands pharma, things can happen quickly. A clear plan and good communication make all the difference.
Key steps for implementing content authoring in pharma:
• Establish a core team to set the vision and strategy
• Map all stakeholders and potential impacts
• Detail the new processes and workflows
• Motivate internal stakeholders and key markets
• Provide training targeted to each group
A small investment in change management unlocks the full value
Learn how Activator meets the specialized needs of pharma brands
See how it works
Learn how Activator enabled a leading pharma company to simplify their approved email content creation process, reduce costs and work in a more agile way.
Discover how Activator was used by a leading pharma company to speed up their content creation, respond faster to market needs, and be more innovative.
Learn how Activator enabled a leading pharmaceutical company to implement a centralised content approach and ensure better brand consistency across markets.
