OTC Marketing with Chatbots

OTC Marketers, It’s Time to Start Using Medical Chatbots to Connect with Patients

April 17, 2017
Posted by: Matthew Hammer, VP- Marketing

When they are sick or trying to manage an illness, one of the first steps many people take is to go online for information. This includes consumers of over-the-counter (OTC) medicines who are trying to find more information about their condition and how to treat it. They may have been diagnosed at the doctor’s office or are searching for diagnosis or treatment data.

Consumers and patients are seeking further information related to their symptoms and health. Whether they have a cold and just aren’t feeling well or are managing a chronic illness like diabetes, consumers spend a significant time online searching for information about their condition.

As a pharmaceutical marketer, the time these consumers spend online is a terrific opportunity for your brand. Messaging apps and chatbots are a highly effective, affordable, and convenient way to provide relevant information, and 1-to-1 conversations to these consumers at scale. They enable you to follow consumers along their entire lifecycle: from symptoms and diagnosis, to product discovery, to purchase.
Chatbots are a perfect complement to all the other ways you’re working to reach your consumers: in the doctor’s waiting room, in-store displays in the aisles at the pharmacy, on a Facebook page, or on your brand’s website.
With bots in healthcare, you’re able to leverage each consumer’s conversation history, context, and sentiment to provide personalized and appropriate responses. Chatbots capture data points and metrics for your next marketing campaign, marketing improvements or trend analysis.
Putting Chatbots to Work
At LiveWorld, we recommend that you promote your brand’s Facebook page or website through advertising to first reach these consumers. Once you’ve reached them, add a call-to-action such as “Talk to an expert now!” – you can even add that call-to-action on your in-store displays. Consumers can reach your brand with just a simple click from their smartphone. From here, chatbots and messaging apps begin the conversation. Using chatbot integrations will automatically identify high-opportunity and high-risk conversations and route them to a live person for appropriate follow up.

Consider the fact that 1 in 3 Americans use Facebook Messenger. This includes consumers of OTC medicines. Chatbots let you deliver speedy responses to consumer questions.

Another effective way to use chatbots and messaging apps in your over the counter marketing is to add your call-to-action on a website landing page for your OTC medicine. Direct a recently diagnosed person to a survey or FAQ and then capture more information from them through a chatbot conversation. At this point, you can easily provide a way to purchase your product online or offer a coupon.

medical chatbot example

OTC Chatbot Examples: See how an OTC brand could effectively use chatbots to turn consumer questions into sales.


Capture valuable marketing information
To gather more information about your consumers, have your medical chatbot ask several simple questions before handing them over to a customer service rep or healthcare provider. Since the conversation is accomplished digitally through a messaging app, the entire conversation can be used for future marketing improvements and consumer trend analysis.
Start using healthcare chatbots to turn 1-to-1 conversations into sales.
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