Integrating online strategy into an ever-changing digital environment is no easy task for pharma marketers. 

“Our audience is ahead of us,” said Kent Anderson, executive director, international business and product development at the New England Journal of Medicine (NEJM). 

Anderson said 38% to 47% of total revenues for scientific, technical and medical (STM) journals are garnered through the online version of the journals. 

That isn’t surprising, given that 93% of physicians use the internet daily, and 79% say they consider it an essential part of their everyday practice, according to Anderson’s presentation, titled Physician 2.0.
In explaining the distinctions between Web 1.0 and Web 2.0, Anderson pointed out that distribution and content are separate online, and the distributors are making the money.  To compete in a Web 2.0 environment, marketers need to “make applications, not publications.” 

Instead of “shoveling documents online,” marketers have to “bring people and experiences online,” says Anderson.

At the NEJM, an experimental beta site offers physicians a chance to rate online services and comment on new website developments. 

This kind of feedback doesn’t cost the journal anything, and provides “a complementary relationship with users that is mutually beneficial,” says Anderson.

With the advent of the search engine, and especially Google, online users are able to bypass the internet’s architecture. 

“If it’s not on Google, it doesn’t exist,” said Anderson.

Counting page views and expecting users to click from web page to web page isn’t realistic anymore, according to Anderson. New Web 2.0 requirements demand an “interface, not just [web] pages.”  
Anderson’s presentation was given at an Association of Medical Media conference June 12 in New York City.