What are the benefits of having a KOL advisory board throughout the key stages of a product lifecycle? Let’s take a look.  

Key opinion leaders (KOLS) have a huge wealth of knowledge and experience, therefore holding the key to influencing your healthcare professional audience. KOLs can be looked upon as a pillar of trust, in turn, making you a trustworthy source for HCPs.  

You may think that finding the right KOL will be tough, but KOLs can come from a wide range of platforms, such as: 

• Having spoken at a national conference or event 
• Publishing their research in a medical journal 
• Participation in a number of clinical trials 
• Holding a position as a board member within a respected organisation 
• Having treated or diagnosed a high volume of patients in certain specialty areas.¹ 

KOLs have the ability to shape a product and help it to reach its target market.  Hybrid working now allows access to a different group of experts within the pharma community. With this digital approach, pharmaceutical teams can expand their KOL network, to include influential healthcare professionals and opinion leaders with global reach.³

The importance of KOLs can also be crucial across the entire lifecycle of a product. This can include research, trials, development all the way through to compliance and product prescription and administration. Define the motions of your KOL engagement thoughtfully, to make the most out of the ongoing relationship with your advisory board.⁴ 

Have you mapped your KOLs? Do you understand who your KOLS are within specific therapeutic areas, and how they can influence the driving of particular medical trends, guiding clinical practices and shaping the adoption of new treatments and technologies? Mapping in this way can help you leverage the most relevant networks to support your communications, drive awareness of your brand and encourage the adoption of your product.⁵ With KOLs extensive networks and connections, they are ideal for helping with collaborations, endorsements and partnerships, helping your brand to reach new markets and gain stronger visibility amongst specified target audiences.⁶ 

We can help you drive your brand from strategy to implementation. 

Pharma companies can have a challenging time to gain HCPs trust and engagement. Having influential industry leaders will help you stand out from other similar brands and will help gain this trust. Working on becoming recognisable and memorable will also help with breaking down this trust barrier. Recent studies have shown that there are as many as 70,000 healthcare searches performed every minute, with this statistic including both patients and HCPs.⁷ Utilise KOLs to stand out from the crowd. 

As KOLs rise in prominence over the course of their careers, their circle of influence grows, covering larger audiences. For the pharmaceutical industry, KOLs therefore have an impact on the entire drug lifecycle, right from identifying unmet needs, to drug development, product launch, and market performance.⁸ A new product launch can boost your research and development (R&D) investment, elevate your product in the eyes of your KOLs and potentially increase your income.⁹ 

It is important to keep your KOLs engaged with the particular product you are trying to launch and promote. If they believe in the product, they will naturally want to discuss it with peers, in turn leading the HCP to have trust, and engage with the product, too. 

Let’s break down the key takeaways: 

1. Understand exactly what it is you want to achieve – at The Studio we can help you to create a full marketing plan, right through to delivery 
2. Think: relevance-over-reach – it’s important to choose a KOL who can speak directly to, and understand, your target HCP audience. This ensures a beneficial partnership for everyone 
3. Embrace and nurture partnerships that resonate with your brand 
4. Keep your KOLs close by – get their opinions, take their voice, and weave it into your marketing and content. KOL expertise can go a long way, and it will make them feel valued 
5. Analyse successes, the traffic to your platforms and conversion rates. Rinse and repeat what works. 

At The Studio, we are experts in supporting our clients with their brand engagement, with one of our latest conferences engaging more than 200 HCPs. Want to know more? Come on in and have a chat. 

Sources:  

1. https://www.definitivehc.com/resources/glossary/key-opinion-leader/  
2. https://within3.com/blog/pharma-kol-engagement/ 
3. https://www.extendmed.com/news-and-resources/kol-management/  
4. https://www.definitivehc.com/blog/key-opinion-leader-mapping/  
5. https://www.evalueserve.com/blog/the-game-changing-influence-of-key-opinion-leaders-in-healthcare/ 
6. https://brandmed.com/blog/marketing/top-5-challenges-of-building-a-medical-content-strategy/  
7. https://prescriptionpr.com/5-common-healthcare-marketing-challenges/ 
8. https://www.tigeranalytics.com/blog/unlocking-the-power-of-kols-in-the-pharmaceutical-industry-from-expert-advisors-to-influential-game-changers/ 
9. https://techspert.com/blog/pharmaceutical-product-launch-strategy-tips/ 
10. https://www.socialchamp.io/blog/kols-in-marketing/