In our last couple of days of 2013 predictions, we asked marketers working in the finance and pharma space to give us a few words on what they think the future holds for marketing in these industries.

Finance 

Kim Ann King, Chief Marketing Officer, SiteSpect

We’re seeing more and more large financial services organizations adopting digital marketing technologies, such as website testing and optimization, to help enhance online customer engagement in order to broaden their customer base. Web optimization is one the most cost efficient ways for financial services marketers to take the sheer volume of data generated about visitor and customer behavior and convert that insight into more usable websites that visitors prefer. 

That’s because web optimization reveals what online visitors prefer in terms of usability and content while helping to meet online objectives such as the adoption of self-service features, increased e-statement opt-ins, and prospect lead capture. One thing is clear: customer engagement is key and improving the online customer experience is a powerful way to achieve that.

Mark Simpson, founder and president of Maxymiser

Cross-channel optimization and integration will finally be on the rise for this industry. Using advanced personalization, we’ll see financial services start to provide timely, customized offers, using both its CRM system and propensity modeling to address gaps in a customer’s portfolio of products.

Pharma

Jeroen Matser, VP, Strategy Director, Blast Radius

Three trends stand out for Pharma in 2013. First the rise of the Quantified Self. People are increasingly using devices that track our wellbeing and new tools are being developed which bring the data from different services together to create a more meaningful picture of your body.  

This information is currently scattered across different apps, providers and facilities in medical records but now this information is increasingly merging into a Personal Health Record. This record powered by real-time data then allows you to Self-Care by monitoring your body and finding the most effective solutions using technology and social media.

Sean W. Bohan, Co-Founder, Decahedralist Strategic Consulting

At least one smart Pharma marketing agency will create a subsidiary that develops/maintains/manages disease-state (Diabetes, MS, Cancer, Asthma, etc.) online communities. These communities can then be sponsored by Pharma companies, relieving the burden of developing them/maintaining them and the Med-Legal restrictions that come with ownership.

Jess Seilheimer, SVP Digital Strategy & Planning, Havas Life NYC

Blockbuster compounds are a thing of the past with big pharma. The future is in biotech, personalized medicine and small molecules. Big pharma will be looking for aquistions within biotech to round out their therapeutic pipelines.  As for technology, are definitely going to see pharma corporations leaning towards silicon valley for additional R&D inspiration. 

With $2B of private funding going into digital health this year, pharma is going to look to silicon valley for tech acquisitions to help with their R&D efforts and we’ll see more companies bundling tech solutions (think mobile compliance and behavioral modification programs) with therapeutics compounds for a full product & service offering.