Shaping the future of pharma marketing with Dan Buckland

The biggest shift I’ve seen is a real push towards authentic engagement. There’s a new generation of marketing leaders in pharma, and they understand that the product is no longer the main character in their story. The HCP, and ultimately the patient, now takes centre stage.

Content has to be compelling and immediately valuable to HCPs. That means practical advice or unique insight they can use right now to improve their clinical environment or deliver better outcomes. Interestingly, I think the salesforce teams of the past understood this too. They built relationships by offering real, tangible value, and HCPs understood that in order to continue to benefit from these valuable engagements, they would likely have to spend some time listening to information about a product. But that’s a fair exchange, and they trusted the person who delivered this information to them as they’d established a bond. But the kind of value HCPs need today is very different. They don’t need basic product info from a rep anymore; they can access that any time, from multiple sources.

The best marketers today recognise that content is how we build trust. We have to earn the right to talk about our products. And when we do, we have to share information transparently, authentically, and in the context of supporting decision-making. It’s not about selling. It’s about helping HCPs make the best decisions for each patient.

Ironically, when we “went digital”, we took a step backwards. Instead of designing content that competes for attention by offering real value and a better experience, we just digitised the data dump model. We neglected the real value that reps provided to HCPs; we took what was shared in-person and pushed it out online…without the relationship that might have made it bearable.

And without that relationship, it’s just noise. Unsolicited, irrelevant, and often irritating. It feels like an old-school advertising and cold-call mentality, and that doesn’t work. It’s intrusive and tone-deaf.

What’s often overlooked is that HCPs behave a lot like other high-pressure, low-time B2B audiences. That’s why I think we need to take lessons from B2B marketing models, especially SaaS. There are real parallels. In both cases, your customer probably already has a solution. The new one offers marginal gains, but the risk and effort involved in switching are significant. You’re not just selling a feature, you’re asking someone to change their behaviour.

Of course, for doctors, the stakes are much higher. But the marketing principles are similar. The best SaaS companies don’t shout about differentiators. They use inbound models and they build trust with content. Customers come to them for value and engage with the product when it’s the right time for them. It’s pull, not push,  and it works.

The challenge is, that kind of long-term, content-led strategy doesn’t fit easily into traditional pharma structures. Incentives are short-term and success is often measured by how good something looks in a quarterly report, not by how well it actually supports HCPs. Pharma knows it but ignores the reality of their marketing impact. Every industry report tells us that our models don’t work. Indegene’s white papers are great examples that everyone should read. As is EPG’s latest survey.

We need to stop assuming digital is about reach or repetition and brand recall. Sure, these things matter, but to change behaviour you need deeper engagement, you need relevance and you need clinical value.  That’s still being overlooked in favour of chasing vanity metrics.

Search has been neglected in pharma for far too long, for reasons I understand but completely disagree with.

HCPs are just like the rest of us. They don’t want to be sold to and they don’t want to feel like they’re being “marketed to.” When they have a question or feel like they’re missing a piece of information, what do they do? They search on Google., or increasingly on platforms like ChatGPT. It’s human behaviour and it’s no different in clinical settings.

HCPs are constantly looking for trusted information; clinical guidelines, trial data, education, peer opinion, consensus documents etc. They’re making complex, contextual decisions. So if we want to play a meaningful role in that process, we need to be discoverable. We need to show up when they go looking for answers.

So why on earth wouldn’t pharma optimise for these search queries?

It’s the most direct route to providing the right information, in the right place, at the exact moment it’s needed! (Remember when omnichannel was cool?). Yet the same tired excuse comes up time and again: “It’s not compliant. What if a patient sees it?” That logic only makes sense if you’re assuming everything you publish is product content.

But here’s the thing, HCPs aren’t usually searching for your product. They’re searching for solutions. They’re looking for answers to clinical challenges. So why aren’t we creating content that does exactly that?

Answering the real questions HCPs are asking is not only compliant, it’s the foundation of trust. It opens the door to further engagement. Maybe that’s a newsletter subscription. Maybe it’s access to more in-depth materials. But none of that happens if your content can’t be found.

And if your product content can’t be made discoverable? Then work across the business. Partner with your corporate comms, earned media, or medical teams. Find creative ways to make your product content exist independently through press, partnerships, or thought leadership.

The future of search isn’t just keywords and metadata. With AI-driven search now surfacing answers directly to users, pharma marketers need to think more holistically about their content strategy. If your content isn’t valuable, authoritative and genuinely useful, it won’t get surfaced at all and you’ll be ignored.

And if pharma keeps focusing solely on product data, useful only 1% of the time to your audience, and not compliant for discoverable search, then you can never be relevant.

This applies to any marketer, not just pharma. And when I say “more human,” I don’t mean just being more emotive or ticking the “patient-centric” box. I mean actually understanding people; their context, pressures, questions, and behaviours.

You don’t get that from market research alone. Surveys and slide decks aren’t human, they’re abstract data points without enough real-world context. If you want to influence behaviour, you need to immerse yourself in your audience’s world.

Spend time in hospitals,  sit in on sales calls,  follow real doctors and HCPs on X, Instagram, TikTok, LinkedIn. Lurk on Reddit threads and see what they’re debating, frustrated about, or curious about. That’s where real, human insight lives. That’s where you find the seeds of ideas that can actually shift behaviour.

I always use the stand-up comedy example. The best observational comedy makes you laugh because it reveals something true; something you’d never quite noticed but instantly recognise. And those insights don’t come from surveys. They come from living it.

Search behaviour is another underrated goldmine. What people type into Google tells you exactly what’s on their minds. You’ll find out what questions HCPs are asking, and how your product or content might play a role in solving them.

So being more human is not about tone or branding. It’s about empathy. It’s about doing the work to really know your audience. Because if you don’t understand them, you’ll never connect with them.

They shouldn’t have to. And honestly, I don’t buy the idea that one blocks the other.

You owe it to HCPs and patients to be compliant. You also owe it to them to be creative. It’s not either/or.

You can be creative and ignore compliance, but that’s irresponsible. You can be compliant and ignore creativity, but that’s ineffective. Or you can do what you should do, which is to build smart, engaging content within the rules.

This whole “balance” debate is often just an excuse. It’s not a real marketing problem, it’s a cultural one. The most successful teams I’ve worked with don’t see compliance as a blocker. They see it as a framework to work within, not a reason to play it safe.

Creativity in pharma isn’t about pushing boundaries. It’s about finding powerful ways to make an impact without crossing them.

I’ve got a mantra: “Your customers don’t care about you or your products. They care about themselves.” I adapted it from a line in Epic Content Marketing by Joe Pulizzi, and it completely changed my mindset. Mindset is really your priority and everything else will follow.

My biggest lesson is to stop chasing tools and tech. Start learning how to think. Great marketing isn’t about the latest platform, it’s about understanding your audience and communicating with purpose. Marketing can succeed on any channel if the content demonstrates empathy and provides value.

And my advice to budding marketers?  Get hands-on with your content and digital marketing. I write three LinkedIn posts a week and send out two email newsletters a month. That gives me a short feedback loop. I get to see what’s working, what’s not. What gets attention, what creates a community reaction. What makes people angry. What makes them grateful.

Marketing is a craft. And like any craft, you only improve by doing. If you’re outsourcing everything to your agency or waiting for AI to do it for you, you’re already falling behind. You’ll never get it. You’ll never hone your craft. 

I think the best content will be way more holistic, focused on therapy areas or portfolios, not just products. If you look at what medical teams are already spending time developing, that’s where marketing needs to go too.

The reality is that most of the time your customers don’t need your product. But they do need support, insight, and trusted information all the time. The marketers who win will be the ones creating opportunities for engagement before the product conversation even begins; so that when an HCP does need something, they know where to go, and they trust what they find.

As a result, we’ll see more open, educational, problem-solving content; more community-based approaches;  and more human voices on social. At least, I really hope so. Because that’s the future healthcare professionals actually want.

And pharma has so much potential here. I always come back to LEGO as brand inspiration. Think about the content and experiences they’ve built, just to sell plastic bricks. Now imagine what pharma could do with that level of creativity and intent… when we’re not selling toys, but changing lives.

Right now, we’re barely scratching the surface.

The incentive and reward structures set by leadership.

Right now, the culture around pharma marketing and comms holds us back. We talk about innovation, but the people with new ideas often aren’t the ones empowered to act. The system rewards caution, not progress.

If we want different results, we need different leadership behaviours. That means pulling out the blockers, giving space to the innovators, and backing people willing to try something new. Engagement is already at rock bottom, so what’s the real risk?

It’s time to shake things up. Bring in new, diverse thinkers. Reward long-term thinking over short-term optics. That’s the only way anything will actually change.

Dan’s perspective highlights the urgent need for pharma to move away from outdated, product-first marketing and towards more human, value-led approaches. By focusing on relevance, empathy, and discoverability, pharma marketers can rebuild trust with healthcare professionals and patients alike. At Varn Health, we believe search plays a critical role in this shift, ensuring that when HCPs look for answers, they find content that informs, supports, and empowers. The future of healthcare marketing is about being braver, more human, and more strategic, and those who embrace this will set the standard for years to come.

If you want help future-proofing your healthcare brand, get in touch.