Executive overview
“Content is King” is a familiar mantra in life science. But despite major investments in content production, the industry often fails in the final step: making content usable, findable, and delivered to customers when it actually matters. The paper uses a fairy tale metaphor to describe an imbalance between effort and impact - and positions marketing automation as the practical bridge between the two.
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The problem: content is expensive, but underused
Life science marketing serves multiple audiences with different needs (HCPs, patients, caregivers, regulators), which drives significant content volume and complexity. Yet much of this content is not reused effectively, and delivery often feels fragmented or inefficient. The paper highlights that the average content reuse rate is around 30%, meaning the majority of produced content creates limited downstream value.
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The “last mile” challenge
A key point is that the last mile - how content is delivered and activated - determines whether upfront investment pays off. Despite large CRM databases and marketing technology spend, content often:
- sits unused in systems
- is hard for commercial teams to leverage
- is distributed through generic, one-off campaigns
- fails to reflect channel preferences or customer needs
This creates a situation where content is treated “in a vagabond way” during delivery, even if it was produced with high effort. - White_Paper_Marketing_automatio…
Why marketing automation is a major opportunity
The paper challenges the misconception that marketing automation is simply a more advanced mass-emailing tool. Instead, it argues marketing automation should be understood as a flexible system for personalised, timely, and relevant content delivery across channels.
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It also connects improved adoption to the fact that traditional pharma marketing often struggles with:
- high costs and inefficiency
- lack of personalisation
- regulatory risks
- manual processes that increase the chance of errors and misdirected communications
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Key benefits of marketing automation
Marketing automation can solve delivery challenges by enabling:
- cost efficiency through reduced manual effort
- better personalisation using customer insights and behavioural signals
- higher content reuse through modular delivery and scalable workflows
- improved engagement by reaching the right person at the right time
- stronger compliance via built-in governance and consistent execution
- continuous improvement supported by reporting and analytics
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It also supports a wider set of channels beyond email, including SMS, mobile notifications, social media, webinars, online events, web content, direct mail, and field force interactions.
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Key steps to improve
To capture the full value of marketing automation, the paper recommends a shift toward outcome-driven implementation:
- assess needs, target audiences, and communication gaps
- define clear objectives and desired impact (engagement, speed of access to content, satisfaction, cost reduction, compliance)
- design integrated, cross-channel journeys based on triggers such as behaviour, preferences, demographics, and timing
- build common journey types (welcome flows, nurture campaigns, re-engagement, event promotion)
- monitor performance through analytics and continuously refine using metrics like open rates, click-through rates, conversion, and ROI
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Closing message
The conclusion is clear: Read it in white paper. Download it now!