Veeva CRM: a quick overview
Veeva CRM is a suite of four "edetailing" products that are widely used by sales reps working for pharmaceutical companies. When we as an agency make an IVA (interactive visual aid) for our client, that IVA is typically presented by the sales rep through Veeva CRM.
What is edetailing, exactly? First, let's start with: what is plain old detailing? In pharma, detailing is basically how sales reps talk to HCPs about their company's product, in an effort to convince them that they should prescribe the product to their patients. The rep shows the HCP their brand's marketing materials (which were often print pieces back in the day) and talks about the product's potential uses, benefits, adverse effects, etc.
So, edetailing is the electronic (digital) version of that. :)
When I was a young designer/developer, I worked on IVAs without even knowing what detailing and edetailing were. No one tells you this stuff! It really helps to know how our work will be used.
Okay, so let's talk about the four edetailing products that make up the Veeva CRM suite. The first three are different kinds of presentation tools:
Veeva CLM (formerly iRep)
CLM is an in-person edetailing tool. Picture a sales rep standing in the HCP's office with an iPad, talking the HCP through some slides about their product, showing them data, answering the HCP's questions, etc.
By the way, CLM used to be called iRep, but Veeva stopped using that name many years ago; around 2018 at the absolute latest. Let's make an effort to delete "iRep" from our vocabulary! I've seen clients correct agency people about this; not a good look!
So anyway, when the Veeva software first came out, this in-person presentation tool was the main focus — and it still pretty much is. When we talked about "Veeva" back then, we were talking about a rep with an iPad in an HCP's office.
Then Veeva added some more products:
Veeva Engage Meeting
Engage Meeting is a remote edetailing tool. The rep presents from their device remotely, and the HCP watches and listens on their device. The rep shows slides and provides voiceover, and the HCP can ask questions. This is very similar to a Zoom or Teams meeting, where the rep is sharing their screen and talking, and the HCP is watching on their machine. The slides that the rep is showing are the exact same slides that are used in Veeva CLM, in-person on an iPad.
Veeva Engage Portal
Engage Portal is a self-guided remote edetailing tool. The rep sends the HCP a link, and the HCP views it on their own, whenever they want. So, there's no voiceover for this one; no conversation, and another important difference is that it's the HCP swiping and navigating rather than the rep walking them through. Again, the slides that are being viewed through Engage Portal are the same slides that would be used in CLM or Engage Meeting.
So those are Veeva's three different presentation tools. We as an agency produce one IVA, and that IVA can be viewed with any of the three methods above.
Last but not least, here's the fourth product in the Veeva CRM suite:
Veeva Approved Emails
Also called VAEs, these are customizable emails that reps can send as a follow-up after visits. They're often called "rep-triggered-emails" or RTEs; these are not official terms. Each VAE is a template with different kinds of variable content (all of which is pre-approved by the client's legal team). After a rep meets with an HCP, the rep can choose a template and customize it based on their conversation with the HCP — let's say the HCP was very interested in safety, so the rep chooses to include some variable content about safety, and this links to a safety flashcard pdf.
The Veeva app tracks sends, opens, clickthroughs, etc.
I'll write a much more in-depth article about VAEs! They're fun, and there's a lot to know about them.
Veeva's main selling point: tracking
Regarding Veeva's three presentation tools, you might ask, why not just use PowerPoint? The answer to that is tracking. This has been Veeva's main selling point since the beginning. When a rep is presenting through Veeva, the app is tracking and storing a lot of data about the session: which HCP the rep talked to, which slides were viewed, time spent on each slide, etc. Extend this idea to all the reps is the company's salesforce and all of the doctors each one talks to, and this ends up being a tremendous about of data, which is extremely valuable to our clients.
On top of the native tracking that's on by default in Veeva's presentation software, we can also program custom tracking for specific interactions, like watching a video, or opening a popup.
Tracking is a big part of Veeva Approved Emails, too. Things that are natively tracked in VAEs include which HCPs received which emails, which variable pieces were included for which HCP, as well as open rates, clickthroughs, etc.
So that's the basics of Veeva CRM! Over the years I've written an insane amount about all four of these products, and I'll try to get those pieces onto this site soon. While there's nothing particularly complicated about creating media for any of the Veeva products — in terms of content, design, dev, etc — there's a sort of air of mystery about them to a lot of our colleagues, just because they're not the typical digital things that we all interact with every day, e.g. websites and regular marketing emails. As with all types of digital media, there are specific strategic things to keep in mind when producing content for these channels. To be continued!
– Manning
Questions/comments? Feel free to contact me at manning@manningkrull.com. I update these articles pretty frequently — best practices evolve over time as the world of digital quickly changes, and I always welcome insights from others.