3 proven strategies to improve life science document management

Having a good content management strategy is essential to getting the most use out of the content your teams create. Between campaigns, product launches, sales team content, conference materials, and other marketing initiatives, what is the best way to manage your content?

As you create, update, and review content over time, staying organized can be difficult. The needs of every life science organization are different so always be sure to optimize your content library based on your current content needs and processes.

Here are three ways life science companies can improve content management.

All organizations benefit from having at least one system owner or librarian to oversee their life science document management strategy. Larger organizations with a substantial amount of content may even require a specific team for their content management needs. Your content library owner(s) can even be responsible for setting up the systems and processes that make it easy to find and access final, approved content.

Having one librarian or dedicated team gives your entire organization a single resource that is knowledgeable on all of your organization’s content. They can answer questions about the latest approved versions, updates made to content, or how the content is organized. As your organization grows and changes, your librarian can run point on accommodating your content management system to meet your needs. 

Connect your approval system to your content library

Another way to ensure your content library stays organized is to connect it to your content approval system with an API. Connecting these systems will streamline the entire process of properly distributing your compliant and approved content to members of your commercial team and other key stakeholders.

Connecting your approval system to your content library also has several compliance benefits. Approval systems built for life sciences have features like automatic updates and expirations, which ensure that only compliant content is being used in the field. As content is updated in your approval system, it’s also updated in your content library. This takes the guesswork out of identifying which content is approved for use; never hear “where is the latest version of our brochures?” ever again. 

Provide different ways for people to find content

Having different ways for your teams to find documents is a simple way to improve your life science document management. Providing more information on each piece of content will also give a better understanding of that content’s purpose and uses.

One way to provide more information on your content is to attach metadata to the documents themselves. Some metadata that you should consider adding to your content and documents to improve search-ability include:

• associated product,
• campaign,
• target audience,
• region where that content is applicable, and
• customer journey stage.

Similarly, establishing a clear folder structure will also make it easier to find particular documents and will help keep your content library organized. Some folders you can use to group content are:

• product,
• disease state,
• sales cycle stage,
• team based, and
• Monthly, quarterly or yearly campaigns.

Folders are a great way to group similar pieces of content together so they are findable and all in the same place within your content library. Don’t hesitate to place content in multiple folders where it makes sense to ensure that content is findable based on who needs it.

Good content management allows your teams to be better organized and efficient in finding and using the content you’ve produced. By having good life science document management, you’re more equipped to bring compliant content to market faster, furthering your products to the patients who need them most.