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Are you committing a pharmaceutical faux-pas when it comes to marketing? We\u2019ve been researching, leading, and succeeding in the pharmaceutical marketing space for 18 years.\u00a0 I\u2019ve personally attended hundreds of meetings with pharma marketers and their agencies during my career with Rx EDGE, and have observed these common behaviors that usually contribute to a lack of success when it comes to marketing.<\/p>\n
These days, media is defined differently, it\u2019s about fans, followers, and being where the action is. If you have the scale to influence, then you\u2019re media. Expand your definition of media and you\u2019ll expand your impact.<\/p>\n
The basic tenets of marketing to consumers holds that you should be reaching THE LARGEST number of targeted eyeballs, for THE BIGGEST effect, for THE LEAST amount of money. Consider the \u201cfive P\u2019s\u201d of marketing in your next campaign: Product, Price, Promotion, Place, and Position. These five are key marketing elements designed to help you think strategically. By the way, the pharmacy fits nicely into that \u201cPlace\u201d element!<\/p>\n
Setting is critical in all facets of life, and it is particularly pertinent in advertising. Two words always come to mind for me, content\u00a0and context. Does your message really matter to the consumers it reaches? If not, consider expanding your targeting strategy horizons. \u201cBrands need to adapt, evolve, and use data to understand what\u2019s working and what\u2019s not,\u201d Lakshaman Narayan, CEO and a co-founder of Unmetric, Inc.\u00a0told Forbes<\/a>. Dig into your metrics and analytics to determine how to reach the best target audience for your current campaign and consider trying new approaches like Insight Edge<\/a>.<\/p>\n To connect with the right audience at scale, the key is to not put all your eggs in one basket \u2013 consumers aren\u2019t loyal to a single publication or to a single social media platform, making a diversified and flexible approach to paid distribution necessary. Using multiple channels significantly amplifies your reach. Sometimes now called \u201comni-channel marketing,\u201d the idea is to keep consumer needs at the center of the marketing campaign. Provide one consistent communication strategy, with content tailored to the channel, delivered across multiple channels to multiple audiences. 95% of marketers agree a multi-channel strategy that allows them to target customers is important for their organization. Don\u2019t limit your platform strategy \u2014 diversify!<\/p>\n Stop us if you\u2019ve heard this one before, the new healthcare hub<\/a> is located in none other than the pharmacy. Why aren\u2019t you marketing there? It\u2019s a risk to assume that your target audience cannot be found in the pharmacy: The average American lives within just two miles of a community pharmacy and over 275 million visit a pharmacy each week!<\/p>\n Speaking of multi-channel marketing, are your advertising dollars focused solely on the waiting and exam room of physicians and hospitals? Or perhaps you only spend your ad dollars on television<\/a>? While reaching an expansive audience should be part of any marketer\u2019s goal, it might be time to challenge your traditional thinking (see #1 above). Are you willing to miss out on an average ROI of $8.12 and a 12.5% script lift just because you want to stay in the office? Potential patients are taking trips to the pharmacy for self-treatment OTC products eight times more frequently than they are visiting a physician. Why then do we consider the doctor\u2019s office \u201ccloser to prescribing\u201d than the pharmacy?<\/p>\n In an industry that is already notorious for taking longer to embrace new things due to tight regulations, it\u2019s easy to fall into the trap of saying \u201cwe\u2019ve always done it that way\u201d when it comes to marketing. When is the last time you took a hard look at the success of your current advertising campaigns? ROI might not be everything, but it seems like it would be difficult to justify the ongoing use of media strategies that cannot be concretely evaluated. It\u2019s essential to link marketing actions to patient actions whenever possible.<\/p>\n \u201cAn open exchange of viewpoints is essential to ensuring the agency\/client relationship stays healthy and productive\u201d says Ableson Taylor Healthcare Marketer Laura Bartmess<\/a>. Make sure you\u2019re an open book when it comes to your wants, needs, desires, and ROI requirements when talking with agencies and advertising partners. This holds true not only for your agency relationships, but for your working relationships with other marketing services providers as well.<\/p>\n A big theme from the recent MM&M\u2019s Annual Transforming Healthcare Conference <\/a>was creating a consumer connection and focusing on the patient first. Consumers are more motivated than ever these days when they are searching for answers about their health. It\u2019s important to create an opportunity for these potential customers to discover new brands in a timely and relevant manner. Help the consumers that are helping themselves! They are taking healthcare into their own hands and missing them when they\u2019re in that Mindset Moment<\/a>\u00ae<\/sup> is a large, lost opportunity.<\/p>\n Marketers love talking about calls to actions: CTAs. Don\u2019t forget to focus on the action you\u2019d like the consumer to take. Use action-oriented media to spark the hand-raisers (those who\u2019ve seen the ad and are interested in the message) to DO something. The typical metrics of awareness, website visits, and impressions are all contributing factors to media success and important to know, but they are diagnostic in nature and do not give you the full performance picture.\u00a0Metrics that are delivered primarily through sales data provide a more unequivocal assessment of media effectiveness because they tell marketers if a real action was taken.<\/p>\n Keeping these 10 tips in mind can be challenging, but will ultimately be rewarding.<\/p>\n Need a partner to help you navigate the changing pharma marketing landscape? Consider Rx EDGE. We\u2019d love to help you with your next endeavor.<\/p>\n Other Posts You Might Like:<\/strong><\/p>\n Action-Oriented Media Inspiration<\/a> Are you committing a pharmaceutical faux-pas when it comes to marketing? We\u2019ve been researching, leading, and succeeding in the pharmaceutical marketing space for 18 years.\u00a0 I\u2019ve personally attended hundreds of meetings with pharma marketers and their agencies during my career with Rx EDGE, and have observed these common behaviors that usually contribute to a lack […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":6,"featured_media":2201,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":[],"categories":[6],"tags":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.instephealth.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1519"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.instephealth.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.instephealth.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.instephealth.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/6"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.instephealth.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=1519"}],"version-history":[{"count":12,"href":"https:\/\/www.instephealth.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1519\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":2284,"href":"https:\/\/www.instephealth.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1519\/revisions\/2284"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.instephealth.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/2201"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.instephealth.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1519"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.instephealth.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=1519"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.instephealth.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=1519"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}4. Missing Multi-Channel Marketing<\/h3>\n
5. Skipping the Pharmacy<\/h3>\n
6. POC Isn\u2019t Just About Focusing Only on the Waiting\/Exam Room<\/h3>\n
7. Saying “We’ve Always Done It That Way”<\/h3>\n
8. Under-Communicating with Your Partners<\/h3>\n
9. Not Considering the Consumer Connection<\/h3>\n
10. Forgetting to Measure the Call to Action<\/h3>\n
\nTrust and the \u201cGold Standard\u201d in Measurement<\/a>
\nGet Off the Couch! Marketing Biologics in a Better Way<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"