A marketing plan is essential for every business, including pharmaceutical companies. Your marketing goals and strategies should be written down to keep everyone on the same page and work together.
Your pharmaceutical marketing plan should evolve as your business grows. You should make it adaptable to market conditions and disruptions so that you can position your company effectively no matter what.
Are you unsure how to create a pharmaceutical marketing plan? Or which strategies to use for pharmaceutical companies marketing? This guide will provide all the necessary information, including step-by-step for compiling your marketing strategy.
Building a Pharmaceuticals companies Marketing Plan
One of the ultimate goals for a solid pharma marketing plan is to increase:
- Visibility
- Sales
- Revenue
- Return on advertising and marketing investment
But knowing what you want doesn’t mean you know how. You want to be able to trust that your investment in a pharmaceutical marketing strategy will pay off. These are the steps you need to take.
Define Your Audience
Establishing your market is the priority. This will allow you to choose the right communication channels to reach your target audience. This means narrowing down the patients you wish to reach rather than trying to reach everyone and hoping for the best. Targeting the right market segments is key to maximizing your effectiveness.
Set Your Goals
Which market position are your goals? This will determine which marketing strategies you choose. These are the four most popular goals:
- Market penetration – Increased sales of drugs and treatments in the existing market.
- Market Development: Bringing existing treatments and drugs to a new market.
- Product Development: Introducing new treatments and drugs to existing markets.
- Diversification: Selling new drugs or treatments to a new customer market.
Define Your Unique Selling Propositions
Your USPs will allow you to create content communicating the right message to the right people. You will need to review your site against competitors to gain a competitive edge. This will ensure that your product offerings are truly unique. Here are some examples of USPs for pharmaceuticals:
- Drug efficacy
- Service quality
- Expertise and experience
- Track record
- Price
- Fulfillment time
Ask the Right Question
Although hindsight may be 20/20, why not use a crystal ball to guide your marketing strategy? Then, you have the opportunity to reach out to your target audience and find out their needs.
It is important to consider the following questions before making any marketing decisions.
- Emerging market trends should you be aware of?
- Communication channels best suit your audience?
- What type of experience do you want to offer your audience?
- How do you distinguish your drugs and treatments from your competitors?
Set Some Key Performance Indicators (KPIs)
If you don’t have a way to measure its effectiveness, what’s the point of developing a marketing strategy for pharmaceuticals? Your goals will determine the metrics you use, but these are some examples:
- The average revenue per HCP
- Stock turnover
- Non-prescription Sales as a Percentage of Total Sales
- Total sales, revenue, and profit
You may want to include metrics that highlight the efficacy or reputation of your brand if you are using targeted pharma industry marketing strategies as part of your overall marketing plan.
These steps will allow you to concentrate on specific strategies for pharmaceutical companies marketing and help drive your campaign forward.
Pharmaceutical Marketing Strategies
Let’s look at the various tactics you can use to optimize your pharmaceutical company marketing strategy.
Update Your Website
Your company’s website is your virtual resume. It is important to update it regularly so that it has a modern, attractive design, is easy to navigate, and contains the most current information. In addition, it should be easy for users to find information. You should consult your developer to make sure your site is easily accessible.
Is your website mobile-friendly? Research has shown that 92% of top pharmaceutical manufacturers’ websites passed Google’s mobile-friendly test. However, only 25 of the top 25 websites meet Google’s Core Web Vitals standards, and 92% fail Google’s mobile speed test.
Invest in Pharma SEO
Did you know that Google receives more than 1 billion health queries daily? Your Google ranking will be improved by updating your web copy with more keywords, better metadata, and alt tags. You can add additional pages to your website to include more links from both the internal and external web. Also, you can include long-tail and local keywords to increase domain authority. A blog is a great way to increase your website’s size and add all the necessary SEO data to please Google. It also showcases your product range, expertise, and knowledge to increase HCP and patient awareness of your brand.
Connect with Physicians Using Online Communities
LinkedIn is the largest professional network on the internet. However, you need to join HCP-specific channels such as Sermo to reach a targeted audience. Sermo gives you access to over 1.3 million healthcare professionals in 150 countries. This allows you to build a stronger network with your HCP audience.
Use Customer Relationship Management (CRM) Technology
Your pharma marketing strategy must succeed with CRM technology. CRM technology allows you to gather and act on information about your leads, allowing you to build trusting and lasting relationships. CRM tools centralize and capture data about communication preferences, history of relationships, online behavior, etc. These are just a few examples of how you could use this data:
- Customized email campaigns based upon clicks to your website
- Cross-selling of new drugs and therapies based upon the previous uptake
- Personalized messages to birthdays and other milestones to personalize each recipient’s journey with you
- After-sales support
- Free sample offers
Provide Free Samples
Free samples are a classic marketing strategy for pharma. It is possible if your HCP networks permit it. Free samples are a great way to get doctors to prescribe drugs. However, you should be cautious and make sure that samples are properly distributed.
Create Visual Aids
Educational posters add value to your product offerings for physicians and increase your brand’s visibility. Placards placed in doctors’ offices and clinics increase the likelihood of them being seen by more people, increasing their conversion rate.
Maximize Networking Opportunities
There is no better way to refine your pharmaceutical sales strategies than to speak to your target audience at professional networking events. Get their feedback and comments.
Use Different Approaches for Each Audience
Your tactics to convert people will not have the same effect as those used to treat patients. Both markets use different research methods and platforms, so the USPs they are interested in may differ. Your communication tone will need to change. Patients are more open to empathy and emotional communication while preferring more data-driven, analytical communications.
