Online Pharmaceutical Marketing

Pharma eMarketing Advice

Pharma emarketing must resonate with providers, patients and other healthcare stakeholders. In an era where scrutiny of health care costs is front and center, the focus of online pharmaceutical marketing now must emphasize cost and value.

Pharmaceutical companies traditionally have used pharma emarketing to demonstrate the value of their medicines and attract an audience of recommending physicians.

These days, the pharma emarketing game has changed.

For starters, rising healthcare costs are a growing concern. As such, pharma emarketing messages must now promote the economic value of the cure, not just the cure itself.

The audience for pharma emarketing messages has also changed. Not only physicians must get the message. Regulators, patients and payers must now also be marketed to, and where better to reach them than online via pharma emarketing?

The core messaging remains the same, mind you. That centers on the product attributes for a pharmaceutical and the benefits the product delivers.

But messaging shifts a bit depending on the audience. The payers, for example, want to know that the product is cost-effective -- enough so to be worthy of coverage. Payers are also concerned about health outcomes over time – such as whether the pharmaceutical can help avoid costly maladies and treatments in the future.

With different nuanced messages required for different audiences, pharma emarketing needs to be focused into distinct silos. Be wary of pharma emarketing companies that don't have a deep understanding of the different customers you deal with.

Hiring an accomplished emarketing firm that has no solid background in pharmaceuticals marketing is a disaster waiting to happen. You may know the difference between generalist and specialist physicians, for example, but, believe it or not, the average marketing firm doesn't understand how messages might need to differ for these two groups.

With so much at stake in the pharmaceutical industry in these rapidly changing times, it pays to do business with a pharma emarketing company that has "been there, done that" and has considerable pharmaceutical marketing experience and knowledge.

On the flip side, the world is changing rapidly so be sure to experiment with new approaches. While it's true that the best way to keep on the road is to keep one wheel firmly entrenched in a rut, that approach is not the best way to outperform innovative competitors who may be pushing the envelope on new pharma emarketing strategies and tactics.

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