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5 Different Pharma Digital Marketing Strategies to Adopt for Your Brand Today

Category : Pharma Marketing Author : Team Amura Date Created: 10 Feb 2020

While digital marketing is the new norm today, in pharmaceutical marketing (like its traditional counterpart), it requires a different approach for doctors & Rx products and a different one for consumers & OTC products.

When marketing to doctors, according to an IBM report on E-Detailing published in 2019, there are certain factors important to doctors that need careful consideration. These include:

  1. Time
  2. No disruption to routine
  3. Objectivity
  4. Quality of care
  5. Simple-to-use technology
  6. Ability to address patients’ needs and questions

Consumers, on the other hand, are posing a bigger challenge for both Rx and OTC marketing. Consumers are hyper-aware today, constantly looking for information and opinions regarding health issues and medication - both, the drugs being prescribed to them, as well as OTC products. They rely on their doctor but will also consult their friends/family who have had similar experiences and research heavily online regardless of their doctor's visits, to validate the opinions put before them.

This change in consumer behaviour, coupled with a keen insight into what is important to doctors, calls for a change in marketing that goes beyond the websites, social media, and SEO typical of a digital strategy today.

We’ve compiled 5 different pharma digital marketing strategies to adopt for your brand today:

  • 1.

    Launching a Content Marketing Portal [Rx & OTC]

     

Helpful, informative content is the most powerful tool in pharmaceutical marketing today, valued by doctors and consumers alike. With increased focus on their use of time, doctors are constantly on the lookout for thorough, vetted information that will allow them to better form opinions and make decisions about drugs and treatments. For Rx drugs, in particular, a content marketing portal proves valuable for dispelling information and maintaining top-of-the-mind brand recall among doctors.

Consumers, too, are spending more and more time online researching symptoms, drugs and off-the-shelf products that can help in prevention and treatment. In this case, a content marketing portal acts as an effective tool to educate, engage and create awareness & thought leadership for your brand.

What to keep in mind when launching your content marketing portal for patients and consumers:
Includes content of all typesAmura-Background Shadow

Includes content of all types - blog posts, videos, infographics, interviews, and more.

Vetted information from expertsAmura-Background Shadow

Vetted information from experts is a must to establish trust and returning audiences

balance between scientific information and engaging content Amura-Background Shadow

There needs to be a balance between the scientific information you want to publish as a brand, and the engaging content your audience wants as internet users

analysing your website trafficAmura-Background Shadow

Constantly analysing your website traffic will help ensure you’re publishing content people are actually interested in

up-to-date User Experience (UX) and User Interface (UI)Amura-Background Shadow

An up-to-date User Experience (UX) and User Interface (UI) will make all the difference in increasing traffic and engagement

Effective SEP must ensure you’re visible on search platforms such as GoogleAmura-Background Shadow

Effective Search Engine Optimisation (SEO) is a must to ensure you’re visible on search platforms such as Google

Cross-promoting the content on your portalAmura-Background Shadow

Cross-promoting the content on your portal via paid media, social media and email marketing will help drive value from new and returning users

  • 2.

    Leveraging E-Detailing For More Effective Marketing [Rx]

We won’t go into the specifics of what e-detailing is, but we will say that the value derived from e-detailing can be vastly increased by adding on functionalities to your medium:

Consider taking your doctors from a presentation about your new drug, to a landing page where they can order a trial pack.

Or holding a webinar for your doctors on a certain medical condition affiliated with your drug, telling them how it works to treat the condition and any other literature they would need, directly from your R&D department.

Perhaps you’d want to follow up on the webinar or your presentation with email marketing that nurtures the doctor towards trial packs and orders.

Important points to remember:

  1. You need to understand where each doctor is in their journey relating to each of your products and create tailored e-detailing experiences. The more personalised the experience is to each doctor, the greater your chances of conversion via the supplemental marketing collaterals.
  2. Keep your marketing short, informative and direct. Time is still a big factor in terms of value.
  3. Videos and graphics are the best-working formats for getting maximum digital engagement, and doctors are no exception to that.
  • 3.

    Building a Community of Consumers (patients) and Doctors Alike

This community could be a part of your website, an existing social sharing platform, or even the aforementioned content marketing portal.

The portal will already have blog posts and videos of interest to your end-consumer. Take it one step further by creating a forum for users, or listing affiliated doctors, creating doctor-written content of immense value to patients, and driving patient traffic to those affiliated doctors. It’s a win-win-win!

Additional benefits:

  1. Analysing the traffic on this portal, where patients are actively contributing, gives you immense insight into consumer behaviour and preferences
  2. Top-of-the-mind recall for your Rx and OTC products among affiliated doctors present on the portal
  3. A direct platform to market your OTC products
  • 4.

    Leveraging Offline Recall for Online Conversions

Creating maximum buzz and establishing identity plays a large role in marketing OTC products, which is why most giant OTC-driven pharmaceutical companies would refrain from taking channels such as TV and radio out of the marketing mix just yet. What we recommend is to supplement that with digital media - a bit of buzz on TV, followed by highly-targeted online marketing campaigns, is the answer for conversions today.

After you run your campaign offline, you’ll have two sets of audiences exposed to your brand and product:

  1. An audience that directly fits the parameters of your TG
  2. An audience that does not immediately fit into your primary TG

Reach out to Audience 1 online, where they spend time every day, showing them multiple ads that they will connect with your TV/radio spot. Do this smartly, with the right media mix, targeting and contextual strategy, and they will convert and buy your product offline - first as a trial, then to stock up.

Audience 2, on the other hand, can be considered as having some amount of brand exposure to possibly convert at another time.

Why digital marketing should be your go-to for conversions

01

Amura-Background Curve Amura-Background Patch Digital Marketing Conversions-Advanced Targeting Parameters

Advanced targeting parameters -
to reach exactly your audience

02

Amura-Background Curve Amura-Background Patch Digital Marketing Conversions-Higher Returns On Ad Spend

Higher returns on ad spend -
since you aren’t targeting anyone and everyone, and you can keep optimising based on the response you’re seeing

03

Amura-Background Curve    Amura-Background Patch Digital Marketing Conversions-Easy Measurement

Easy measurement & attribution -
from each touchpoint and channel

04

Amura-Background Patch Digital Marketing Conversions-Maximum Customer Lifetime Value

Maximum Customer Lifetime Value (CLTV) -
created by constantly re-engaging even existing customers via email and social media

  • 5.

    Building Trust with Influencer Marketing

‘Influencer marketing’ aren’t two words commonly associated with the pharmaceutical industry, due to the many complicated rules governing the marketing of drugs & products. Done subtly and smartly, however, it can be one of the most effective strategies in your mix.

How to use influencer marketing for pharmaceutical products:
Amura-Background ShadowAmura-Background Green PatchAmura-Background Shadow Flip

01

Influencer Marketing For Pharma-Have Popular Celebrity Associated
If you can’t directly market or advertise the drug/product, have a popular celebrity associated with the product’s purpose, talk about your cause (perhaps a condition or disease that your product has been designed to alleviate).

A

Combine it with a CSR activity - or just good old philanthropy - to really make a statement about the cause and your belief in it, with your influencer’s presence.

B

Involve the community around the cause, build a lot of content, and drive home the buzz
Amura-Background ShadowAmura-Background Green PatchAmura-Background Shadow Flip

02

Influencer Marketing For Pharma Products-Directly Advertise
If you can directly advertise the drug/product, don’t simply run ads with a popular celebrity - enlist more approachable influencers that are popular among your TG online, and reach out to them for a mutually-beneficial marketing opportunity. This will be more impactful than a celebrity that everyone may not relate to, and you’ll get plenty of influencers within the same budget.
 

We hope you found these 5 different digital strategies for pharmaceutical marketing useful. You’ll find that a targeted strategy; consistent analytics; experimentation; and personalised, data-driven creativity are key to implementing these ideas.

If you’re ready to get started, feel free to reach out to us below!

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Comments (41)

  Mark David posted almost 3 years ago

Great post, very informational. Nowadays, in presence of so many brands in every niche, it is not enough to put information related to your business online like overview, services, area of service, etc, you also need to reach out to people through proper marketing tactics.

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  Nilesh Rana posted about 3 years ago

Thank you, It was very informative and helpful

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  Shweta posted over 3 years ago

Thanks for sharing this article! Can you please mention some important marketing strategies for pharmaceutical companies today, in the current situation?

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  Avinash Bhullar posted over 3 years ago

Interesting read. Most of the strategies for RX marketing are long term strategies. Are there any prerequisite that a brand might need before applying and scaling these strategies

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  Ravi J. posted over 3 years ago

Loved the e-detailing part, that would definitely help increasing brand and product recall for doctors. Could you please recommend some of the best e-detailing platforms, would love to explore them in detail and take it forward for implementation.

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  Sylvia posted over 3 years ago

I am impressed with how you've covered leveraging of online recall for offline conversations. That's a very effective strategy.

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  Storm posted over 3 years ago

I advocate for direct marketing over the use of influencers. It just gives you more control as to how your product is advertised.

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  Anderson posted over 3 years ago

Of importance is choosing the right celebrity when going the route of influencer marketing. Your brand is only as good as your influecer.

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  Shantel posted over 3 years ago

Influencer marketing should be approached with lots of caution. If not done well, it could lead to disastrous results.

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  Louis posted over 3 years ago

I am happy to see that a lot of pharmaceutical companies have started using email marketing to great effect. It's a good step in the right direction.

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  Teddy posted over 3 years ago

Holding webinars for your doctors can be very effective. It goes a long way in putting your company's name out there and giving it that much needed exposure.

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  Daphne posted over 3 years ago

A content marketing portal can also help set one's product apart from the rest. It's a strategy I wouldn't mind getting on board with.

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  Oliver posted over 3 years ago

Many pharmaceutical companies and jumping into the digital marketing scene with no clear strategy. Employing these techniques can help them a great deal.

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  Patricia posted over 3 years ago

I really like the idea of Launching a Content Marketing Portal. That's one most pharmaceutical companies should adopt.

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  Meg W posted over 3 years ago

Doctors are not experts in technology. As such, any digital marketing strategy used on them should be fairly easy to use.

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  Roy posted over 3 years ago

Indeed, different approaches should be used when dealing with doctors and consumers. There's no one size fits all when it comes to digital marketing.

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  William G. posted over 3 years ago

Great advice, particulary about tapping into the influencer marketing. This is where a bulk of all marketing is headed I do believe.

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  Desmond Haynes posted over 3 years ago

Very useful digital strategies for pharma marketing. This article is highly informative and you can find about targeted strategies and aspects such as creativity that is driven by data.

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  Jeff kyle posted over 3 years ago

Strategy is the guide to all businesses. If you are able to strategies things, you will definitely cone up with positive results. This information is so cool and good. Thanks for this informative post.

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  Miaka posted over 3 years ago

This initiative has been adopted even so now I think. With face to face approach hard these days. In any case this is a good thing. I just hope it can be global since everyone needs it.

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  Athena posted over 3 years ago

I love your blogs. They are very timely and full of great info.

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  Kei posted over 3 years ago

The content was easy to understand. I love your posts.

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  Angelo posted over 3 years ago

These 5 strategies are the key to be successful in digital marketing. I have learned a lot.

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  Mariz Tina Mispeñas posted over 3 years ago

Amidst this situation as of the moment these companies may get do these strategies. This will help build trust for the consumers and make a larger market for the pharmaceutical companies.

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  Jiffy Rando posted over 3 years ago

These are very neat strategies and not just for pharmacies but for everything in general. Advertising evolves with time and often case technology is the trigger of it. I welcome it to be honest.

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  Francis Chung posted over 3 years ago

There are some digital strategies which are very useful. You may find a strategy that is personalised and is very creative.

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  Oyeyipo Oladele posted over 3 years ago

Thanks for this beneficial tips on digital marketing strategies on pharmaceutical companies. Now I know how to reach my target.

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  David Mureithi posted over 3 years ago

The key is being simple and problem solving. People will go to a system that get's their problems answered.

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  Gillian posted over 3 years ago

These strategies as I've read are really helpful, not only in pharmaceutical products, but also in any product one wants to market in a digital platform. Very helpful article.

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  Laxmi posted over 3 years ago

Agreed! As everyone is shifting to digital, one important aspect is trust. Could you suggest some more strategies to build consumer trust

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  conrad pranze villas posted over 3 years ago

If people are talking about your company then that can be a part of an advertisement. Such buzz can help your company grow and sell out their products.

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  Payal posted over 3 years ago

Thanks for the information!! Would it help after COVID-19 to survive in the market competition?

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  Meldred Judith posted over 3 years ago

This is an easy way for us to further understand this strategies. It will make it easier for us to handle our businesses.

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  sophy posted over 3 years ago

The detailed information on strategies to use for pharma customers is really timely. it will be great for all

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  Alex posted over 3 years ago

This is already a known fact even more so now due to this virus. It fast tracked if you ask me. Sure older people might have a difficult time but it is what it is. The future is here. We should all embrace it.

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  Tina Vij posted over 3 years ago

The 5 various digital strategies mentioned here are very beneficial. A targeted strategy is the need of the hour.

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  AJ posted over 3 years ago

Seriously, going digital is the only way pharma companies can make a living aside from traditional ad placements in broadcast and broadsheet format. People are more connected to the internet nowadays, and being able to provide a way for consumers and pharma companies to interact digitally will really make it easier for everyone.

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  Ayush posted over 3 years ago

Thanks for sharing. What sort of metrics do you think we can track to measure the consumer engagement?

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  Surya Reddy posted over 3 years ago

With the advent of the new online platforms like Pharmeasy, Medlife and Netmeds, it is much clear that Pharma companies are adopting new digital marketing strategies to reach and acquire new customers. Would like to know from the above 5 digital marketing strategies which strategy would be the best for pharma business with a limited marketing budget.

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  Ankita Chinnawar posted over 3 years ago

Any suggestions on how to scale these strategies? What are the important parameters which will measure the doctors and customer engagement?

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  Akshada Yewale posted over 3 years ago

The blog has focused on various strategies that can be used as per different consumer. Being into a Pharma business, how can I reach & educate my consumers more effectively? and create awareness for my brand?

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