Janifha Evangeline | Sunday, 13 November 2022
Pharmaceutical marketing is a huge business & continues growing at a rapid rate. As a matter of fact, the marketing spend in the pharmaceutical industry has risen by nearly 70 percent in the last two decades & now it totals nearly USD 30 billion dollars. While the traditional marketing strategies in this sector have revolved around several vigorous product marketing of the prescription drugs that the decision-makers think will make money, commercial success is mainly owing to aggressive digital marketing & promotional activity and most often targeted at the physician.
Although responding to the needs as well as expectations of patients, providers, & payers has not typically been the most important aim, it is about to change. The present state of pharmaceutical marketing is highly complex & takes one of two paths: either direct-to-consumer or direct-to-provider/payer. Pharmaceutical organizations at present do not normally differentiate among these two channels. Since they tend to take more of a one-size-fits-all approach, it runs counter to today's way of thinking, which is all related to customer experience, personalization, as well as targeted omni-channel marketing not just of the right product, but at the right time, to the right user, leveraging the right media.
The shift to value-based healthcare Today's fast-changing market asks for more value than ever before from pharmaceutical manufacturers & in this case, value means being more cost-efficient, proven patient outcomes coupled with greater contribution to the overall health care experience throughout the value chain. Those pharmaceutical organizations which shift their focus to what the important stakeholders such as providers, payers as well as patients are asking for will profit from the burgeoning global market on preventive care. The key to this will be becoming a central player in the integrated health management model which ties traditional pharmaceutical marketing into mobile communications, & other online platforms for diagnosis & marketing. What continues to be a challenge in rendering value-based health care is the tight regulatory environment which surrounds pharmaceutical marketing.
Also, there is no evidence for suggesting that the regulatory landscape for marketing pharmaceuticals will become more clearer as well as easier any time now. Another alternative for the heavy regulation of mass-marketing advertising should be found in less traditional, & more relationship-focused digital marketing channels which align well with the new environment of patient, provider, payer control, values-based outcomes, chronic disease prevention, the internet as an information gathering tool and specialized marketing of specialty
information to a targeted pool of relevant patients.
Changing the CX By the year 2050, there will be around two billion people across the globe who are over sixty years of age and this aging demographic will drive the market for prescription drug treatments to around USD 1.2 trillion by the year 2024. Without a doubt, demographics is a powerful driver of change. For example, in recent years, Johnson & Johnson invested more than twice in its Research & Development budget of USD 8 billion on marketing. As for the focus of these marketing efforts, pharma firms hold the tendency to target physicians rather than actual consumer.
A multi-disciplinary approach By implementing a multi-disciplinary approach to health care segment, the health care system is responding to the proliferating trend towards the IHMS (integrated health management). Pharmaceutical companies are responding with both personalized as well as improved offerings that have been fine-tuned for addressing the specific needs of the patients throughout the health care value chain. Also, healthcare technology is the key to enable a patient-centric approach & this approach could now be achieved by leveraging predictive analytics tools, that is powered by AI/ML to help find which patients are at the highest risk of hospital readmission.
The advent of omni-channel marketing Since the outcomes-based approach towards health care increases in popularity, it is time for pharmaceutical agencies to benefiting from a new personalized, omni-channel approach for marketing and this only means facilitating several strategies for marketing directly to consumers & in detailing to both physicians, & payers. While advanced pharma marketers are shifting to precision marketing, that is all related to targeting on digital platforms with custom messaging for a specialty landscape of consumers who require the information the most, others are experimenting with programmatic advertising, that is a marketing tool which optimizes digital campaigns automatically leveraging ML.
This serves advertisements to users that are based on their online visits as well as behavior. However, an investment in technologies for leveraging the power of big data is a prerequisite for being successful with specialty marketing to smaller sectors with custom treatment offerings.
The way ahead Today, patients need a unique approach for addressing their health issues. Mobile technologies, social media, the cloud, as well as IoT are a few of the new realities which are disrupting healthcare industry. Therefore, savvy pharmaceutical marketers are looking forward for opportunities that lies in using tools which can monitor the health of patients & render real-time, personalized feedback for helping enhance outcomes making just minor tweaks to the marketing approach, coupled with taking advantage of disruptive technologies, and can have a huge impact on growth and performance.
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