When you consider the number of lawsuits and settlements that have plagued the pharma industry in 2019, you have to wonder what kind of recovery is possible. However, marketing can take a negative and spin it into a positive when reaching new and existing audiences for healthcare products. It is a challenge, but not an impossible one.
The Lawsuits
Many lawsuits have also been filed in relation to baby powder and ovarian cancer against the top consumer products.Lawyers have been busy dealing with pharma lawsuits and drug injury settlements.The numbers are massive – thousands of lawsuits have been filed against Bayer AG and bankruptcy talks are swirling around putting the future of Purdue Pharma in question. Plus, Johnson & Johnson is reeling in the wake of ovarian cancer cases that have been linked to their line of talcum powder products. It almost sounds as if pharma products are worth steering clear of for the time being.
How Do You Get Customers After All Of This?
Well, they aren’t called marketing geniuses for anything. With the right approach, pharma companies can market their products to consumers and recover their numbers before the end of the year. According to Healthcare Weekly, with the right message, momentum can be built that will show gains in Q1 of 2020 and beyond. But how do you do it? Here are a few suggestions on how to get past the bad stuff and move back into a positive marketing strategy.
1. Do Something That No One Else Is Doing
In short, be creative. After all, if your pharma company took a big hit this year due to a mess of legal battles, you need to step outside of the box and find that nugget that sets you apart from all the others. It starts with believing you can be more creative and that creativity will lead the way. Researchers at the University of California, Berkeley have found that believing you can be more creative led to more creativity. So, essentially you need to have your head in the right place. Planning to overcome adversity, and believing that you can, will result in overcoming those obstacles.
2. Give The Healthcare Providers What They Want
Considering that it is the HCPs that are in the middle between pharma companies and customers, one of the most logical ways to market your products is to focus on the message you give the HCPs. They don’t need your fancy sales pitch. They need to be able to explain why your product and how your product will improve the lives of their customers. That is the bottom line. If your products can relieve pain, help with reducing soreness or improve memory, those are the key points that you want to get to the HCPs. The rest should sell itself.
3. Listen To What You Are Being Told
You can’t improve on the way you market your products if you don’t ask for or respond to feedback. This is especially true if you are trying to distance your products away from the lawsuit activity that has gobbled up a lot of attention regarding pharma products. By incorporating surveys, questionnaires, and other means to understand the needs of your target market, you learn a few things. More important of them is the ability to determine what is working and what isn’t. This is also a great opportunity to give your target demographic additional engagement as it makes them feel involved and provides you with valuable data.
4. Turn To Social Media Marketing
There is no faster way to get your message out to the masses like you can with social media. If you create a unique, strong and consistent message, sharing it online will help to reinforce the values that the HCPs are using to sell your products to their clients. A positive digital marketing strategy can do wonders especially when you are trying to win back customers or reach new ones that have become skeptical from what they have learned about the lawsuits and settlements. Even if your pharma company has not been involved, it will become suspect and a solid social media presence with full access will become a great marketing tool. Also be sure to check out options like a Cheap Instagram Panel and others to help your efforts.
5. Track And Use Data In The Future
If you are not already doing this, it isn’t a bad idea to collect feedback and related data concerning your pharma marketing program. Even if you have plenty of pieces of information and are not sure how to use it, you won’t want to part with it anytime soon. Simply put, the more feedback you get, the more you can personalize your marketing efforts. By using this approach your marketing strategies become cost-effective and better targeted. This is a clever way to earn better results and distance your products from those that tend to be in the news for other reasons.
6. Don’t Expect It To Happen Overnight
If the lawsuits have done anything good to pharma companies it is that they have proven that a great deal of time must pass before any resolution comes about. The upside to that is it gives you time to build a marketing program that will not only take away the sting of the legal battles many pharma companies are dealing with, but it also gets your message out at a time when the industry is taking some serious blows. By paddling against the current with your clear and concise message, and time in your favor, your company stands to benefit greatly as a result of these efforts.
In Conclusion
According to Digital Authority, if executed properly, pharma companies can still benefit from creative marketing programs. Even with all the negative news swirling around these days about lawsuits and drug injury settlements. A concentrated approach that focuses on the positive and is built around a single, creative message can help. Plus, with the right message on benefits to quality of life shared with HCPs, pharma company products will be viewed as solutions to health-related problems once again. It won’t be easy, but it is still possible to get a positive spin out to the public.