Lots Of Valuable Ideas On Marketing And Bridging The Gap
posted in Off-line Marketing |More than $25 billion per year is spent on marketing pharmaceutical products, showing the size and importance of the industry and underlining the need for the pharmaceutical company to be highly effective in this arena. The organisation can be as creative or as ground breaking as it likes as it brings new products to the marketplace, but without sharp attention to its marketing operations it may falter in an ultra-competitive marketplace. There is no doubt that the healthcare industry will continue to grow even in a downturn, but increasing amounts of highly motivated competition is evident and the company overlooks its marketing initiatives at potentially high cost.
The healthcare industry touches almost every individual in the country at some stage and due to its sheer size, drug spending is always a subject of great attention. Within the healthcare industry, the total amount spent on pharmaceuticals accounts for 15% of the entire budget and it therefore follows that due to the high stakes associated, a lack of marketing proficiency can have significant repercussions.
For the pharmaceutical company, its sales force is at the sharp end and spends much of its time interacting directly with the professional, the practitioner and the advisor. It is so important for the sales executive to interact successfully with a professional if progress is to be maintained. The executive spends a lot of his or her time detailing and providing information to the professional, yet this is often a tough wall to breach, as the practitioner is somewhat detuned to marketing advances.
Indeed, a healthcare professional can have a lot of other sources of input, being focused and highly educated to start off with, including first-hand experience, personal training, scientific paper research and advice from colleagues. There is a danger that he or she could believe that the pharmaceutical company sales executive has but one motive in mind and as such, the sales executive requires fairly advanced communication and marketing skills to succeed.
As the pharmaceutical industry matures, more emphasis is being placed on these product areas and with advances in medicine, an increasingly higher level of education is important for the sales team. This level of complexity can be worrying to the senior management of a pharmaceutical company, as they have enough to worry about with regard to political lobbying, the enforcement of regulations, development of products and numerous economic issues. It is at times like these that they should turn to pharmaceutical consulting firms not only to advise them, but to help educate and direct their sales forces.
Generally, pharmaceutical consultants have a great deal of first-hand experience within the market and specifically with regard to dealing first-hand with professionals and end users. Advice can be imparted about layers of motivation, multiple layers of training and the best way to approach client interaction. Most pharma consulting experts will help to ensure that the sales staff member realises the urgency required, while bringing all members of the team together into a cohesive unit. Not only must the executive understand the best interests of the employer, but he or she must seek the trust and acceptance of the professional at this most critical stage in the product life-cycle. Applying the correct amount of direct motivation and training smarts represents the required balance.
Alan Gillies is the Managing Director of L2L Consulting, specialising in enabling pharmaceutical companies to achieve new heights of productivity and performance, throughout all levels of management and revenue generating activities.
