Pharma companies are responsible for discovering, designing and developing drugs used to prevent, treat, cure or diagnose diseases and other medical issues. However, with tough competition, increasingly complex regulations and consumer attrition, pharma companies are going all out to get their products in front of healthcare professionals and patients alike. That is why the role of sales and marketing in the pharmaceutical industry has become progressively more and more critical, so much so that pharma sales representatives and Physician Marketing now get larger budgets than R&D

Potential patients might feel fear, doubt, worry, or frustration throughout their process of making a medical decision. Medical professionals work to ensure they communicate with their patients in an open and nurturing manner. But connecting with a patient isn’t only the responsibility of nurses, doctors, and administrative workers.

Physician Marketing managers meet patients on the first step of the medical journey—from search and selection to facilitating the booking of an appointment or procedure. Depending on your approach, the patient journey can start on either a positive or negative foot. When poor marketing tactics take root in healthcare organization strategies, it can disrupt the patient experience or worse, cause them to disengage altogether.

In other words, the stakes are high—and that’s why it’s such a worthwhile opportunity. By recognizing and repairing pitfalls that Physician Marketing commonly make, your patients—and your organization—stand to benefit. That’s why it’s important to examine how healthcare marketing differs from other fields, examine ineffective tactics, and empower healthcare marketers by discussing successful healthcare marketing strategies.

Healthcare providers must comply with various federal health marketing laws and regulations that impact medical marketing strategy. The most important are:

HIPAA – A regulation that mandates industry-wide standards for the sharing of healthcare information and electronic billing services. The aim of HIPAA is to protect patient privacy.

GDPR – This is a law that first started in the EU and has made its way across the pond to the United States. The law sets out 7 principles for the lawful processing of personal data. It regulates the collection, organization, structuring, alteration, consultation, use, communication, combination, restriction, erasure, and storage of personal data. It protects how doctors, hospitals, and marketers can use patient information.

The CAN-SPAM Act – This act regulates the context of information that healthcare marketers and physicians can deliver in emails. It also provides the patient the right to opt-out of receiving email from their healthcare provider, or other medical institutions.

These regulations only increase the need for a comprehensive Physician Marketing strategy. To enjoy a steady supply of patients, providers need to master the unique nature of healthcare digital marketing and stay on top of the latest healthcare marketing trends.

In 2021, marketing strategies for healthcare organizations must include programmatic advertising. Search engines have become the first stop for 8 out of 10 people seeking health information. This represents a huge opportunity for healthcare providers. Leveraging paid search ads and including them as part of your healthcare marketing strategy will be critical to your overall success. PPC (pay-per-click) ads can be precisely targeted to reach the specific people who will be the best fit for your practice.

Patients search for doctors or practices that are anywhere from 5-to-7 miles from their home. PPC ads can be tooled to be microgranular in their targeting and will only be served to local traffic. Generating targeted keywords and key phrases that command the attention of local traffic will improve your reach. Since you’re only paying for clicks, not impressions, your ROI will be much higher compared to regular display advertising.

Balancing your online medical marketing with your patient care and professional growth is not easy. In order to optimize your ROI in all areas, you should strongly consider partnering with a healthcare marketing agency that is capable of helping you connect with patients across all digital platforms. Healthcare marketing consulting is a very specialized area of communications. Like

Building an app to provide your patients with an easy way to schedule appointments and get basic questions answered

Creating longform tutorial video for your social media that addresses common issues seen in your practice

Reaching potential patients on more informal platforms and engaging with patients using pop-culture (like the Dancing Doc on TikTok)

he general playbook for marketing to doctors is the same as it is for virtually any other B2B sale, but the actual execution is very vertical-specific if you want to achieve cost-effective results.

Tactical placement. If you need to reach doctors, don’t waste time with the 99.9% of the world that doesn’t have MDs or DOs. Or the wrong specialists. Or doctors who lack the independence to make decisions about your product or service. When marketing to physicians, focus is your friend.
Truly great content. You’re unlikely to make the sale with just a witty ad. You need well-researched and persuasive assets (eBooks, white papers, articles, etc.) to close a complex or technical sale.
Excellent creative. There’s an opportunity to stand out amongst a forest of identical-looking and sounding pitches…if you can craft one that hits just the right note of originality and credibility.