Pharmaceutical sales strategies require a patient-centric approach, strategic campaigns with personalized content across multiple media channels, and effective ad performance measurement tactics.

Pharmaceutical sales is predominantly geared toward patients through direct-to-consumer advertising, and toward prescribing healthcare professionals. For either advertising approach to be successful, marketers need to produce high-quality, personalized content on the right platforms at the right time.

Patient Centricity

Patients are more empowered, more informed, and more involved in their healthcare than ever before. People have access to a wealth of information, and all it takes is a simple Google search on a laptop, phone, or other mobile device.

Most patients now have electronic access to their medical health information, and they’re taking to search engines to understand their symptoms and discover available treatments.

This presents an opportunity for pharma companies to reach patients directly. Effective marketing will gently push patients to contact their healthcare provider and request a treatment or therapy.

HCPs were once at the center of pharmaceutical sales, as patients were receiving all healthcare information directly from their provider. Now that patients are cross-referencing information given by their providers, accessing information from the same sources, it’s critical that pharma companies accommodate this shift.

Building trust with potential patients and remaining one step ahead of the public perception is one of the keys to successful pharma branding. The patients’ needs and wants must be the center focus of the campaign strategy.

Pharma companies need to tap in to patients’ media consumption habits to understand how these patients prefer to receive their information, which platforms they’re frequently using, and what specific information or data they’re seeking. This requires advanced media targeting technology and access to valuable insights, data and analytics that speak to online user behaviors.

Multichannel Approach

Where is the target audience most active? Which devices are they using to find the type of information you’re providing? This market research is essential for effective targeting. Today, mobile-first campaigns are dominating the advertising scene. Patients and HCPs are using handheld devices, laptops and phones to access healthcare information.

An effective pharmaceutical sales strategy utilizes a strategic mix of digital marketing to educate HCPs and provide valuable resources in an easily-digestible format for convenient consumption. Reaching HCPs through the right platforms can lead to better treatment outcomes, as HCPs have the resources they need to support patients throughout their treatment journey.

Through a multimedia approach, pharma companies can also provide sales representatives with the support they need to make sales and improve marketing ROI.

When developing messaging across multiple channels, all platforms should be intuitively integrated. Landing pages, social media campaigns, search ads—they should seamlessly connect with consistent messaging, across-the-board. Spreading a unified message across multiple channels promotes brand name awareness and effectively carries patients and HCPs alike throughout the marketing funnel.

Personalized Content

Though all sales efforts need to communicate a consistent message, content should be strategically personalized for each audience. The techniques pharma companies use to convert HCPs won’t necessarily translate for patients.

HCP audiences and patient audiences aren’t always researching the same information, using the same platforms, or looking for the same benefits from pharma companies. Campaign messaging needs to reflect these differences.

While an empathic approach may resonate best with patients, a more analytical, data-based approach is likely to resonate with healthcare professionals. Pharma marketers must have a genuine understanding of the nuances between patient-centric communications and HCP-centric communications to deploy an effective campaign.

Digital platforms are key to personalization, and they’re enabling greater personalization capabilities than ever before. Personalizing your messaging based on certain demographics, geographics and behaviors can significantly improve engagement and conversions through campaigns.

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