Challenger Pharma Brands is typically defined as a company that’s neither the market leader or a particularly niche brand, but one that sets itself apart with a driven mindset. According to The Challenger Project, these brands are “less about business enmity, and more about an often mission-driven desire to progress the category in some way in the customer’s favor.”

A recent study by AdWeek – which surveyed more than 200 brand marketers – found that 49% of respondents believe the ability to craft a brand narrative is the most important characteristic of a challenger brand. This, combined with an entrepreneurial mindset – whereby brands strive to continuously innovate – is what gives many the edge.

One reason storytelling is so important for challenger brands is that it helps to build trust, which can be a factor that draws consumers away from leading brands. Challenger narratives are often based around value, and what they can offer consumers that other brands can’t. Take Rebel Kitchen, for example, which is a brand in the growing dairy-free drinks category. Its brand narrative is based on its bold and ‘rebellious’ nature, which aims to convince consumers that they shouldn’t settle for poor alternatives in the same category.

Some senior pharma management teams, without marketing backgrounds, believe that adopting a segmentation strategy would deny the company the opportunity of sales outside the target segments, resulting in missed revenues.

The truth is that, rather than segmenting and owning a place in the minds of a sub-group of patients or doctors, and then expanding into other groups, a challenger brand strategy will rarely gain sales that are more than one quarter of even the second-to-market brand’s sales.

Also, third-to-market challenger brands will often compound this problem by being a challenger based solely on price, not only reducing profits, but still not achieving more than a quarter of second-to-market sales.

Challenger Pharma Brands need to establish a market, and communication plays a leading role in making it happen.

None of the items mentioned above are high-dollar advertising campaigns. They’re cost-effective methods to get in front of the audiences that can make a difference for your brand.

You can even accelerate this effort. Work with outside support that holds deep industry relationships. They’ll already have their foot in the door, and you’ll benefit with some quick initial attention.