Quick Guide to the New Era of Marketing

A recent webinar by Bill Lee highlighted the end of marketing as we traditionally know it.  Pharma companies specifically must revamp marketing strategies if success is to be found in the future (see Message to Pharma CEOs: Forget Price Increases, retain customers!).  So what does this mean for companies’ market strategies going forward?  What should be the focus in order to retain business and attract new customers?  Most of you will agree that the best product recommendation comes from someone you know.  In sales and marketing, these customers (be a business or consumer) are known as promoters.  These promoters are imperative to expanding a business since they will give an honest opinion about your product and people will listen to people they know and trust. 

In the webinar, Mr. Lee goes on to discuss Net Promoter Score (NPS).  This score is given to customers based on their ability to influence the decisions made by other potential customers.  Business will prefer to enter into contracts where they can hear first hand accounts of the service or product from a trusted referral.  Quality promoters are true gems to companies and should be treated that way.  These customers will essentially make the sale for you.  The million-dollar question is how do you as a brand manager generate and keep quality promoters.  Not every customer will be a quality promoter and some may even detract from your business, so it must be the aim of your marketing team to create strategies that generate sales by way of promoters.  We can help your company utilize social media to monitor the flow of information via promoters (and detractors) so that these clients can add to your business.

So how can we utilize this promoter strategy to increase pharma and healthcare sales?  First, we must generate products and services that induce chatter between customers. And while we live in a heavily regulated industry, think about the simply premise of this measure. Would these patients recommend your product to a friend or colleague?  If the answer is 9 or 10 out of 10, this is really a great measure. That is why we believe it is essential that industry create opportunities for customers to discuss your products online and help facilitate this talk.  Allowing forums that bring together current and potential customers can help companies demonstrate the value their products bring to the market.    

As mentioned before, humans naturally accept recommendations from their trusted close circles and if a trusted member of a community has a positive experience with your product, you may have just convinced the entire community.