It’s not your imagination; marketing really has gotten harder especially for prescription drugs

Marketing today is harder than ever before yet the drug industry, for the most part, seems to use the same old marketing tactics they used when DTC marketing was approved in the 90′s.  It seems that they are in denial that patients are consumers of healthcare today and they are wielding power like never before to make treatment options.  Social media is not new it’s a massive cultural shift that has profoundly affected the way society uses the greatest platform ever invented, the Internet, and now consumers are using it for even basic healthcare decisions because today it’s about wellness not just treatment.

When was the last time a drug company said “thank you for being a customer” to a patient ?  Anyone ?  When given the choice, people will always spend their time around people they like. When it’s expedient and practical, they’d also rather do business with and buy stuff from people they like. And now, they can. Social media has made it possible for consumers to interact with businesses in a way that is often similar to how they interact with their friends and family.

Consumer expectations are changing dramatically, and social media has altered everything about how companies must—MUST—relate to their customers. From now on, the relationship between a business and a customer is going to look very different from the way it has looked in the recent past.  Valuing every single customer is mandatory in the Thank You Economy.

Succeeding in the Thank You Economy is not about simply being nice and selling in an inoffensive way. Anyone can do that. It’s about taking every opportunity to show that you care about your customers and how they experience your brand in a way that is memorably and uniquely you. Even in the drug industry !!

The drug industry is struggling with new media because they are afraid of it or they are waiting for outdated FDA guidelines on social media marketing.   The drug industry is highly regulated and I know how many challenges there can be when a company tries to embark on something new. They hired a legal department to protect you; its job is to be conservative and risk averse…to keep the company as safe as possible. That’s why change has to come from the top. Only the CEO or another leader of the company can sit down with the legal department and say, “This company is embracing social media. Instead of focusing heat-seeking missiles on perceived fatal flaws in this, let’s figure out how to take an acceptable risk and make it possible.” The stakes are too high to continue to ignore social media in healthcare decision making. To ignore it is foolish and absurd because the FDA has “not issued guidelines”.  Either you believe that DTC marketing can improve patient outcomes and in the process lower the cost of healthcare or you believe that you’re trying to sell widgets to make numbers.

Layering social media on top of traditional media to extend the story is the most practical, executable, and measurable marketing move you can make today. Social media works best when you evoke an emotion in the people to whom you’re reaching out. It pulls and DTC marketers need to move from push to pull because everyone can relate to wellness and health.  We all want to live longer and have a better quality of life.

According to “The Thank You Economy;

Ninety-five percent of the worst social media engagement I’ve seen was produced by PR companies that were hired to manage a brand’s profiles, pages, or blogs. Please, companies, stop hiring PR firms to do your community management. They’re used to talking with editors, writers, and producers, not the public. They have no idea what’s going on in the trenches, and they’re awkward and shaky when they try to go there.

It’s not your imagination; marketing really has gotten harder. So what are you going to do about it ?  Are you going to continue to run the same DTC campaigns and alter market research to show that your TV ads are working ?  Are you going to continue to ignore social media and not thank your current customers ?   If  you continue to do this than don’t complain as your marketing budget gets cut again and again.