October 2022 • PharmaTimes Magazine • 22-23
// DIGITAL //
Introducing the 7P’s framework to support digital marketing strategies across pharma
The quality of our digital strategy is proportional to the frameworks we deploy to harness divergent elements together and strengthen our digital marketing strategy.
To create and execute impactful digital marketing strategy requires an understanding of how these different elements of your marketing mix work together. Changing needs and business environments have necessitated pharmaceutical companies to harness digital opportunities and adopt marketing mix strategies to gain competitive edge. In this second part of our series examining marketing frameworks we examine the 7Ps, more widely known as the ‘Marketing Mix’.
The formal use of the marketing mix model in the marketing context was presented by McCarthy (1964), who proposed the 4Ps of the marketing mix ingredients model, which were typically ‘product, price, promotion and place’.
In the late 1970s, however, it was widely acknowledged by marketers that the Marketing Mix should be updated, which led to the creation of the Extended 7Ps Marketing Mix in 1981 by Booms & Bitner – adding three new elements to the four Ps – people, physical evidence and processes.
Below we examine each of the sevens Ps within to determine your ideal mix in your pharma organisation to enable you to market more effectively:
Product
This refers to what the company produces and is developed to meet the core needs of patients and the prescribing doctors to meet their expectations. The product’s importance in the pharmaceutical marketing mix can be driven by a product awareness, history or brand equity. Digital habit shifts have created opportunities for pharma organisations to shape and market their core products more effectively to differing segments.
When improving the product offering, we need to think beyond the actual product itself. Add value and differentiation of after-sales service, online support, a user-friendly app or digital content like a video that helps the user to make the most out of the product.
‘The downstream supply chain of the pharma industry is unique due to the importance of healthcare professionals’
Price
The second P in the formula is price. This involves deciding the optimal price to reflect quality and efficacy balanced with affordability of your product. It’s useful to understand competitor pricing as well as what your customers expect to pay to shape your pricing strategy accordingly.
Other considerations might include positioning in the market against competitors, group discounts, payment method or value-added elements.
Place
The downstream supply chain of the pharma industry is unique due to the importance of healthcare professionals. Apart from the hierarchy of manufacturer, distributor, wholesale and retail chemists, influencing the healthcare professionals is crucial for the product to reach its end-user.
Historically, the place component of the marketing mix meant a heavy reliance on the direct sales relationship. Digital strategies are providing an increasingly critical component in supplementing or in some instances replacing HCP place of contact. Assessing your place in relation to the wider digital marketing plan is therefore critical.
Promotion
The World Health Organization defines pharmaceutical promotion as ‘all informational and persuasive activities by manufacturers and distributors, the effect of which is to induce the prescription, supply, purchase and/or use of medicinal drugs’.
This definition includes face-to-face selling, advertising, public relations, sales promotion and, more recently, social media that are the main key channels through which the organisation’s message is delivered to the correct audiences. Of course, this is riskier within the pharma industry due to strict regulation for prescription-only drugs so the mix, coordination and planning need to be carefully thought through.
People
Who are the key people planning and executing the key marketing activities and are they capable of conducting those activities? Are there skill gaps and digital knowledge that need to be addressed? Every marketing plan needs to look internally at its current capability to determine whether the marketing plan can be achieved via the organisation’s current marketing resources.
A company’s people are at the forefront when interacting with customers, taking and processing their enquiries, orders and adverse effects.
Processes
All pharma companies need to create a smooth, efficient omnichannel journey coordinated to deliver a seamless experience behind the scenes. Understanding the steps of the customer journey; from first interactions with a rep to requesting information and making an order, helps us to consider what processes need to be in place to ensure a positive experience. When customers make an enquiry, how long will they have to wait before receiving a response?
How long do they wait between booking a meeting with the sales team to the meeting taking place? What happens once they make an order? How do we make sure reviews are generated after a purchase? How can we use digital technology to make our processes more efficient? All of these considerations help build a positive customer experience.
‘All pharma companies need to create a smooth, efficient omnichannel journey coordinated to deliver a seamless experience behind the scenes’
Physical evidence
Physical evidence provides tangible clues in terms of the quality of experience that a company is offering. At a congress event, physical evidence could be in the form of the design, access to key medical staff, digital devices like VR and AR to learn more about the therapy area and valuable data and research.
For a marcoms agency, the website itself holds valuable physical evidence from testimonials to case studies, as well as the contracts that companies are given to represent the services they can expect to be delivered.
In conclusion, consistently applied the 7Ps Marketing Mix provides an excellent marketing framework for pharma marketers to successfully plan, co-ordinate and apply digital strategies into the marketing mix.
David Reilly is founder of Let’s Learn Digital. Go to letslearndigital.com