B2B Pharma Marketing: A Step-by-Step Success Guide

In recent years, fast-growing e-commerce has become our natural environment, no matter what age group we belong to, be it Gen X, Millennials, or Generation Z. Our buying experience with a sales representative or assistant might soon get outdated, while the new means of marketing and selling are taking their place in the spotlight. As one generation influences another, one can only forecast how tech-savvy digital buyers are going to look and behave in the future. In this guide, we will tell you more about how B2B pharma marketing will change and how you can leverage it better to yield amazing results.

Understanding B2B Marketing in the Pharma Industry

B2B is all about building strong relationships between businesses and making sure that they keep evolving and improving. In B2B marketing, one company sells certain products or services to another company instead of offering them directly to end customers.

The most common place to find other organizations to conduct business with is a B2B pharma marketplace, where various suppliers, distributors, PCD pharma companies, and other organizations in the pharma sector can connect with each other. This is where every business, from B2B pharma startups to big pharma franchise companies, has a chance to showcase their offerings and share more information about their services, attracting new partners and finding more buyers. And, on the other hand, a B2B pharma marketplace is a perfect opportunity for many companies to compare prices, learn more about the current market, and find a supplier that is the best fit for their budget and goals.

Importance of B2B Marketing in Pharma

Enterprises must be flexible and adaptable to their customers’ ever-changing needs. But the starting point that should be thoroughly examined first is always the target audience. Now, it comes as no surprise to see online buyers constantly shopping or requesting services using online channels (just look at younger consumers who are almost “glued” to their smartphones). With mobile technologies rapidly evolving, making purchases, engaging with brands via social networks, or searching for information using mobile devices has become part of our regular day-to-day smartphone usage.

Of course, we are not necessarily talking about actual online buying. However, online presence helps companies build stronger brand awareness via the right channel mix and boost customers’ loyalty—which is an essential part of the customer lifecycle today. Companies have to adopt an omnichannel approach, merging their marketing tools, data, technologies, and people to ensure the best-in-class experience.

The primary focus of B2B pharma is collaborations and partnerships between pharmaceutical companies, which often result in such activities as drug development, knowledge exchange, medical research, clinical trials, and many others. Thanks to B2B in pharma, hospitals, pharmacies, clinics, and healthcare providers (HCPs) can obtain the necessary equipment, medicine, software, and even furniture to provide patients with the necessary care and improve their satisfaction with provided services.

Essential Strategies for B2B Pharma Marketing to Consider

To make your company stand out, it’s important to choose the right B2B pharma marketing strategy. Here are key strategies to take into account:

Digital transformation

According to recent data, the pharmaceutical industry still struggles with digital transformation. However, this doesn’t stop pharma companies from trying hard to implement various technologies and leverage them to improve their pharmaceutical marketing strategy. With the help of many digital tools and platforms, businesses in the pharmaceutical industry can engage with patients and healthcare providers on a much deeper level while also automating numerous processes and tasks.

Content marketing

Content has the power to attract hundreds of new customers every day and ensure that they continue returning to the brand for more. Educational content can be used to create awareness about diseases, spread information about health trends, and even share unique insights about the pharmaceutical industry. Content marketing can be flexible and easily adjusted to the clients’ needs; all it takes is a little bit of time spent on research.

Collaborations and partnerships

In the pharmaceutical industry, collaborations play a huge role. Physicians and pharmacists communicate with each other to share insights, companies showcase technologies, and leaders exchange ideas. In pharma, proper communication has the power to save lives. This is why it is so crucial for businesses and healthcare professionals to collaborate, have discussions about new trends and technologies, and just be open about partnering up with other companies.

Lessons from Global Digital Practices for B2B Pharma

In the customer-oriented age, the online shopping experience should be embraced and developed to the full extent — no matter where the client is. As statistics reveal,

today’s B2B buyer runs nearly 12 online searches before purchasing a specific brand; while 55% of B2B marketing budgets are allocated toward digital promotion that helps provide a more personalized buying experience.

Only one-third of the companies surveyed are now executing or optimizing their omnichannel strategy, whereas 3% of businesses have no actual plans to implement an omnichannel strategy at all.  

When it comes to B2B pharmaceutical marketing, nothing is different. Patients and physicians are indeed craving a first-class personalized experience from pharmaceutical brands, as long as these experiences concern their health and well-being. Omnichannel might provide the required impact here.

It has been shown that happier clients lead to better business results:

23% of retailers say they expect to reach more consumers with their online B2B marketing activities, and 25% are driven to boost client fulfillment.

However, a truly comprehensive omnichannel strategy is not about creating a website with a huge amount of content flowing from many web sections. Patients and healthcare professionals don’t expect to be bombarded with information or long lists of medical prescriptions over the myriad of channels – but instead, they want to be diagnosed, treated, and supported by each digital (or non-digital) touchpoint and become more health-aware and data-savvy. Only tailored digital experiences and B2B pharma marketing activities can link the company’s visions and goals to every client’s specific needs and behaviors, optimizing overall outcomes in each customer segment.

How Can Pharma Leverage B2B eCommerce for Future Growth?

The businesses are getting ready for an omnichannel selling future, with 83% saying they expect to increase eCommerce sales volume over the next three years. The shift to eCommerce adoption is only going to be accelerated and deepened in the years to come. Moreover, it is assumed that e-commerce strategies will help to open new markets much faster and at a lower cost by employing online channels – that indeed opens new perspectives for building an omnichannel selling future. Here is how pharma companies can leverage B2B eCommerce to grow and improve:

Focus on the entire customer journey, not on separate phases

To ensure a better omnichannel experience, marketers and sales teams must understand that digital-oriented customers might change their behaviors and preferences more often if compared to more “offline-preferred” clients. They need to thoroughly design their journeys, including previous, current, and post-sale phases.

Optimize team management

Organizational leadership should focus on overcoming barriers and strengthening connections between digital and traditional sales teams. Prioritize breaking down silos and fostering collaboration, demonstrating how teams can work together to support and enhance each other’s efforts.

Find a powerful partnership to ease omnichannel adoption

For example, a suitable technological partner comes with the most advanced tools and resources available for content creation, task automation, and analytics that help develop a seamless plan of your operational strategy according to your business needs.

Grow an adaptive culture

When gearing up for new e-commerce opportunities, the approach to building an organizational culture should be adjustable and structured. Companies need to constantly measure their business impact and follow change management procedures, which help adjust employees to any change or new competencies.

Possible Challenges of B2B Pharma Marketing 

As new technologies emerge at a fast pace, B2B pharma companies might be struggling with many challenges while trying to keep up with their digital users. Here are some of them:

Lack of budget

The cost of tools, workforce, and other resources needed to launch pharma marketing campaigns is often much higher than many teams can afford. Because of that, many companies have to sacrifice some tools to obtain others.

Slow digital transformation

The adoption of technology is revolutionizing every industry with no exceptions. For example, a wide array of digital tools and platforms allow life sciences and pharmaceutical companies to make real-time decisions, HCPs – to provide quality care to their patients and sales representatives, stay on the curve with the latest healthcare and life sciences innovations, and much more. However, many companies are hesitant to try new tech, and digital transformation is currently going very slowly at most pharma companies.

Lack of unified experience across channels

Ultimately, companies should build a cohesive presence of both online and offline touchpoints and keep the right balance, constantly managing how one channel interacts with another. When marketers don’t spend enough time ensuring seamless transitions between channels, content feels disconnected.

Barriers to embracing e-commerce tools

Some companies struggle to work with self-service digital websites for enhanced brand promotion, or vice versa. Many teams involved in e-commerce might encounter hurdles when incorporating offline tools into their strategy, as well as some difficulties understanding how to correctly use these tools.

Data safety

Customer data is now being shared through a myriad of channels, including mobile, websites, social media, etc. When it comes to Pharma and Life Sciences, which are strictly regulated, clients’ data should be securely stored and unified. Data silos should be eliminated in order to succeed in the increasingly competitive market and attain customer loyalty through personalized messaging.

Popular Marketing Tools for B2B Pharma Marketing

B2B pharma marketers use different tools and platforms to plan and execute their marketing strategy. Let’s take a look at some of the most common ones:

SEO tools

SEO, or search engine optimization, lies at the heart of everything marketers do on Google and other search engines. According to Statista’s survey, 50% of marketing professionals experienced a large positive impact from search engine optimization, and 32% had a slight positive impact on their marketing performance and goals. Some of the best tools are Google Search Engine Console, Ahrefs, and SurferSeo.

CRM systems

CRM stands for customer relationship management, and marketers often use this type of software to manage interactions with both existing and prospective customers. In B2B pharma marketing, CRM tools are also commonly used to nurture relationships with patients, healthcare professionals, and partners. The most popular systems are Salesforce Health Cloud, Hubspot, and Zoho.

Content experience platforms

Content marketing encompasses various tasks, including devising a strategy, brainstorming content ideas, creating new materials, promoting content across various platforms, and more. What makes these tasks particularly challenging at times is how scattered they can be. Content experience platforms are designed to solve this problem by providing marketers with a unified ecosystem where they can create, proofread, distribute, and publish content without relying on multiple tools.

eWizard is one such platform specifically tailored for the pharmaceutical industry, allowing pharmaceutical marketers to create and review content in collaboration with their teams while also having access to all tools they use, thanks to seamless integrations.

Social media tools

Social media plays a significant role in B2B pharma marketing, but it also demands considerable time and resources. First, you need to regularly plan your posts and scheduling across multiple platforms. Then, you must monitor and analyze content performance on each channel. Additionally, you must consistently create diverse content types, including videos, images, stories, and posts.

To streamline these processes, many marketers recommend using tools such as PathFactory, Showpad, Google Trends, Hootsuite, and Buffer, among others.

Data analytics tools

Data is everything. No matter what you do in marketing, you likely do it to either get data (for example, clients’ information or more details about their needs and goals) or to share it (for instance, distribute educational content or spread awareness about the brand). This is why every marketer should have access to at least a couple of data analytics tools that can provide important insights into marketing. Some of the best tools are Google Analytics, Tableau, Microsoft Clarity, and Adobe Marketing Cloud.

Future of B2B Marketing in Pharma 

An omnichannel strategy is unfolding around content, people, and tech – meaning that companies transform their staff, technology, workflows, and even their culture to support the customer when and where necessary.

Even though the future might not seem very clear at the moment, pharma B2B digital marketing is guaranteed to continue evolving, and more and more companies will start the process of its development and implementation. B2B pharma will not be confined to a simple use of digital tools and new technologies; we will likely see a strategic shift that would cover the whole spectrum of pharma B2B digital marketing activities, from ensuring a robust online presence to creating data-driven marketing campaigns. The B2B marketing pharmaceutical industry might not be something we hear a lot about, but this is guaranteed to change soon.

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