Marketing Forecast from Ad-ology

Not so very long ago, hospitals were mostly non-profit institutions and advertising in this industry was unthinkable. But many hospitals are now owned by for-profit corporations. Even those institutions that remain non-profit are feeling the revenue squeeze from more competitors, a slow economy, higher expenses and lower reimbursements from insurance companies. One way to remedy the situation is to increase advertising.

As pharmaceutical and other medical research companies develop new products and services, they must follow a multi-step testing process that lasts for years. One key requirement for testing is to recruit consumers willing to participant in these clinical trials. Lately, contract research organizations (CROs) that handle much of the testing have been faulted for not including sufficient numbers of minority consumers in their product trials. To remedy this situation, more CROs are turning to new marketing formats to reach potential test subjects.

A huge feature of social media marketing has been two-way messaging. Marketers promote their products and services to potential users and these users are encouraged to share their opinions and experiences. But for one industry, pharmaceuticals, social media marketing has been problematic from a regulatory standpoint. All that may be about to change.

Does the word ‘hospital’ have a negative connotation in the eyes of consumers? In recent years, many healthcare professionals thought so. To attract consumer attention, hospitals across the country joined the trend of renaming themselves as medical centers. But new research shows they may have acted too quickly.

Ad-ology Research recently updated their Industry Marketing Insights report for Drug Stores/Pharmacies. The following are the predicted Top 3 Opportunities/Challenges from the report for this industry for the upcoming 12 months:

Pharmaceutical companies have ramped up their direct to consumer advertising over the past few decades. But they also need efficient ways to connect with the customers who control prescriptions, physicians. The traditional way to reach physicians, office visits by pharmaceutical reps, may be fading away in favor of online marketing.