If your company manufacturers pharmaceuticals, you face some unique challenges in advertising. Ads for pharmaceutical companies must be accurate to prevent lawsuits and must target medical professionals and patients. In addition, pharmaceutical ads must be eye-catching to compete with the many products on the market today and must be informational in nature to provide doctors and patients with the facts they need to make an informed decision about treatment.

Pharmaceutical advertising companies help you target customers and health care professionals while adhering to advertising laws. Professional pharmaceutical industry advertising also ensures that your products are presented in the most attractive light. While you can hire a general advertising company, hiring an ad agency specializing in pharmaceuticals is often a better choice because the professionals at a pharmaceutical ad agency understand the laws surrounding pharmaceutical ads and can also create ads that help you compete with other generic and brand-name pharmaceutical products.

When working with pharmaceutical advertising firms, consider:

1. Choosing pharmaceutical ads that target both health care professionals and customers;

2. Developing a branding strategy to ensure product recognition;

3. Using in-office and media advertising to reach customers.

Action Steps
The best contacts and resources to help you get it done

Select pharmaceutical ad agencies offering in-office marketing services

Physicians, nurse practitioners and physician assistants use a number of in-office products that double as marketing opportunities for pharmaceutical companies. In-office prescription pads, patient record charts, office posters, brochures, and informational products all give patients information while allowing pharmaceutical companies to spread a marketing message to a targeted group. In-office marketing is effective because it reaches such a targeted market.

I recommend: Triple i provides a number of in-office marketing services. Healthy Advice Networks, a leader in in-office pharmaceuticals advertising, works with large pharmaceutical companies and specialty pharmaceutical firms.

Choose pharmaceutical advertising agencies that offer direct marketing solutions

Some pharmaceutical advertising firms offer direct marketing solutions, which allow companies to launch programs that target physicians and other prescribers. These companies offer sample fulfillment programs, voucher solutions and coupon redemption programs, among other direct advertising methods. When selecting a company with this sort of service, look for a pharmaceutical ad agency that offers fraud and abuse elimination services as well as reports that allow you to analyze the effectiveness of a direct marketing program.

I recommend: Draftfcb HealthCare provides direct-to-patient marketing and advertising solutions, including pharmaceutical samples. Sudler & Hennessey is a leading advertising agency with extensive expertise in direct marketing solutions.

Find a pharmaceutical advertising agency to develop pharmaceutical ads for customers

Even when a pharmaceutical company has success with in-office and direct marketing, that company must still ultimately convince customers and patients to choose their product or to request it by name. Pharmaceutical ad agencies offering customer advertising can develop pharmaceutical ads for print, radio and television broadcast and can also develop branding strategies so that customers recognize a particular brand or product. Many pharmaceutical advertising agencies now offer online marketing and advertising solutions, as well.

I recommend: Grey Healthcare Group Inc. offers a number of customer-aimed marketing solutions. These include multimedia and online or digital advertising solutions as well as more traditional print and television spots. The Navicor Group, which specializes in branding immunology and oncology products, offers a number of marketing strategies to help pharmaceutical companies reach customers.

Tips & Tactics

Helpful advice for making the most of this Guide

• •  Consider working with a pharmaceutical marketing agency that hires or works with physicians and health care professionals. These agencies can hire these medical health professionals to give presentations about your product, which can help with your branding strategy.