If you haven’t heard about it already, you heard it here first. The new Pharma advertising rules are changing for 2009. According to the PhRMA (Pharmaceutical Research and Manufacturers of America), they are revising their conduct code for interacting with health care professionals. The updated guidelines ban any promotional items bearing company and product logos, this includes: pens, post-it notes, calendars and kleenex boxes. Promotional companies be on alert.
Sales representatives are prohibited from providing restaurant meals and entertainment or recreation. But they can still provide the occasional, modest meal in a healthcare professional’s office “in conjunction with informational presentations,” according to a statement from PhRMA.
The updated code also emphasizes that drug companies should separate any funding they provide for continuing medical education from their sales and marketing departments. It notes that the funding should support education “on a full range of treatment options and not to promote a particular medicine.”
PhRMA said meetings between sales representatives and doctors should be focused on informing health care professionals about products, sharing scientific and educational information and supporting research and education.
The new rules take effect January 1, 2009.
According to Angela Hill, owner of strategic branding agency Incitrio, “This is a huge opportunity for the Pharma industry to reposition themselves as a whole. Those companies that jump in first and focus on authenticity and integrity as core brand values will be able to position themselves as thought leaders and gain significant market share.”
Read full article as it was originally published here: http://money.netscape.cnn.com/news_story.jsp?idq=/ff/story/0001/20080711/0528462021.htm&TickerSymbols=PFE
October 31st, 2008
Reprint of original appearing in San Diego Daily Transcript, a local business online journal, August 29, 2008. You can access the original here.
Economic times are tough, marketing budgets are tight and cash flow is unpredictable. Regardless of the economic situation, your clients still expect you to find them and communicate with them on a regular basis. Using the following strategies are a great low-cost, low-risk way to attract and retain clients without spending a lot of money. All it takes is discipline to create a system and protected time on a regular basis to implement and maintain the following strategies.
1. Web sites are now part of the cost of doing business. Create a basic brochure-ware site that communicates your core expertise and controls user experience. Segment by size, industry or service to make sure that your visitors are finding exactly what they want. Then, make sure to set up a custom data collection form that gives prospects an easy way to pre-qualify themselves before contacting you, and make sure it links up to an online database for your html newsletter system.
2. Online marketing collateral is the next evolution in marketing. Save money on printing and post your brochure in online PDF form for (free) downloading. Create a (low-cost) electronic template in Word that matches your brand and allows for customization. Add datasheets that relate to your different services and case studies per industry, and you’ve just completed your online marketing collateral system.
3. Analytics are a great tool to measure traffic to your site. Google has a (free) tool that you can download and link up to your site called Google Analytics. Look at them regularly to determine the top five reasons prospects come to your site and add content based on that.
4. SEO, or Search Engine Optimization, is just a fancy name for the (free) non-paid links that come up in Google or Yahoo. Analyze your competition to see where they are ranked compare to you. Perform a search of the top 10 keywords that best describe your business and/or service. Then, create a chart of how your competition compares to you on a per keyword ranking, optimize one page per keyword on your Web site and use that word at least three times or more. Don’t forget to put it in your meta tag for the page as well.
5. LinkedIn is a (free) online social networking site designed specifically for business professionals to communicate and do business with one another. To get the most out of the site, create your complete profile and add all of your contacts. Answer questions within industry sections and post questions to your contact database, then leverage contacts to connect you to prospects and develop strategic relationships.
6. Blogging or Weblogs are online mini Web sites that provide a (free) way to attract prospects, post content and position yourself as an expert within a category. It’s also another great way to drive traffic to your Web site. Create your own blog on wordpress.com, jot down topics over the week that spark your interest and create a folder to archive interesting articles to reference. Then, schedule one hour a week to write a well-crafted article on that topic and reference it within the other blogs, LinkedIn and your html newsletter.
7. Twitter is just a mini-blog. Following the right people and getting followed is the key to success. The key is good content. Use Twitter to talk about the cool projects you are working on, and use it to promote your blog or newsletter every time you post new content.
8. Html newsletters are another great (low-cost) way to stay connected with your clients and referral sources and integrate into your overall retention strategy. Promote yourself as an expert in your field by posting case studies and link ing to articles and trends within your industry, and use your newsletter as a tool to promote your strategic partners as well. Measure traffic and click-throughs via your online management system to determine who is reading your newsletter and what content is most important to them.
In order for your tactics to produce fantastic results, just remember two rules:
1. Content is king. The more valuable the information, the more traffic you will drive to your various online platforms.
2. Slow and steady wins the race. Keep a regular schedule that works for you, once a month or every week, and maintain it to position yourself as a credible, reliable resource.
Hill is president and owner of Incitrio, a boutique branding agency located in Sorrento Valley.
September 2nd, 2008
One of the best articles that I have read in a long time is on User Generated content and the future of Online Business in the latest Inc. magazine article on Threadless, a user-generated t-shirt company from Chicago. In it they describe a model currently being analyzed by the Harvard Business School as the future of online business and possibly business as a whole.
As the current generation of social media savvy consumers evolves from myspace, facebook and twitter to embrace mobile media and content on-demand, very soon (if you haven’t noticed already) we will begin seeing a major shift in how content is produced and requested by audiences.
While many large corporations have already jumped on the band wagon and started blogging or hiring ad agencies to produce blog worthy videos for viral marketing campaigns via YouTube combined with innovative micro sites, already they have lost major footing and decreased their brand equity by missing one critical component: Truth.
The key to successful user-generated content, will lie in brand alignment and authenticity. Telling the truth with regards to your brand, who created your WOMMA campaign and what your intentions are. No longer, will traditional advertising or corporate entities be allowed to hide behind empty promises as we enter a generation of savvy consumers ready to do the online research, google the product and find out what other consumers are saying.
The truly successful online business that creates a model of flexibility and open source collaboration, while not able to control the process, may end up creating an online thinktank capable of producing results 10x better than a traditional corporate structure. It is entirely possible that in this virtual workforce future, we will all be creators, designers and inventors collaborating with one another to solve commercial and global problems in real-time on a scale never seen before.
Hill is president and owner of Incitrio, a boutique branding agency located in Sorrento Valley.
July 8th, 2008
