Marketing Strategies During the Product Life Cycle in the Pharmaceutical Industry

Development and implementation of effective marketing strategies during various stages of product life cycle in the pharmaceutical industry are critical to an organization\u27s successful performance in the marketplace in the 21st century. Guided by the general systems theory developed by Bertalanffy and the evolutionary systems theory developed by Laszlo and Laszlo, the purpose of this single case study was to explore best practices among marketing managers within pharmaceutical companies related to marketing strategies during various stages of product life cycle. Data were gathered via semistructured interviews with 3 purposefully selected managers who have successfully developed marketing strategies in a central Ohio pharmaceutical company in business for more than 10 years. A review of secondary data included company documents, such as annual reports, news releases, and websites, in addition to government databases. Member checking was conducted to ensure accuracy of the interpreted data and trustworthiness of the research findings. Yin\u27s 5-step process and thematic analysis were used to analyze the data. Four themes emerged from data analysis: marketing function, product life cycle phases, factors influencing the decision-making process, and strategic activities in executing business strategies. Findings may have implications for positive social change such as assisting organizational leaders to understand the challenges and business practices in implementing marketing strategies to successfully deliver products that improve patients\u27 health

Time-Series Models in Marketing

Marketing data appear in a variety of forms. An often-seen form is time-series data, like sales per month, prices over the last few years, market shares per week. Time-series data can be summarized in time-series models. In this chapter we review a few of these, focusing in particular on domains that have received considerable attention in the marketing literature. These are (1) the use of persistence modelling and (2) the use of state space models.Marketing;Persistence;State Space;Time Series

The Interplay of Personal Selling and Direct Marketing: An Exploratory Study in the Pharmaceutical Industry

Beyond dispute, personal selling represents the dominant and most effective promotional element in industrial settings, but its costs are quite substantial. Against this background, sales managers are forced to reexamine alternative approaches for servicing and informing customers in order to justify the productivity of their industrial selling mix. In this context, the complementary use of direct marketing to field selling becomes a primary concern as it allows for confidentiality and personalization of the message in contrast to mass communication while it provides information at a lower cost than does personal selling. However, no study has empirically investigated the interplay of personal selling and various direct marketing instruments with regard to several contextual factors determining the preferred use of direct marketing over personal selling so far. Thus, focusing on business-to-business transactions, this study’s objective is to deepen the understanding of the direct marketing and personal selling interplay. Due to limited empirical insights to this area, an exploratory research design is adapted. Results indicate that the advantageousness of direct marketing in comparison to personal selling is determined by customer-related, internal and external contextual conditions. Further, a well-designed interplay helps to improve selling productivity, brand awareness and customer satisfaction – and thus business unit performance. --

Competitive reactions to personal selling:the difference between strategic and tactical actions

A recurring question facing managers is how (if at all) to react to competitive actions. In this research the authors distinguish between reactions to competing strategic and competing tactical actions, different from prior homogeneous definitions of competitive actions. Using a unique, single-source dataset of personal selling interactions between firms and customers covering fourteen drug categories, the authors shows that substantial differences in reactions exist. In particular, strategic actions elicit competitive responses with stronger short- and long-term consequences compared to tactical actions. Furthermore, while the decision to react to competing strategic actions is always warranted, this is not the case for a substantial amount of tactical actions, where firms retaliate with an ineffective marketing instrument, or accommodate with an effective marketing instrument. This divide between actions is further exacerbated in the strength of the reactions that we observe: stronger or weaker reactions to strategic actions occur in line with theoretical expectations, whereas reactions to tactical actions often are not. Based on these findings, the authors suggest directions to improve decision maker’s reactions to competing tactical action

The Effectiveness of Pharmaceutical Marketing

Pharmaceutical marketing effectiveness comprises the measurement of marketing efforts of pharmaceutical firms towards doctors and patients. These firms spend billions of dollars yearly to promote their prescription drugs. This dissertation provides empirical analyses and methods to contribute to several substantial problems on pharmaceutical marketing effectiveness. Using unique data in every essay, it studies the role of the firm, sales rep and doctor in pharmaceutical marketing. The first essay evaluates the size of the sales force and the allocation of sales calls among doctors. In particular, it provides a method to gauge a yet-to-be-enacted firm-initiated policy shift. The second essay studies the effectiveness of the information content provided in sales calls. The main questions evolve around the discussion of positively biased drug information and the responsiveness of doctors to that. In the third essay, the interplay between drug sales, marketing and scientific reviews is studied in detail. The essays reveal important implications for academics and managers. For academics: (i) a new alternative to gauge policy shifts is offered; (ii) a model is offered to analyze the effectiveness of sales message content; and (iii) scientific reviews should be considered to correctly measure pharmaceutical marketing effectiveness. The implications for managers are: (i) the market leader is able to buck the trend in increasing sales forces; (ii) sales reps discuss positively biased information too often, which is counterproductive in the long run; and (iii) scientific reviews on products should be actively considered as a part of the marketing mix