Pharma Digital Marketing Forum | Post-Volume-Based Procurement Era: Unveiling the Latest Trends in Pharma Digital Marketing
In recent years, the ratio of selling and general expenses to revenue for leading global pharmaceutical companies has approached 50%. How to improve sales and marketing efficiency has become an urgent issue for pharmaceutical companies worldwide.
As measures such as centralized drug procurement, national reimbursement drug list (NRDL) negotiations, and the “Two-Invoice System” have become routine, the pharmaceutical distribution market is being reshaped. This transformation is rippling upstream, driving changes in pharmaceutical companies’ marketing strategies and creating an urgent demand for more cost-effective and efficient marketing approaches. Since 2020, digital marketing in the pharmaceutical industry, led primarily by domestic enterprises, has entered a phase of accelerated growth. By 2022, numerous suppliers from both within and outside the industry had rushed to establish their presence, further deepening the digital marketing transformation of pharmaceutical companies and extending its scope from physician outreach and education to patient management.
Currently, from the perspective of the entire pharmaceutical marketing industry, digital pharmaceutical marketing in China remains in its early stages, with the sector still focused on data accumulation and existing customer retention. Chinese pharmaceutical companies have lagged behind their foreign counterparts in initiating marketing innovations, and there are notable gaps in organizational structure and management models compared to leading multinational corporations. On one hand, pharmaceutical companies have yet to establish a strategic mindset for digital marketing. Achieving comprehensive digital transformation—encompassing digital decision-making, operational workflows, collaborative models, and optimal customer experience—represents several major challenges for these enterprises. On the other hand, investment in the digital transformation of marketing functions has been relatively conservative. Companies tend to adopt disparate, standalone digital marketing tools in an ad hoc manner based on immediate needs. This fragmented approach prevents data integration, fails to create a closed-loop digital marketing ecosystem, and makes it difficult to measure the effectiveness of the services delivered.
Against this backdrop, the 7th Future Healthcare Top 100 Conference has specially establishedDigital Marketing for Pharmaceutical CompaniesForum，A comprehensive exploration of the digital transformation in pharmaceutical marketing, including capital allocation strategies, how pharmaceutical marketing can sustain its growth trajectory, and where future development opportunities lie for China’s digital pharmaceutical marketing industry.
(I)Panoramic Insights: “Research Report on the Digital Marketing Industry in Pharmaceuticals” Released
Admittedly, sales efficiency is the result of the combined effects of a pharmaceutical company’s brand strength, product strength, marketing capability, and sales operational capability; however, it is an undisputed fact that domestic pharmaceutical companies prioritize “sales” over “marketing.”
Where do the development opportunities lie for China’s pharmaceutical digital marketing industry? What is the industry’s outlook? How are investors positioning themselves? What highlights will emerge in this sector? How will the industry’s business models evolve in the future? To address these questions, VCBeat Research Institute will release a research report on the pharmaceutical digital marketing industry at this year’s Top 100 Conference. The report aims to provide a comprehensive analysis of the industry from multiple dimensions—including industry background, industrial analysis, opportunities and challenges, future trends, and typical case studies—with the goal of delivering valuable insights to industry participants.
(II)Data-Driven: Empowering Pharmaceutical Companies’ Digital Transformation and Iterative Upgrades of Marketing Services
As digitalization and intelligence increasingly become emerging forces driving the transformation and upgrading of China’s healthcare system, their integrated innovation with pharmaceutical companies has begun to emerge as a new industry trend. The rise of the digital economy has transformed traditional interaction models across various industries, and the pharmaceutical sector is no exception; users, including physicians and patients, are gradually adapting to digital lifestyles and workflows. Leveraging the connectivity of the internet, pharmaceuticals and medical services can transcend temporal and spatial constraints, achieving equitable accessibility. Consequently, the track for digital marketing in the pharmaceutical industry has gained momentum, gradually expanding into diverse business directions such as online academic promotion projects, SaaS cloud services, physician platforms, retail terminals (including offline pharmacies and pharmaceutical e-commerce), proactive management by pharmacists/physicians, and family doctor services, thereby forming a rich ecosystem. The forum will invite leading digital marketing service providers to share insights and help build a value chain for digital and intelligent marketing.
(3)Breaking Through the Transformation Impasse: How to Accurately Grasp User Needs and Achieve New Value Growth?
Peter Drucker, the father of modern management, stated that “marketing and innovation are the two basic functions that any enterprise has and only has.” For healthcare companies, due to the unique nature of the industry and its demands, there are still challenges in actively creating user value through digital marketing. The effectiveness of digital marketing is often difficult to predict, and it remains uncertain how much return on investment digital initiatives will generate. For instance, after pharmaceutical companies collaborate with third-party platform partners, questions frequently arise such as: “How much traffic did the advertisements generate? Did this traffic convert into retained users? And what actual value did these users bring?” This forum will showcase the notable achievements enterprises have made in exploring and practicing digital marketing, while providing other companies with best practices for application.
Forum Name: Pharmaceutical Company Digital Marketing Forum
Forum Schedule:May 5–7, 2023
Forum Venue:Shanghai · Zhangjiang Science Hall
Confirmed Attending Companies:Jingli Technology, MedSci, Qingyun Technology, Wanmu Health
※ Listed alphabetically by company name; the order does not imply ranking. Additional guests are still being confirmed.
Forum Agenda Planning:
“Research Report on the Digital Marketing Industry in Pharmaceuticals” Released
How Can Digitally Driven Pharmaceutical Marketing Sustain Its Growth Curve and Expand the Out-of-Hospital Market Space?
Patient-Centric Innovation in Digital Marketing for Internet-Plus Chronic Disease Management
AI Empowers Multiple Values: How Can Innovative Models Help Pharmaceutical Companies Conduct Omni-Channel Marketing?
How Can Precision Marketing in the Pharmaceutical Industry Maximize User Value?
AIGC New Paradigm in Digital Marketing
Analysis of Transformation Trends in the Digital Pharmaceutical Marketing Industry and Development Models of Key Enterprises
How to Grasp User Needs and Measure the Effectiveness of Digital Marketing?
※Proposed agenda items are for reference only; the final agenda is subject to on-site confirmation.
