A Study on the Evolution of Pharmaceutical Marketing Communication Channels

Medicines are an integral part of health care and health care is unimaginable without medicines. The pharmaceutical industry is important both socially and economically for a healthy nation. The entire pharmaceutical industry is based on the shoulders of medical representatives since they were found to be the best media for the promotion of pharmaceutical products. Healthcare professionals are targeted through medical representatives for promoting medicinal products. Marketing communications are essentially a part of the marketing mix. The marketing mix defines the 4Ps of marketing and promotion is what marketing communications are all about. It is the message the organization intends to convey to the market. Visits from medical representatives are associated with providing gifts, free samples, and advertising campaigns. Changes in the buying behavior of the doctors make it necessary to use new forms of marketing communication techniques. Limited direct contacts between the representatives and the doctors have generated a growing interest in e-marketing techniques as a tool for supporting marketing communications and to improve market share in the highly competitive prescription drugs market segment.