Doctors' Orders: Make Marketing Informative

Pharmaceutical companies spend $14 billion a year on marketing to doctors—promoting their brand and fighting for market share. Since the success of their brands is in the hands of physicians, pharma brand managers are constantly evaluating the return on investment for their professional promotions, including meetings, detailing, journal advertising, and e-promotion.

Pharm Exec and Epocrates conducted a joint survey among 193 doctors across multiple specialties in the Epocrates network to answer the multibillion-dollar question: How effective are these marketing methods, and how do physicians really want to receive information?

Overall, survey respondents believe pharma companies should play a major role in educating physicians about new treatment therapies. While sales reps, journals, and conferences will continue to be important in the future, physicians plan to increase their reliance on electronic media, such as online/mobile CME, e-detailing, and podcasting, for product information. Though physicians expressed some concern about patient-focused marketing, the majority report making prescribing decisions based on patient requests and view disease-awareness campaigns as having a positive impact on early detection of chronic disease.