The 7Ps Digital Marketing Mix for Pharma
Using the 7Ps model to evaluate the digital marketing plan and subsequent touchpoints.
If you have undertaken a higher education marketing degree or education course you will have likely come across the 4Ps of marketing: Product, price, promotion, place, originally intended for product-focused organisations.
The 4Ps eventually developed into the 7Ps, which added people, process and physical to the model to accommodate for changes in buying behaviours and technologies, as well as to be more accurate for the growing amount of service-based organisations.
The 7Ps marketing mix is the combination of elements used by a business to enable it to meet the needs and expectations of its customers. They combine to form the complete elements a marketing department need to review to promote the organisation successfully.
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To frame it a little differently, according to Smart Insights, the 7Ps helps companies define key issues that affect the marketing of its products and services and is often referred to as the 7Ps framework for the digital marketing mix. This will be the focus of this post.
The 7Ps Marketing Mix.
Using the marketing textbook entitled Digital Marketing: Strategy, Implementation and Practice (featured on our list of recommended books for science marketers) for reference, we’ll look at each of the 7Ps and apply them to digital channels for a multi-channel approach adopted by pharma organisations.
This will achieve a holistic view for a marketing plan of every element of the pharma organisation to set practical objectives, undertake competitive analysis and review the tactics via appropriate approaches.
Below are each Ps within the marketing mix with an overview of the elements that each contain to help you determine your own mix for your pharma organisation to be able to market it more effectively.
Use the mix to uncover new avenues for your marketing plan.
PRODUCT
Find opportunities for modifying the core or extended product for digital environments. The online marketplace has created opportunities for pharma organisations to shape and market their core products more effectively.
Quality
Image/Branding
Features/Variants/Mix
Use occasion
Availability
Warranties.
PROMOTION
Discovering new promotional and digital marketing communication techniques online. The promotional opportunities for pharma marketers are ever-growing and the individual tactics that marketers can adopt grows alongside. It’s hugely important to know about the tactics you could undertake, to assess which are most appropriate.
Marketing communications
Personal promotion
Sales promotion
PR
Branding
Direct marketing.
PRICE
Implications for setting prices in digital markets; new pricing models and strategies that the digital environment offers for pharma organisations. It’s useful to be aware of competitor pricing as well as what your customers expect to pay to shape your pricing strategy accordingly.
Positioning
Discounts
Credit/Payment methods
Free or value-added elements.
PLACE
Considering the implications for distribution for digital marketing. For some pharma-based organisations, location might not be an issue, and for others, their location might make or break the client relationship, therefore, assessing your place in relation to the wider digital marketing plan is a must.
Sales support
Channel number
Segmented channels.
PEOPLE
Who are the key people conducting the marketing activities and are they capable of conducting those activities? Are there skills gaps that need to be addressed? Every marketing plan needs to look internally at its current capability to determine whether the marketing plan can be achieved via the organisation’s current marketing resources.
Individuals on marketing activities
Individuals on customer contact
Culture/image
Training and skills
Remuneration.
PROCESS
A review of the internal processes that sit behind all of your marketing activities. The organisation might possess the internal skills, but the processes required for those skills to come to life might not, therefore, it is essential to review and set processes for tasks to be completed efficiently.
Customer focus (marketing orientation)
Business-led
IT-support
Design features
Research and development.
PHYSICAL EVIDENCE
How are customers reassured of the organisation’s offering? This is an opportunity to look at the website and supporting channels and all of the (digital) touchpoints where the customer might encounter your organisation.
Sales/staff contact experience of the brand
Product packaging
7PS AND THE DIGITAL MARKETING PLAN IN PRACTICE
In this brief post, we look at the 7Ps - a highly valuable review tool - to evaluate elements of the digital marketing plan. Each of the seven Ps represents an element of the marketing plan which pharma marketers need to consider so that all of the bases are covered before going to market.
Be sure to evaluate each of the seven elements of the 7Ps Marketing Mix. The elements will determine your website strategy, customer experience as well as the lead generation efforts. They can uncover opportunities as well as some potential marketing challenges.