Query:
It was nice conversation with you last time, thank you for your valuable inputs. I would like to ask you few more questions.
We are pharmacy postgraduates and wanted to start small pharmaceutical marketing firm, as having no experience in pharmaceutical marketing field. we are confused about how to and from where to start marketing. As it is too competitive market today, you are having more than eight and half years experience in sale/marketing and administration. Could you please share some of your knowledge regarding techniques/strategies for starting marketing to sustain in this competitive field.
we have carried out small market survey and came to know there are so many small pharma marketing firms in market which are targeting BAMS, BHMS and MBBS practitioners to provide them directly medicines at too much lower rate giving them schemes and huge margin which is difficult to provide by a new small scale pharma firm. But at a same time Big pharma companies like mankind are providing only 20-30 % margins to retailers, still how they are able to survive in this competitive world.
we are totally confused if we provide product with huge margins they consider it as low quality medicine and if we provide at standard 20-50 % margin to retailer, stockist and schemes to practitioners how can we compete big pharma company and also confused which products to start with, how many products launch at first, whether to start with employing some medical representative or as very small firm first taking some experience in pharma marketing and then start marketing.
Sir, I would be grateful if you could reply on this.
Response:
Marketing type in pharmaceutical sector you can read here: Marketing type in Pharma
Definitely market is so competitive but you have to make place for your self by your dedication and hard work. First and most important thing is your product selection.
- Select your products after proper market research of area you want to launch.
- Prepare list of all doctors whether mbbs or Bams.
- Conduct survey of products which are prescribed by them.
- Rates at which these molecules are selling, doctor’s commissions, retailer scheme etc.
- Then select your molecules according to this.
Providing commissions, gifts and lucrative things are become tradition in Indian Pharmaceutical market. Every company whether it is big or small, old or new use this marketing tactic. You shouldn’t be confused from this.
There is mainly two type of marketing strategy become successful:
One is providing innovative and superior product.
Second is providing more profit.
Which one you want to follow, depend at you. Big companies also provide some products directly to doctors at very low rates which are very competitive, not just only small companies.
Big pharma companies has more advantage than small companies that they have some margin-able and innovative products that make them stable in market. They also create some OTC segment products that provide basis to their profit margins. Big companies provide tour, seminars and other expensive things in place of direct profit, so they only concentrate at doctor rather than chemist/stockist.
Small companies can’t spent at seminars, tours or other expensive packages, so they try to make their place by providing direct profit to doctors. That’s way they provide medicine at low cost to them.
You can compete with big pharma only if you can understand what is the need of market and how to step further. That experience come with time. Only remember one thing in Mind- Your company is not small, your company is future MNC. Company which is big now, once was small. Company like Sun Pharma was started at very small scale.
Persons confidence and dedication make brands and company, not money. You can launch with any number of product, you consider adequate and you can easily capture market. According to your budget, you can decide whether you can bear expensive of medical representatives or not. If yes, you can start with appointing MR’s but you should also have some market knowledge to guide them in accurate manner.
Hope above information was useful to you…
For any detail, suggestion and query, mail us at pharmafranchiseehelp@gmail.com