Although there is a positive correlation between social demand and the whole economic development speed, and the economic recession has suppressed some demand, the aging society and natural population growth have far reduced the demand reduction brought about by the recession. Therefore, the negative impact of economic recession on social demand is not obvious.
The change of people's health concept. Modern people are not only satisfied with the living condition of "survival", but also care about the quality of life. The change of health concept reflects the improvement of people's own health awareness, and drugs are increasingly becoming an indispensable commodity for people.
3. According to the calculation, the demand elasticity coefficient of medical care products is 1.37, that is, the living standard increases 1 percentage point, and the medical consumption level increases 1.37 percentage point, indicating that the growth rate of medical consumption level is faster than that of residents' living standard. Based on the above points, the pharmaceutical industry has become a hot investment spot, which has created the mushrooming spread of pharmaceutical enterprises in China. Excerpted from China Medicine Online.
The success of a new pharmaceutical enterprise depends not only on the quality of its products, but also on whether the product positioning and marketing direction formulated after a series of detailed, thorough and accurate market research can accurately cut into the market in the fastest and best way. When pharmaceutical enterprises need to formulate new marketing plans and strategies, they must fully understand and master all kinds of information related to their marketing based on the market situation and guided by product selling points, so that pharmaceutical enterprises can make correct, timely and effective marketing decisions and formulate feasible marketing plans and strategies. To this end, we must conduct a sound market survey. Market research is an indispensable and regular work in the marketing activities of modern pharmaceutical enterprises. It also provides an important decision basis for product marketing.
So, what kind of market research can really help pharmaceutical marketing? Next, I take the management of pharmaceutical products as the main line, choose some more important research types and talk about my ideas. ：
(a) product development and transfer
Now the bosses of many domestic pharmaceutical companies are lamenting that the company lacks a good variety. Now, it costs millions to buy a new variety, and the transaction price of tens of millions is not uncommon. When introducing this product, new drug development units usually give epidemiological data of this drug indication. According to that algorithm, the market for drugs is often hundreds of millions, or hundreds of millions. Then can we make a decision to buy new drugs based on this data? For example, are there many hypertensive patients in China? According to the algorithm of incidence, the current manufacturers of hypertension drugs have made a fortune. Unfortunately, the treatment rate and cure rate of hypertension cases in China are still very low. For various reasons, these patients have never been to a hospital in society, so this is only a potential market. Epidemiological data is not so obvious for judging the current market value of this market.
So, how should the company decide whether to spend a lot of money to buy a certain variety? When evaluating the external environment of an enterprise, three factors are usually considered:
(1) Current market size and compound annual growth rate; %
(2) competition; !
(3) Possibility for doctors or consumers to use this new product.
And these three key decision-making considerations, it is through properly designed market research, give the specific data of these three aspects. However, this is not perfect, and simple and isolated data can't explain any problems. Follow-up work is also essential, and the company must make a break-even analysis. According to the survey data, when the company can see what the company's business will be like five years later, will it be profitable or loss? Only in this way can the company make up its mind whether it should buy this product.
(2) product concept
When the company finally has a good product, what needs to be done is marketing. What is the company facing first? This is a question of product concept. What should I say to the doctor/patient? There are many competing products, and everyone has his own opinion. Xi Simin said "no drowsiness, anti-allergic", Kang Bide said "the combination of traditional Chinese and western medicine works well", Li Junsha "sterilized by bacteria", Jinsizi Runhoubao "works in the mouth" and Huasu tablets "anti-inflammatory buccal tablets" all sound good, but in fact, the sales of these products are also very good. Then how can I "tell" others about this product? This involves a product concept. Therefore, only after careful market research can we get a set of perfect methods to help establish such a product concept.
First of all, we need to clarify a question, what is the product concept? "Product concept" must contain three important factors:
(1) What product is this?
What benefits can this product provide for patients?
(3) What are the supporting points of introducing our products in this way?
So how to do it? The first step should be to have a group discussion on the basis of understanding products and diseases. Invite the target doctors or patients, let them speak freely, listen to your opinions, and discuss their illness experiences, troubles, expected solutions, etc. Through this kind of free and casual discussion, we may be inspired, produce a lot of "fantastic ideas" about this product description, and form a lot of "product descriptions", which our target people want to hear and get. After the symposium, the company may sum up a dozen possible product concepts that "look very effective" after discussion. In the second step, these statements are verified by quantitative questionnaire survey. A very simple percentage can explain what kind of statements doctors or patients like best and what kind of statements they are most willing to accept. Through these two steps, we may have confirmed that there are three kinds of statements suitable for our products, namely A, B and C. At this time, we need to fully consider the factors such as market and competition to "use our brains", which is the "artistic component" of marketing.
(C) market segmentation and target market selection
If a pharmaceutical company blindly does marketing without finding a suitable target market, it is definitely a terrible thing. It may have spent hundreds of millions of dollars on advertising, most of which was spent in Shui Piao. Needless to say, the importance of determining the target market, so how to determine the target market of the product? For a prescription drug, the question can be considered as follows: in which cities should the product be sold? How many hospitals should be covered? What level of hospitals are covered? Which departments should be arrested? If you want to find the answers to these questions, you need to know through market research. For example, a medical representative who sells three generations of cephalosporin powder injections includes such big customers as Provincial People's Hospital and Affiliated Hospital of Medical College. What department do you want him to go to? He can choose to go to respiratory department, ICU/CCU, oncology department, hematology department, general surgery and other key departments. With key promotion, it will inevitably improve his sales efficiency, which is also the 2|8 principle in business. When determining such a department, the company will obviously not only consider the number of patients in a specific department, but will comprehensively consider a package of issues such as the number of patients, the ability of patients to pay, and the fierce competition, thus helping to determine the target department.
For over-the-counter drugs, the determination of target market becomes more complicated and difficult to determine. Who are the target customers of the company's products in the vast crowd? Many companies are puzzled by this problem. And a well-designed market survey can help solve this problem. The combination of factor analysis and cluster analysis can describe the target customers from the psychological and behavioral levels of consumers, thus effectively segmenting the market. In a typical target market, it can be divided into several different groups, which are different according to different groups. They are: self-determination, advertising recommendation, suitors with good quality and low price, price decision and clerk recommendation. The characteristics of each kind of people, including age, gender, education level, social interaction, etc. , are described in detail, and will not be repeated here.
(4) Follow-up after the product goes on the market.
(f9 {For new products, tracking after listing can help companies keep abreast of the changes in the market competition pattern and the performance of the company's products in the market.
So what does the rapid tracking of products after listing generally include? The most important indicators are as follows:
Answer: the change of product popularity: the first mention of popularity does not prompt, popularity does not prompt, popularity prompts.
Changes in product utilization rate: product prescription rate and most common product prescription rate.
C: Changes in doctors' perception of products: advantages and disadvantages of products perceived by doctors.
The reason why doctors are willing or unwilling to prescribe this product.
E: the change of product prescription rate in the future: the possibility of prescription in the next 3 months.
By monitoring these key indicators, we can understand the current situation and future dynamic trend of the products. So what are the benefits of this post-listing tracking? To give a simple example: 10 months later, the company's new products did not reach the expected goal of occupying 5% market share, but only reached 2%. What is the reason? Is it because the medical representatives are not diligent enough that many target doctors don't know about this product, or is it because doctors already know about this product but are worried about its side effects and are unwilling to take the first step of "testing"? Is it because there are too few "loyal" and "powerful" prescribers, or because of the high turnover rate of these high-quality customers? Follow-up investigation can tell the company the answer after the product goes on the market, and can help the company adjust its marketing strategy in time and effectively, and further improve its marketing direction.
(5) Research on advertising of pharmaceutical products.
Judging from the current medical market situation, pharmaceutical companies are definitely the target customers that the advertising departments of major TV stations need to develop, and the advertisement of a product is always millions or even hundreds of millions of yuan. Then, before an advertisement is put into use, what investigations should be made to ensure that this advertisement can promote product sales? It is essential to study advertising creativity and scripts; When deciding which advertisements to put in, the general company will test the advertising effect. This study is mainly about the test before the advertisement is broadcast, through which the quality of the advertisement production is evaluated and its possible impact on the actual market is estimated. According to the needs of research projects, the company invites qualified target consumers to watch the videos of TV programs at the designated time and place in the form of quotas, and then solicit their opinions on TV programs, and then process the collected data, and finally provide effective data for customers. In the test, the main test indicators are a and TDM values; B, advertising impact; C, advertising persuasiveness; D, novelty of advertisement; Through this test of simulating the real environment, the company can judge which advertisement is acceptable to the target consumers and can impress them. So as to adopt and use the advertisement.
Finally, I want to talk about what kind of research is "good". An excellent market research should be a research that can help enterprises solve practical problems, and a research that enterprises can make marketing decisions accordingly; People no longer list hundreds of pages of data unilaterally, but focus on confusing research. At the end of the research report, we should tell the company several key results, such as one, two, three and four. There may not be a few hundred words, but it tells the important events in the company's market, tells the key success factors of the company's product success, and points out the effective measures that the company should take in product marketing. Such market research is a successful research.
Concluding remarks
The pharmaceutical market environment in China is gradually becoming standardized, the "scientific" component of marketing will become more and more important, and the decision based on market survey data will be widely recognized by pharmaceutical enterprises. Therefore, good market research will play an increasingly important role in the marketing of pharmaceutical products.
References:
(1) Three factors in the concept of product development and product transfer are taken from the book Drug Marketing Strategy.
(2) The three factors in the product concept are taken from the book Drug Marketing Strategy.
(3) Several groups of people with market segmentation and target market selection are extracted from China Pharmaceutical Marketing Forum.
(4) The research on pharmaceutical product advertising is taken from China Pharmaceutical Online.