Keys to optimize the position of the laboratory in the pharmacy

According to the Asociación para el Autocuidado de la Salud (ANEFP) and IMS the pharmacy Spanish market is showing an increasing tendency since the third trimester of 2013. The private market of prescription and the self-care or consumerhealth are increasing and now are accounting for a 40% of the total volume and a 26’8% in value. The consumerhealth market ranks as the second segment that brings more sales to the pharmacy, after the prescription market, acting as a mean of survival and great support to the pharmacy.

Given this situation, it is highly attractive for the laboratory to have a closer relationship with the pharmaceutical target in order to get a better position of their products in the pharmacy office, to include advertising at the point of sale and, among others, to take their brands up to the top of mind of the pharmacists at the moment that they are recommending to the consumer/patient

From several studies done through the lasts months by the market research consultancy Hamilton, it has been detected that the pharmaceutical target would highly appreciate other resources that favored their daily activity beyond trade policies applied by the laboratories

In order to determine what can provide the laboratories, great beyond of the price variable, it is essential to use research market techniques that allow us to go deeper in their daily life, detecting insights and needs that help the pharmacist to optimize the management at the pharmacy office. 

¿How can the laboratories get closer to the daily activity of the pharmacist?

It is necessary to reinvent the traditional research market techniques to delve in the daily work of the pharmacist and the pharmacist auxiliaries, detecting what incitements are the key in the purchasing decision at the point of sale

For this we apply mix deepening techniques in which are implemented ethnographic methodologies and in depth techniques in order to observe in situ the pharmacy strategies, understanding the mission, the functions, the attitudes, the motivations and the needs of the pharmacists in their main activities. The aim is to identify what the laboratory can provide in their day-to-day situations in order to be closer with them, and indirectly, stay in a better position in the list of recommendations and sales.

Sometimes creative dynamics are also proposed in order to overcome the rational barriers, deepen to a more latent and unconscious level and landing the ideas/insights of the pharmacist in concepts of new products and/or services that define a model “win-win” between the laboratory and the pharmacy.

Helping the pharmacists in the management of the pharmacy implies, also, advising them in the mix marketing, giving them tricks about the products, services, distribution, communication and promotion, among other tools. For the laboratory it means defining a better strategy of category management in the pharmacy, optimizing the investment in publicity and communication and, also, going into detail on the rational and emotional elements that influence the pharmacist recommendation

For that is necessary to analyze the possible routes of the consumer in the pharmacy, determining the cold and the heat zone in the same and in the lineal and, moreover, measuring what elements and what stimulus are susceptible at the point of sale to attract the attention and become a trigger for a purchase. Establish a quantification of these elements will allow us to know the consumer decision tree and detect what button should we touch in order to optimize our marketing strategies and the trade marketing.

Let’s get a moment the pharmacist role… who of us would not like to be helped in their daily activities? Who would not like that others care about our business? Who would not like to sale more? 

The pharmacist are more receptive to listen new proposes, to apply marketing strategies and to improve their point of sale.

Being the first and the best in giving this advisements will let getting us a better position of our brands and products in their pharmacist and, also, in their top of mind.  

Jennifer Varón