Building the Competitive Edge: Effective Brand Positioning in the Pharma Industry

Let this new year bring a big bang boom to your business!

With an effective Brand Positioning strategy, you can outpace the competition and secure your market leadership of the curve. In this blog, we share everything you need to know about this brilliant marketing strategy. So get ready to dive into the ocean of knowledge here with Pharma Now.

What is Brand Positioning?

Brand positioning is a marketing strategy brands use to establish their unique identity and convey their unique value proposition to the customers and audience base. It is generally used when a company wants customers to associate the brand and its products with a specific idea. 

All brand positioning efforts usually revolve around the company’s unique brand statement or tagline. For example, Pfizer’s tagline “Breakthroughs that change patients’ lives” encourages the company to continue developing new products. The company’s marketing efforts are centred around this tagline, with their advertisements showing how their products will change the user’s life.

This brand positioning is how the customer views the brand. For example, when buying baby soaps and shampoos, most people buy products that will not make their child cry. Johnson and Johnson’s No More Tears product line perfectly fits the customer requirement; therefore, the company is a category leader in baby products. Appropriate brand positioning significantly affects the company’s reputation, sales and revenue.

The impact of brand positioning: How does it help you stand out?

Here is why every pharma company needs brand positioning:

You gain a competitive advantage through brand positioning

Here are the statistics: As of 2024, the market size of the Indian pharmaceutical industry is 65 billion USD, and the market size of the global pharmaceutical industry is 1.48 trillion USD. In short, the competition is fierce. Your company, services and products can only stand out from the crowd if you position your brand in a way no one has. A clear brand statement allows you to communicate your company’s offerings effectively. It ensures you can easily reach your target audience and customers when differentiating your brand.

It gives you top-of-the-mind awareness

The first step to realising sales is top-of-the-mind awareness. For example, when you have a headache, your first thought is to take paracetamol. This is called top-of-the-mind awareness, i.e., where you’re aware of the product/brand and its function. This idea is also translated to all pharmaceutical products and companies. By building a strong brand position, you create top-of-the-mind awareness among your customers, who then think of your products at times of need, driving sales.

It improves your storytelling, copies, and messaging

Most advertisements and marketing efforts are centred around the company’s brand positioning. For example, without understanding the unique brand value your company brings to its customers, how can you create advertisements (which essentially highlight your unique value)? But, by establishing a brand position, you can ensure all your marketing strategies align with your unique proposition.

Pharma brand positioning is a crucial aspect of building a company; it is an identity that your customers associate you with. So, let’s address an important question: How do you create your brand position?

Pharma brand positioning strategies: How to create a unique brand position?

Here are some brand positioning strategies to gain a competitive advantage through brand positioning:

Define your unique value proposition

To build a strong brand in the pharmaceutical sector and compete with more than 6000 drug manufacturing companies, you must determine your brand’s personality, promise and value. How do your products, services, and missions align with the needs of patients and healthcare professionals (HCPs)? The answer to this question is the first step in helping your company stand out in this crowded market.

Identify your brand message for HCPs and patients

Once you’ve identified your unique value proposition and brand identity, you need to define what it means to your audience base. Most pharmaceutical companies have two major customer bases: Patients and HCPs. Therefore, you must tailor your brand proposition to resonate with these bases. For example, the primary focus of HCPs is clinical/patient outcomes, and the primary focus of patients is lifestyle impact/improvement. Therefore, you must determine how your unique value proposition will benefit these two aspects.

Create marketing strategies

Next, you need to develop marketing strategies to market your products and company. You need to create a content strategy that outlines how you will communicate your brand message to HCPs and patients. Ideally, these two bases have completely different focus points; hence, your branding and marketing strategies should differ depending on the target audience. For example, when developing marketing content for HCPs, you will have to provide in-depth information on clinical trial results and patient outcomes. In contrast, for patients, you will have to focus on patient stories, side effects, and benefits.

Build relationships with stakeholders

In pharma brand positioning, stakeholder trust is crucial. In this context, stakeholders include HCPs, patients, and hospitals. To build this trust, you must demonstrate your products' quality, safety, efficacy, and reliability, which will happen primarily through clinical trial results.

Next, you also need to demonstrate your commitment to meeting and maintaining these standards. To this end, you must be transparent with all information before launching any campaigns. You will also have to engage with stakeholders regularly once you’ve defined your brand position and after you’ve started sales.

Measure your performance

Pharma brand positioning is not a one-time project. Just like people, brands evolve. Hence, you need to measure brand performance and customer perception constantly. This allows you to track when and how the perception of your brand changes. Market research is an excellent method of monitoring your brand’s perception among key stakeholders. By regularly analysing KPIs, you can determine your pharma brand’s weaknesses and strengths and adjust your brand positioning strategies accordingly.

However, you’re likely to face several challenges during the pharma brand positioning process.

Common challenges in brand positioning & their solutions

Challenge: Regulatory restrictions on marketing and communication limit what advertisements and promotional materials can say, restricting creativity.

Solution: You should develop scientifically accurate and educational content and work with regulatory authorities and legal teams to ensure compliance. Using non-promotional content like awareness campaigns can improve your brand positioning efforts.

Challenge: The pharmaceutical industry is crowded with brands, and competitors may offer similar benefits, treatment options and value propositions.

Solution: When developing content and marketing strategies, highlight the uniqueness of your brand. For example, focus on drug delivery mechanisms, side effects or patient-friendly administration. This will allow you to stand out.

Challenge: Relying on clinical data can make your brand positioning strategies emotionless, failing to connect with HCPs and patients.

Solution: Use patient success stories and testimonials to humanise your brand. You can create a relatable brand narrative by combining scientific data with storytelling. It will promote emotional engagement among HCPs and patients.

Conclusion

Brand positioning is a unique way of differentiating your brand from customers. Pharma brand positioning is a unique hurdle that all companies must overcome to make their position in their industry. As the pharmaceutical industry grows, pharma companies will find it more challenging to establish their brand position. However, developing a brand position that remains fixed in the customers’ minds gives you a competitive advantage, and this advantage can permanently fix your position in the industry. Just like Johnson & Johnson’s No More Tears – what started as an individual product is now the company’s identity, and customers worldwide forever associate baby products with a single brand, this brand.

FAQs

1. How do you determine the success of your brand positioning efforts?

The success of brand positioning strategies is evaluated using KPIs such as market share, website traffic, revenue, brand awareness, customer satisfaction and social media engagement.

2. How can pharma companies overcome challenges in brand positioning?

Pharma companies must invest in research to understand their customers and identify areas where they (as a brand) fall short. Next, companies must focus on bringing long-term value to customers instead of short-term gains.

3. What are the three key elements of successful brand positioning?

The three key elements are:

(1) a clear value proposition

(2) unique differentiation from industry competitors and

(3) a consistent message across all channels.