The Basics of Nootropics Marketing
Nootropics promise to play a big part in the future of the pharmaceutical and nutritional supplement market. It’s time to get your nootropics marketing strategy in order! Some people know them as “cognitive enhancers,” while others might refer to them as “smart drugs.” No matter what you choose to call them, nootropics are big business and only getting bigger. What Are Nootropics? Broadly defined, the term “nootropic” can refer to any pharmaceutical drug or nutritional supplement that is taken by generally healthy individuals in an effort to improve or enhance mental function. Nootropics can be either natural or synthetic. You can readily purchase some over the counter, while others require a doctor’s prescription. Different nootropics target different elements of cognitive processing including those that govern executive function/conative control, memory, attention, concentration, creativity, and motivation. Two of the most widely consumed nootropics are caffeine (which boosts alertness) and nicotine (which affects both attention levels and motor functions). For marketing purposes, however, we will focus on other substances that are purchased specifically for their mental enhancement properties. A recent article by Healthline ranked the nootropics L-Theanine (a naturally occurring amino acid that engenders feelings of calmness) and creatine (a common bodybuilding supplement that has also proven effective at sharpening short-term memory and reasoning skills) among the top nootropics in the modern marketplace. Other nootropics singled out by Healthline include Ginkgo biloba, Bacopa monnieri, Rhodiola rosea, Panax ginseng, Noopept, Piracetam, and Phenotropil. The Strength of the Nootropic Product Market Regardless of what types of nootropics they are taking and why they are taking them, general consumers are turning to smart drugs and conative enhancers in increasing numbers. According to a recent report by Zion Market Research, the nootropics product market is expected to reach approximately $5,959 million by 2024. Taking a broad look at the nootropics sector as a whole, this report – titled “Nootropics Market By Application (Memory Enhancement, Mood and Depression, Attention and Focus, Longevity and Anti-Aging, Sleep, Recovery, and Dream Enhancement, and Anxiety): Global Industry Perspective, Comprehensive Analysis, and Forecast – also predicts a nootropics compound annual growth rate (CAGR) of approximately 15.7% between 2018 and 2024. How to Market Your Nootropic Products In light of the growing popularly of nootropics among the global public, you’ll want to make the most of this rapidly expanding health and wellness sector. Here are just a few tips that can help your particular nootropic product(s) stand out in the marketplace. 1. Lead with the Problem As previously discussed, nootropics can address a range of specific mental functions and cognitive deficiencies. By specifically targeting common problems at the head of your marketing materials, you can instantly capture the rapt attention of your chosen audience. Many marketers operating in the pharmaceutical/nutritional supplement sector have made the mistake of jumping directly to the benefits of a particular product before first firmly setting up the problem that it solves. When it comes to nootropics, a clearly established problem/solution approach will drive conversions more readily than an approach that is centered around the presentation of specific product features. 2. Offer Free Samples Pharmaceutical/nutritional supplement sector have long known the tremendous value of a free sample. And free samples are particularly effective when it comes to marketing substances, like nootropics, that are designed to enhance health and wellness rather than treat a dangerous medical condition. Free samples of prescription nootropics can be distributed through physicians who ensure that these medications are only available to those who can truly benefit from them. Studies have shown that doctors who receive free pharmaceutical product samples are significantly more likely to prescribe that product. 3. Connect with Customers Emotionally Memory, attentiveness, and general cognitive function are areas of health and wellness that connect with people on a strong emotional level. By tapping into this emotion, you can not only capture audience attention but drive consumer conversions. Just be sure that you choose emotional appeals have a basis in fact and are relevant to the specific nootropics that you are marketing. Social media offers ample opportunities to emotionally connect with audiences in a genuine way. Consider launching an interactive campaign that encourages people to comment on your product and share their feelings about it. For More Information on Nootropics Product Marketing A forward-thinking marketing agency with a specific focus in the healthcare industry, Bigeye is always one step ahead of the competition. Like all emerging and rapidly growing markets, the nootropic market is an area of specific interest to us. To learn more about nootropics marketing and other areas that relate to advertising and promotion, contact us today.
Why Pharma Brands Struggle With Digital Ads
Pharmaceutical companies dominate the airwaves in the U.S., but face a much tougher challenge on the Web. Turn on a TV during daytime hours, and the odds are strong you’ll see the work of a pharmaceutical advertising agency. Ads for prescription drugs are everywhere during peak viewing hours for older viewers, and only slightly less omnipresent during evening hours. The numbers bear this out: Pharmaceutical companies are spending about $6 billion on TV ads annually. With an aging population and medical advances keeping us healthier longer, this is a state of affairs that’s likely to continue. Yet while pharmaceutical ads are everywhere on linear TV, they are much less well-represented in the digital sphere — and there are a few reasons why progress on this front has been halting. Paging Dr. Google The Internet has become the public’s number one source for health information. When consumers have a troubling symptom, Google and WebMD are often the first stops. Physicians aren’t immune to the powers of the Internet either, and often use online searches to supplement print sources when developing clinical opinions and treatment plans. Yet despite this rather transformational change, pharmaceutical advertising is still limited in the digital realm. TV and magazines still receive the vast majority of pharmaceutical ad and marketing spend. There are two reasons why digital advertising in the pharmaceutical industry remains a relative rarity: Government inaction and federal regulations. The Food and Drug Administration (FDA) has taken an exceptionally methodical approach to providing guidance on what is allowable and what is illegal in terms of digital pharma ads and online pharma marketing. Without clear guidelines, companies have been historically risk-averse in terms of formulating digital strategies. While the FDA is slow and deliberate when crafting policy, it sends out warning letters with much higher velocity. Compounding this difficulty is the current rate of technological change. By the time the FDA offers pharmaceutical marketing guidance on a digital platform, two new platforms have been developed and released. Bypassing Programmatic Roadblocks There’s another rather large fly in the ointment for digital advertisers: The Health Insurance Portability and Accountability Act, or HIPAA. This federal law grants US citizens privacy rights that protect the use of medical data. For programmatic advertisers, this is a substantial challenge. By harvesting location data, search data and other personal information, advertisers can serve highly targeted ads to consumers when their intent to purchase is at its apex. This, obviously, is a very powerful tool. It’s also a tool that’s constrained by regulations in some instances, however. If a pharmaceutical advertising agency wants to initiate an automated ad campaign, they must proceed with caution. HIPAA outlaws the use of first-party data to link a consumer with a medical condition. This means that a pharmaceutical advertising agency cannot use such data to identify a consumer as a high cholesterol sufferer, then serve her an ad for Lipitor. While this is a significant limitation, it isn’t a complete deal-breaker. Advertisers often use indirect targeting based on related conditions. They also white-list the sites their ads appear on and use audience proxies (such as medical websites) when creating automated campaigns. Agencies can target content (serving Viagra ads in an article about erectile dysfunction, for example) but can’t target specific consumers. These strategies help them stay on the right side of compliance. Is indirect targeting based on third-party data or related conditions as effective as standard programmatic approaches? That’s unlikely. Yet it can be quite effective, especially when compared to linear TV ads, which offer only the most crude form of demographic targeting. And, as digital advertising tools continue to evolve, indirect targeting may improve to a point where it is nearly as effective as using first-party data. One thing is certain: Digital spaces remain under-utilized within the context of pharmaceutical marketing. As today’s Gen X and millennial consumers age, pharma brands won’t be able to rely on linear TV and print magazines to reach their audiences — and brands at the vanguard of this transition will be in the strongest competitive position. The Takeaway If you’d like to see what a tech-focused pharmaceutical advertising agency can do for your products, contact BIGEYE today. We’ll help you harness the full power of advertising and marketing across every medium.
Rise of the Chatbots: Bringing AI Into Pharma Marketing
Looking for a low risk, low overhead, but high impact way to introduce AI into your pharma marketing? Then consider the chatbot. Customer service is one of the most obvious applications for automation — and companies have been ruthlessly efficient in its deployment. Newer tech-based firms, in particular, have opted for near-total customer service automation, at least for routine queries. Most consumers are no doubt familiar with the lengths one must go to in order to get an actual carbon-based life form on the other end of a phone or computer interaction. While dealing with endless irrelevant computer-generated questions is tiresome now, consumers are about to get some relief. AI and natural language processing (NLP) are growing exponentially smarter. Soon, consumers will have difficulty discerning silicon-based vs. carbon-based customer assistance. As chatbots and other automated programs grow more capable, brands will also be able to extend their functionality into the realm of pharmaceutical marketing. How Chatbots Can Help Brands Incorporate AI Into Pharma Marketing AI is playing a critical role in pharmaceutical industry product development. Major companies such as Pfizer and Google are using AI to help with early disease diagnosis. Artificial intelligence is also used to accelerate timelines for new drug discoveries. AI is also positioned to play a critical role in the emergence of personalized medicine, where tailored therapies are created based on a patient’s genetic profile. Heady stuff, to be certain — yet also fairly far outside of the bailiwick of your conventional pharmaceutical advertising agency or pharma marketing department. There is, however, one AI implementation that is both effective and viable for marketing purposes: The chatbot. Today’s chatbots have come a long way from the rather static and limited versions consumers first encountered. Part of this is due to a gradual shift away from rules-based AI (where a chatbot responds according to pre-determined rule sets) to a fully realized NLP implementation. In the latter, a chatbot can continually learn and expand its repertoire, growing more accurate and responsive over time. In fact, today’s NLP-based chat applications have grown astonishingly life-like, even incorporating human-sounding conversational pauses and stammers. Some chatbots even make intentional errors to increase their verisimilitude. Serving an Automated Marketing Role In the context of customer service and marketing, it’s not difficult to see the benefits of having an intelligent helper who sounds like a human and who is ready to assist with patient queries 24/7. This is especially helpful in an industry where consumers frequently have simple questions about dosages, interactions, and other issues. If your chatbot is capable of seamlessly handling these lines of interaction, it frees up personnel to work on higher-value tasks — one of the core advantages of automation. That’s merely one application of chatbot AI, however. While a well-designed bot can provide consumers with information and facilitate positive experiences, it also plays another critical role: It accumulates a vast trove of data culled from thousands upon thousands of consumer interactions. Obviously, privacy regulations govern how first-party data can be used. Yet this information is still quite valuable in terms of identifying how processes can be improved and how consumers respond to particular messages. Teva and other leading global pharmaceutical brands have created chatbots for their internal properties and are using them for pharma marketing purposes. Teva’s Maxbot implementation, in fact, recently won several awards from the Pharmaceutical Marketing Society. Smaller brands should also follow suit. Though these brands may not have the internal resources to develop a chatbot, the right pharmaceutical advertising agency may be able to develop a chatbot solution that fits the bill. The Takeaway At BIGEYE, we believe that technology plays a leading role in the success of a modern pharma marketing campaign. If you’re looking for more from your pharmaceutical advertising agency, we urge you to contact BIGEYE today.