Pharma marketing: 3 KPIs to track

In today's highly competitive pharmaceutical market, data is one of the most important marketing tools available. By taking a look at hard data, marketers can make better-informed decisions moving forward, controlling costs and improving customer engagement at the same time.

However, marketing cycles can be lengthy and complicated, so it's hard to get a clear picture of the market at any given time. To get a better view of where your company stands, you need to set metrics in place to help you do so.

Consider tracking these three key performance indicators to keep a close eye on your position in the marketplace:

1. Lifetime value of a customer

When you know the worth each of your customers hold to your company, you'll be able to create campaigns that target based on empirical financial fact, and not a vague gut feeling. Loyal customers that buy frequently will obviously be worth more over time - and you may need to keep a close eye on your engagement efforts so you don't risk losing those profitable customers.

To calculate this figure, you must multiply revenue by gross margin by the average number of repeat purchases, explained Vital. For example, if your company receives $50,000 in revenue from one client with a gross margin of 30 percent, you would get $15,000 for that one purchase. If that customer visits your store an average of three times in a year, their annual value would be $45,000.

2. Cost of acquisition

Pharma marketing cycles can last a long time, making it hard to see how your resource investments are panning out. However, it's important to understand how your return on investment relates to the overall cost of customer acquisition. For instance, let's say your company has a long list of clients, some who buy frequently, some infrequently. Obviously, some of these customers are worth more than others, and your future marketing efforts can adapt based on what you've learned from those interactions.

If you want to calculate the cost of customer acquisition, you simply divide your total marketing investment by the number of customers acquired over a specific period of time. For example, if your company spends $250,000 on a three-month marketing campaign and acquires 400 new customers, your cost of acquisition would be $625 per customer.

This data is valuable because it can help you adjust your future campaigns. If you drill down in to the data and find out that health care providers in a certain market have a lower COA than others, you may decide to focus more of your future efforts on a more affordable audience segment. This data may also tell you that you need to switch up your marketing tactics when targeting more expensive segments.

Understanding where leads come from will help you plan future campaigns.

3. Leads

Depending on the products your company produces, buying cycles may be quite lengthy. From providing detailed drug information to health care providers, to getting sign off from other stakeholders, the process of selling can take weeks, months or even longer. But it all starts with leads. The number of leads you get today will determine the number of opportunities available to you tomorrow. Understanding where these leads come from will help you decide where to invest your marketing budget.

When tracking leads, keep a close eye on which channels you utilize to reach providers. You might find that some physicians respond better to advertisements in print peer-reviewed papers, while others are more responsive to ads in digital channels. You'll likely find that your audience splits into several segments with unique preferences. To capture the most leads, you'll need to leverage multiple channels.

To learn more about how to reach physicians with a multi-channel advertising approach, visit ELSMediaKits.com today.