When marketers espouse virtues of brand loyalty, you rarely hear its application to pharmaceutical brands.  Why?  Buying a medication isn’t like browsing for diapers at your local grocery store.  Most people hope they don’t need to display loyalty to a pharmaceutical company.  Loyalty is often generated around a purchase of desire, not when a prescription is a necessity.

In addition, pharmaceutical companies have a harder time developing patient loyalty because the purchasing process is vastly different.  Sticking with the above example, when you make the decision to purchase diapers, you go to the store, browse the aisle, perhaps assess the prices and packaging and then decide to purchase.  With the exception of OTC medications, this process is quite different for a patient.  Patients are told they need a prescription.  There is no real decision-making process.  This dynamic is certainly changing as patients are playing a larger role in health decisions, but the prescription still starts in the doctor’s office.

Of course, there are additional elements that make earning patient loyalty an albatross.  For example, long standing distrust of the pharmaceutical industry and high drug prices do not help create patient loyalty.  Throw all of these dynamics into the same pot and it’s a bit like oil and water—they don’t mix.  Given this seemingly impossible set of circumstances, pharmaceutical marketers are left to ask themselves whether or not pursuing patient loyalty is a worthwhile endeavor.

The simple answer is it’s not only a worthwhile pursuit, it’s a realistic goal.  Last week I wrote about an article from the Boston Globe that highlights the loyalty patients feel toward Genzyme.  The company has cultivated this loyalty by developing a relationship with patients.  What a novel concept—developing a relationship with your end customer!

Unlike some social media wingnuts, I’m not here to suggest that social media is the  sole answer to creating patient loyalty.  What I am suggesting is that if pharmaceutical companies focus on the patients it will inevitably enhance loyalty.  Train your call center employees to display compassion.  Assign case managers for serious illnesses that develop a relationship with the patient.  Provide educational resources that help patients make informed decisions.  Spend time with doctors to educate them on new treatment options.  Help patients figure out insurance issues associated with your treatments.

And yes, social media can play a role in a pharmaceutical company’s ability to cultivate patient loyalty.  The company that engages with a patient, provides helpful resources online and improves access to information will develop a more loyal base of patients.  If there is a central tenant of social media it would be relationships.  Isn’t that what loyalty is all about?

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