“If you build it, they will come!”  What a great line for a movie, but definitely a risky business strategy.  Yet many pharmacists who make the decision to venture into the realm of disease management or other types of patient care services often fail to consider the actual or potential demand within their immediate marketplace.  Indeed, multiple resources are available to help pharmacists develop new skills, implement and even market any number of different programs.  This approach definitely saves time by allowing you to learn from someone else’s success and even failure.  However, health care is delivered on a local level and what worked for a pharmacist in the urban Northeast may not be the best approach for a rural community in the Midwest.  This article is intended to assist you in gathering and using your own market place data for determining what types of pharmacist patient services would most likely be desired and valued by potential customers.

MARKETING 101

Very likely, you are already familiar with the 5-P’s of marketing - product, price, place, position and promotion.  While these five terms are often used to build a successful marketing plan they should also be consistent with the marketplace in which the service will be introduced.  Here’s why:

Product – Product is defined as the physical goods or service that a business offers to satisfy a consumer’s need.  The key word is “need”.  Without first identifying the consumer’s needs, your services may or may not be something anyone wants to receive, much less pay for.

Price – What you intend to charge for the new service is typically going to be determined by your costs to provide it, consumer demand and competition.  Fortunately, few customers base their buying decision on price alone but rather the value they place on the new service.  Understanding what customer’s value will make price less of an issue.

Read the complete article by downloading it below.