Pharmaceutical marketing on Internet

The Internet is being used extensively to communicate not only among professionals but also to the general public. It has attained almost a mass media status. The social net working like face book, twitters and linked in are making head way in the all areas of human activities. The marketing is no exception to this. The e-marketing tools and modalities are extensively used in order to outreach the customer in most cost effective manner. The use of internet technologies to reach customers of pharmaceuticals is been considered as most emerging approach against conventional medical detailing. Due to easy accessibility of internet, the information revolution’s picking up, and opening unprecedented opportunities of reaching the primary consumers, that is general public. This has given fillip to the avenues like internet  pharmacies and direct to consumer marketing  Many countries have measures in place to limit advertising by pharmaceutical companies. One type of marketing is direct to consumer advertising. Direct-to-Consumer advertising (DTC advertising) usually refers to the marketing of pharmaceutical products but can apply in other areas as well. This form of advertising is directed toward patients, rather than healthcare professionals. The Food and Drug Administration holds responsibility of regulating DTC advertising. Forms of DTC advertising include TV, print, radio and other mass and social media. There are ethical and regulatory concerns regarding DTC advertising, specifically the extent to which these ads may unduly influence the prescribing of the prescription medicines based on consumer demands when, in some cases, they may not be medically necessary. The United States (1997) and New Zealand (1981) are the only two countries that encourage the DTC advertising.

Online advertisements
Pharmaceutical marketing, sometimes called medico-marketing, is the business of advertising or otherwise promoting the sale of pharmaceuticals or drugs.The online pharmacies/internet pharmacies web cast the advertisements for the medications and related devices just to create the awareness and the facilities of internet pharmacies. However, their licence restricts them not to promote the sale of prescription pharmaceuticals without a prescription. Advertisements for online pharmacies are prohibited except ads which have gotten prior approval from social networks such as face book, etc. Dietary and herbal supplements advertisements that promoting products  are generally permitted, except for  anabolic steroids, chitosan, comfrey, dehydroepiandrosterone, ephedra, human growth hormones, melatonin, and any additional products which are  deemed unsafe or questionable by Facebook in its sole discretion.Google: One of the biggest search engines had to pay a compensation worth $500 million to settle a criminal probe into ads it accepted for online Canadian pharmacies selling drugs in the United States. Google was also on notice that many pharmacies accepting an online consultation rather than a prescription charged a premium for doing so because individuals seeking to obtain prescription drugs without a valid prescription were willing to pay higher prices for the drugs. Another issue was the safety of the drugs because many of the drugs which were shipped did not need to abide by the regulatory agencies of the Canadian Regulatory Affairs as a result of which many drugs from other countries which were often shipped. Google at one time accepted advertising from overseas online pharmacies but later confined such ads to those from the United States and Canada. Google announced in a February 2010 blog post that it would no longer allow Canadian pharmacies to advertise to US customers.

Marketing of healthcare products, services on internet
Healthcare may not be as quick to adopt social media as some other industries. But, there are many hospitals and healthcare organizations that are quietly innovating on the social webcast. In a recent post, it was seen that there are 367 hospitals in the USA using social media. They are responsible for 10,000 Tweets from 267 Twitter accounts. Great examples out there are Patients Like me, which is an online community site created in 2004 by MIT engineers to allow patients to share information and their personal experiences. This helps people with the same diseases to connect with each other. Individual hospitals are involved in social media efforts as well. The Sarasota Memorial Hospital, Henry Ford Hospital and many others use Twitter to answer patient questions and provide immediate customers service. Future patients are involved in social networks so are the physicians and other health care professionals. A March 2009 report from Nielson Online found that 67 per cent of the global online population takes part in online communities. Plus, time spent on social media sites now accounts for almost 10 per cent of all time online. Clearly patients use the social media and hence providing information related to various healthcare services or even in case of ill health or other medicine related topic is highly advantageous as both the patients as well as the physicians are online. Healthcare has been the topmost priority and is constantly changing. Ever since the latest inroads have been made in science and technology such as biotechnology, nanotechnology, etc, healthcare professionals work continuously for the betterment and improvement of the products and their potency as a result of which there is constant change. By online advertisements, people get to know more about the various drugs and other healthcare related issues. Budget cuts have become a norm these days in industries as a result of which industries look at maximising their profit with minimum budgetary requirements. The Mayo Clinic in 2005 began utilizing social media channels to promote and increase downloads of its podcasts. The clinic posts the podcasts, along with video and text, on its blogs.

Online healthcare and pharmaceutical advertising
Online healthcare and pharmaceutical advertising is cost-effective, highly targeted and can be easily integrated with any offline advertising strategy. Evidence suggests that direct-to-consumer advertising of prescription drugs increases pharmaceutical sales and both helps to avert underuse of medicines and leads to potential overuse. Concern about such advertising has increased recently owing to the withdrawal from the market of heavily advertised drugs found to carry serious risks. Moreover, the Food and Drug Administration (FDA) has been criticized for its weak enforcement of laws regulating such advertising.

The www based advertisements are gaining popularity over conventional marketing modalities. The advantages of web based marketing include, customer focused orientation, can appeal more effectively to an individual, can reach across the world with little burden on marketing budget. The perils of marketing are encouraging the public to indulge in self medication and self harm which is contravening the existing Laws.  The regulation of the content of advertisements is a challenge to many governments, that is the reason, why many countries across the world are looking for data of New Zealand and USA