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3 Things You Need to Know About Pharma Search Marketing

March 10th, 2009

karner blue marketing white web site logo 3 Things You Need to Know About Pharma Search Marketing

The Search Engine Strategies for Pharmaceutical Marketing Conference held a great kick-off workshop led by Rebecca Murtagh of Karner Blue Marketing.  In the audience were senior pharmaceutical marketers with active projects, so their questions tended to be insightful and interesting.  Here are the top 3 discussions from that day’s workshop.

Give Your Site The Common Sense Test

Search activity is driven by:

  • Problem – keywords around user’s understanding of problem
  • Solution – keywords around user’s perception of possible solutions.  Further along the buying track.
  • Value Proposition – ready to buy.  User is looking for best value.

You can perform a quick reality check on your own site by reading a few random pages. What is the general tone? If it matches problem–& solution–& value proposition then you are doing a great job.

Understanding Search Can Protect You When Provoked

What should you do when you see too many search results about your company or brand that are negative of unfair?  You cannot change the way search engines rank results. But you can create new content following best practices that overshadows and diminishes the impact of the negative publicity.  You rise in the ranks and they fall.

What You Should Know About Your Search Agency

Several members of the audience pointed out that search engine optimization (SEO) required different skills than Pay Per Click (PPC).

  • SEO focuses on organic improvements which are fundamental to long term success but which takes 6 months or longer to produce significant results.
  • PPC on the other hand is budget driven. The greater the budget the more extensive your buy can be.
  • SEO agencies need to be incentivized differently than PPC agencies.

Related Posts

  1. What is SEO 2.0?
  2. The 6 Do’s and 6 Don’ts of Selecting a Marketing Agency
Leave A Comment1 Comment

Thanks for attending and for the Pharma SEM workshop mention Mark.

As you mention, the workshop was attended by exceptional search marketers. Our interactive discussions about current challenges most definitely elevated relevancy to explore practical solutions to real world search and internet marketing challenges…great stuff!

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