- Push Strategy means “pushing” your product toward the market. This usually means working through sales reps, giving free samples, hosting medical conferences, or detailing visits. The aim is to get healthcare professionals to prescribe or recommend your product.
- Pull Strategy means “pulling” demand from patients or consumers, so they ask for your product from their doctors. This may involve patient education, digital content marketing, direct-to-consumer advertising, or SEO (so people find your product when they search).
Why Use One Strategy vs. the Other?
Each pharmaceutical sales strategy has strengths and situations where it works best:
When Push Strategy Works Well
- New drug launches: When a product is new, awareness is low among HCPs. Push helps build awareness quickly.
- Complex or specialist treatments: Products that need explanation, training, or clinical detail benefit from reps and direct outreach.
- Regulatory constraints: In some regions, direct‐to‐consumer pull marketing is more limited. Push is more compliant in those areas.
When Pull Strategy Shines
- OTC / wellness / consumer health: When patients buy on their own, pull strategies (e.g. awareness campaigns) are very effective.
- Building long-term brand trust: Pull marketing builds awareness, reputation, and loyalty over time.
- Highly competitive markets: If many brands compete, you want consumers (or HCPs) to prefer your brand—and asking for it is part of that.
Blending Push & Pull: Hybrid Pharmaceutical Sales Strategies
Most successful pharma companies do not rely on just push or pull. They use both—hybrid strategies—to cover all fronts. Here’s how to balance:
- Start with Push, Then Add Pull
When launching a product, first push via reps and HCP education. As doctors become aware, support that with pull tactics like patient content or digital media so patients ask for the drug. - Use Digital Tools to Support Both
Platforms like those from P360 (e.g. Activate) help with push (HCP outreach, compliant messaging) and pull (content marketing, patient outreach) by unifying insights and tracking performance. - Adjust Based on Product Type & Market
Some products need strong push (specialty meds), others thrive with pull (consumer health). Review your product, regulatory setting, target audience, and adjust your mix.
Key Tactics in Each Strategy
| Strategy | Common Tactics in Pharma Sales Strategies |
| Push | HCP detailing visits; free samples; medical conferences; educational materials; sponsored speaker programs. |
| Pull | Consumer/patient education; digital content (blogs, videos); social media awareness; SEO/SEM; patient support programs. |
Measuring Success: KPIs for Pharmaceutical Sales Strategies
To know which strategy is working best, you need good metrics. Here are measures to track:
- From Push Strategy: Number of HCP reach (visits or calls), sample distribution, prescriptions written, cost per HCP engagement.
- From Pull Strategy: Website traffic, patient inquiries or leads, content engagement, brand awareness, growth in demand from patients asking doctors.
- Overall: Return on investment (ROI), regulatory compliance, speed of adoption, cost per sale.
Challenges to Watch Out For
When you use pharma sales strategies, pull, or hybrid, there are obstacles:
- Regulatory issues: Different regions have rules about what you can communicate to patients vs doctors.
- Content consistency: Ensuring both push and pull materials are aligned and compliant.
- Measurement complexity: It's sometimes hard to trace which tactic drove which result.
- Budget allocation: Overinvesting in push may waste money if pull could achieve similar results at lower cost.
Example of Pharmaceutical Sales Strategies in Practice
Imagine a pharma company launching a treatment for asthma:
- They begin with a push strategy: reps visit pulmonologists, distribute educational packets, and present clinical data at medical conferences.
- Simultaneously, they roll out a pull strategy: they publish blog posts and video content explaining asthma care for patients, run targeted SEO, and patient awareness camps.
Over time, patients become aware and ask their doctors about the brand, while doctors already educated via push are ready to prescribe it. This combined approach boosts awareness, prescriptions, and patient engagement.
Choosing the Right Mix for Your Company
Here are steps to pick and fine-tune your pharmaceutical sales strategies:
- Understand your product & target audience: Is it prescription, OTC? Specialist? Widely used?
- Check regulatory environment: What you can say to patients vs. doctors.
- Assess your budget & resources: Sales force strength, digital marketing budget, content capacity.
- Monitor results: Use metrics to see which strategy is giving more return.
- Be flexible: Markets and audience behavior change. Be ready to shift more toward pull or push as needed.
Final Thoughts
The best pharmaceutical sales strategies are those that adapt push and pull in smart ways. Push helps build awareness and drive immediate action through HCPs; pull helps build longer-term brand strength and patient demand. By using a hybrid approach, tracking performance, and staying compliant, pharma companies can get the best of both worlds.