Complete Marketing Strategy of Express Scripts – A Pharmacy Benefit Management Organisation

Updated on: Jul 31, 2022
Marketing Strategy of Express Scripts - Featured Image

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My name is Aditya Shastri and I have written this case study with the help of my students from IIDE's online digital marketing courses in India.

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In one of our previous blogs, we saw a detailed SWOT analysis of one of India’s biggest medicine delivery platforms Pharmeasy. Here we’ll have a detailed Marketing strategy of Express Scripts.

Express Scripts offers integrated pharmacy management services around the world. They’ve been really good and getting better at providing these pharmacy services to make people’s lives a little easier.

Their marketing strategy across the years has helped them gain the confidence to get into a lot of new businesses related to pharmacy management. Going digital benefits a lot. If you want to get that benefit –  check out our Free MasterClass on Digital Marketing 101 by the CEO and Founder of IIDE, Karan Shah.

In this blog, we are gonna explore the Marketing strategy of Express Scripts and know how they got into one of the USA’s biggest pharmacy management, but before that let us know a little about the company’s history.

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About Express Scripts,

Marketing Strategy of Express Scripts - Express Scripts

Express Scripts is one of the best pharmacy benefit management services companies that was founded in and is headquartered in St. Louis County, Missouri, in 1986. The corporation procedures pharmaceutical claims for contributors via a network of retail pharmacies. Its automated pharmacies dispense medications for chronic long-term diseases, which include diabetes or heart disease, at once to individuals by home shipping.

Express Scripts sees 1.4 billion prescriptions a year, and it makes use of these employees for records as part of its studies statistics to create higher solutions. In 1986, a joint venture between a retail chain of more than 79 pharmacies – Medicare Glaser Inc. and Sanus Corp Health Systems launched Express Scripts in St. Louis County, Missouri.

Express Scripts presents included pharmacy advantage management offerings inclusive of community-pharmacy claims processing; home delivery pharmacy offerings; area of expertise in pharmacy benefit management.

Quick Stats on Express Scripts
CEO Tim Wentworth
CMO Phyllis Anderson
Area Served America
Industry Healthcare/ Pharma
Market Share/ Revenue $38.6 Billion (2020)
Vision Making health care more affordable, accessible and simpler for payers, providers and, above all, patients
Tagline Health Care Built Around You

Marketing strategy of Express Scripts

Now after a brief understanding of the company let’s understand the marketing strategies implemented by Express Scripts to reach the level they are at today.

Segmentation, Targeting, and Positioning

The STP (Segmentation, Targeting, and Positioning) marketing model is a well-known strategic marketing strategy today. It’s one of the most popular marketing approaches, with marketing execs praising it for making communication more effective and simple.

Express Scripts is an active contributor and producer of pharmaceutical ingredients and healthcare products situated in the United States. The company specialises to produce medications for chronic long-term diseases, which include diabetes or heart disease, at once to individuals by home shipping. The target audience of Express Scripts is anyone who needs health-related products and prescription services.

Express Scripts positions itself as the largest healthcare/ pharma in the United States. Although the corporation is best recognized for researching and distributing medications via a network of retail pharmacies, it also develops and manufactures a wide range of medical devices and pharmaceuticals.


Marketing campaigns

Express Scripts Canada Pharmacy strengthens its position as Canada’s preferred online pharmacy by launching a national marketing campaign. The company wants to highlight the leadership position which Express Scripts have in pharmacy. Express Scripts have years of expertise and experience in the growing in crowded Canadian marketplace.

Marketing Strategy of Express Scripts - Marketing Campaign

In the marketing campaign the company partners with employers to ensure their employees benefit from the right care and medication at the right time for their families and the company they work for. Many employees took health care benefit services from Express Scripts.

Express Scripts have not conducted any marketing campaign other than the above one. They don’t conduct any kind of advertisement campaign to promote their pharma company, they do promote it through social media platforms, webinars, and discussions.


Social Media Marketing

Express Scripts does have an official account on Facebook, Twitter & LinkedIn, but there is no account of Express Scripts on Instagram. It has got its maximum number of followers on Linkedin than on Facebook & Twitter.

Facebook

  • No. of followers – 9.5K+ followers

Twitter

  • No. of followers – 21.9k+ followers

LinkedIn 

  • No.of followers – 138k+ followers 

The posts posted on Twitter and Facebook are similar in that are related to promotions, announcements of webinars, conferences & events, health-related tips & guidance, information, achievements, sustainability, CSR effort etc and more.

On LinkedIn, the posts are also the same as what is posted on Facebook and Twitter but it also includes corporate posts, employee year completion celebration posts etc. As LinkedIn is more of a job-based platform so talking about employee achievements at the company is important to showcase a better corporate image. They also publish blogs on LinkedIn.


SEO Strategies

Marketing Strategy of Express Scripts - SEO

SEO is an organic process through which we get our website to rank higher up on any search engine for higher visibility. In today’s day and age, it is very essential to stay visible on the search engine because that is where most of the buying and selling happens.  Let us first understand the metrics with which we measure the success or failure of the SEO strategy of a firm. The number of organic keywords – below 500 is bad, above 1000 is good, 10,000+ is amazing. The number of organic keywords here is 195,353+ therefore we can say that the SEO strategy of Express Scripts is really amazing.


Influencer Marketing

The process of identifying, engaging, and supporting individuals who initiate conversations with a brand’s customers is known as influencer marketing. It is a growing trend used in public relations campaigns. In recent years, this strategy has become increasingly focused on social media, allowing brands to market through social media influencers. Influencer marketing will also be a big trend in 2022 and beyond.

Influencer marketing, which mixes brands and influencers working together, maybe a strong strategy that may help businesses develop. It is a marketing approach that’s been employed successfully by thousands of organisations and brands for over a decade and is still growing.

Express Scripts doesn’t have influencer marketing so no such marketings are to be found. 


Ecommerce Strategies

Express Scripts has a website where the company is seen promoting pharmacy services. Through the website, Express Scripts offer medication delivered right to customers’ door. One has to send his/her prescription to Express Scripts and from there it’s Express Scripts’ responsibility to transfer eligible medications to home.

Express Scripts also promote its mobile application through the website and a guide of steps to request prescription or order medications.


Mobile App

Marketing Strategy of Express Scripts - Mobile App

Express Scripts has a mobile application available on both Android and iOS. Through the application, one can order medicines, find a preferred pharmacy, refill prescriptions and check order & delivery status—anytime, anywhere.  

The application is user-friendly and is perfectly updated according to the latest technological standards. The application Express Scripts has more than 1M+ downloads with a star rating of 3.9.

Content Marketing Strategies

Express Scripts does use content marketing strategies and they are active in this section of posting different types of content on their website benefits of taking services from Express Scripts, insights & blogs section where the content is promotional, health tips & guidance, home remedies and health & pharmacy information related. 

They do say about their achievements on their website and the growth strategy they are going to imply in future. There is a section of important notices where you can check out the latest happenings at Express Scripts. 

They have segmented their content according to buyers’ persona and individual tastes in the content. They never tried to directly sell their brand, but rather they followed the path of indirectly promoting it through engaging and informative content. 

The content that the readers love to consume is posted by Express Scripts. This is also the reason why Express Scripts is successful in obtaining relevant traffic on its website.

We know you also want to attract and engage your desired target audience without forcing them to make purchases. Well, for that, you’ll need to muster a basic understanding of how to create a holistic content marketing strategy to ultimately convert them into paying customers without insisting they pay.

This ends the elaborative marketing strategy of Express Scripts. Let us conclude our learning below from the marketing strategy of Express Scripts.

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Conclusion – What’s Unique in Express Scripts’ Marketing?

Overall, Express Scripts is a unique corporation and brand that has successfully maintained itself over time. Their emphasis on innovation and technology has always served them well and aided their growth. Their dominance in the home market is evident. As the market evolves, the firm has a significant opportunity to capitalise on new needs.

Their traditional and digital marketing initiatives are both impressive. Express Scripts has experienced various hurdles during its history as one of the industry’s oldest brands. It is still one of the most well-known brands in the industry. They are continually adjusting to new trends and executing new strategies.

Digital marketing is crucial since it links a company with its clients when they are online and is effective across all sectors. It links businesses with ideal consumers through SEO and PPC on Google, social media marketing, and email marketing. If you would like to learn more and develop skills, check out IIDE’s 4-Month Digital Marketing Course to learn more.

Alternatively, you can enrol in one of our free online masterclasses led by IIDE’s CEO, Karan Shah, to gain insight into the field of digital marketing. 

We hope this blog on the marketing strategy of Express Scripts has given you a good insight into the company’s marketing strategies.

If you like such in-depth analysis of companies just like the marketing strategy of Express Scripts check out our IIDE Knowledge portal for more fascinating case studies.

Thank you for taking the time to read the marketing strategy of Express Scripts, and do share your thoughts on this case study marketing strategy of Express Scripts in the comments section below.

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Aditya Shastri

Lead Trainer & Head of Learning & Development at IIDE

Leads the Learning & Development segment at IIDE. He is a Content Marketing Expert and has trained 6000+ students and working professionals on various topics of Digital Marketing. He has been a guest speaker at prominent colleges in India including IIMs......[Read full bio]

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