As pharmaceutical marketers and media buyers plan their 2026 marketing strategies and build their media plans, one channel stands out as both a proven performer and a rapidly expanding opportunity: Point of Care (POC) marketing.

POC refers to the settings where healthcare is delivered—doctor’s offices, pharmacies, infusion centers, hospitals, telehealth platforms, and even electronic health records (EHRs) s. Messaging at the POC places brands directly in the environments where patients, caregivers, and providers make decisions. By delivering education and support tools at these critical touchpoints, POC marketing empowers patients, fosters more meaningful conversations with providers, and helps drive earlier diagnoses, better treatment protocols, and improved adherence. 

Recently, the POC channel has seen remarkable growth, with revenue surpassing $1 billion in 2024. This surge in POC media is fueled by three converging trends:

• Patients who are taking more active roles in their health decisions
• Providers who are increasingly reliant on digital tools
• Marketers who are looking for high-performing environments for their media plans

Data shows that POC media outperforms traditional channels like TV. For example, patients exposed to ads at POC are more likely to take/refill prescriptions than those who saw them on TV. One in three TV ads plays to an empty room, nearly 40% of digital budgets miss their intended audience, and when target patients do see relevant mass media advertisements, they often forget it by the time they go to the doctor. In fact, only 9% of clinically qualified asthma patients could recall a biologic brand.

By contrast, patients actively engage with POC content in trusted settings, increasing the likelihood of action and adherence.

Why POC Belongs in Your 2026 Media Plans

Trust is at the heart of POC’s effectiveness. Research ranks health information at the Point of Care among the top four most trusted sources, alongside doctors, nurses, and pharmacists. When patients are in healthcare environments, they are more receptive to credible information—and POC media extends a brand’s message into these moments. Marketers who prioritize POC see measurable ROI, including increased new patient starts, lower cost per start, and improved adherence rates. 

As the industry evolves, POC is no longer a “nice-to-have”—it is a strategic cornerstone for 2026. This post will help you get started with POC media plans in 2026 – sharing the strategies, tips and resources that you need to make POC a core part of your media plan. 

Best Strategies and Tips for Planning Your POC Campaign

Effective POC marketing starts with careful planning, alignment, and the right partners. For marketers designing 2026 media plans that include POC, the following steps are critical:

Leverage POCMA’s Tools and Resources to Understand Offerings & Best Practices

Begin with POCMA’s Product Finder, which allows marketers to filter and compare offerings across the POC ecosystem—by format, setting, or audience. Pair this with the broader Resources Hub to access industry standards, guidelines, and best practices. These tools can help you streamline partner and tactic selection, making the planning process more efficient and your overall marketing strategy more effective.

Set Clear KPIs You Can Measure

POC campaigns should be built around outcomes you can measure, such as:

• New-to-Brand Prescriptions (NBRx) – The number of patients who are prescribed a brand for the first time. NBRx can serve as a key measure of campaign-driven conversion and growth.
• Diagnosis Lift – The increase in new diagnoses within the target condition. Diagnosis lift can show how POC campaigns drive earlier detection and patient engagement with healthcare providers (HCPs).
• Cost per Start – The investment required to generate one new patient start on therapy. Cost per start can help marketers evaluate the efficiency and ROI of POC campaigns compared to other channels.
• Adherence and Refill Rates – The percentage of patients who continue therapy and pick up refills over time. Adherence and refill rates can reflect both treatment persistence and the effectiveness of patient support messaging.
• Patient–Provider Conversations – The volume or quality of discussions between patients and their healthcare providers prompted by POC messaging, often measured through surveys or physician feedback.

Develop a Strong RFP Process to Select the Right Media Partners

Once you identify the formats, settings and audiences you’d like to go forward with as well as the outcomes and KPIs you’d like to achieve, you’ll need to create a detailed Request for Proposal (RFP). As the POC Academy’s Planning, Contracting & Auditing Course emphasizes, an RFP should include the campaign objectives, target audiences, KPIs, timing, creative requirements, and auditing expectations you’ve settled on. Providing a clear RFP upfront ensures media partners can deliver well-thought-out proposals aligned with your brand strategy. As a best practice, give vendors a minimum of five business days to respond, and request not just specs, but supporting decks, to minimize back-and-forth.

Prioritize Certification and Auditing During Media Partner Selection

During this RFP process, consider incorporating trusted and certified product lines. POCMA’s Certification Seal assures that media partners adhere to rigorous third-party audits. Certification covers both network audits (verifying presence and functionality) and campaign audits (ensuring delivery meets contracted metrics). Incorporating certified product lines not only protects your investment but also strengthens trust with internal stakeholders.

Plan for Competitive Exclusivity

POC environments are competitive. Exclusive placements (i.e. exam room wallboards, waiting room screens) can be purchased, but exclusivity is often sold per tactic and by media partner. This means that a competitor may still appear in the same office through another POC format – for example, if you buy exam room wallboards with partner A, a competing brand may be in your offices when purchasing a magazine in the waiting room with partner B.

While this competition may not always be favorable for your brand, there are numerous formats available within a particular office, so if one participating partner is entirely sold out, your brand can still find a way to have a presence in priority offices through another partner. 

Some POC partners offer exclusive, 100% Share-of-Voice (SOV) placements—meaning your brand is the only one visible in a certain format, in a specific location. Combine SOV with frequent rotations on digital screens and static point of care real estate to increase visibility without message fatigue. This control of environment ensures your brand remains top-of-mind at the pivotal “last 30 feet” before patient-provider encounters.

Understanding your brand’s share of voice and competitive saturation ensures realistic expectations and stronger positioning. And you can learn more about competitive exclusivity here.

Best Strategies and Tips for Creative and Targeting

When you’ve identified the right partner(s) to work with and the appropriate placements, it’s time to bring your marketing strategy to life through creative execution.

Understand List Matching and Targeting

Your campaign’s targeting will make or break its success, and effective targeting ensures your campaign reaches the right audiences, when they’re in the right mindset. List matching is one of the best ways to target POC campaigns. Using National Provider Identifiers (NPIs), marketers can match brand HCP target lists with partner inventory. Doing so ensures campaigns appear in priority offices, reaching the right providers and patients. Effective list matching requires detailed instructions and segmentation—for example, prioritizing HCPs by specialty or prescribing behavior. The more specific your targeting, the more precise your campaign outcomes.

Design Audience-Centered Creative

Great creative should be clear, accessible, and compliant across devices. Best practices include:

• Using bold fonts and concise messaging (particularly for digital wallboards and screens)
• Keeping visuals simple and aligned with patient education needs
• Incorporating captions for video content to ensure accessibility
• Confirming specifications with media partners to avoid costly resizing

When Engaging Patients: Consider Multiple Formats

Patients interact with multiple touchpoints while at the POC. Waiting room TVs, check-in tablets, static posters, magazines, digital wallboards, and even pharmacy bags all offer opportunities for  brands to reach their target audience. Campaigns should use a mix of static and digital assets:

• Digital POC: Check-in tablets, wallboards, waiting room screens and mobile prompts provide high visibility and reinforce awareness and consideration.
• Static POC: Posters, brochures, wallboards, shelf talkers and counter mats reinforce education and adherence.

When Engaging HCPs: Don’t Just Promote, Educate

In today’s digital-first, rep-second reality, sales access to HCPs is limited. POC provides a bridge, delivering content through back-office screens, static wallboards, and electronic health record (EHR) platforms. HCP-facing POC shouldn’t just promote—it should educate. Consider:

• Tailoring content to the practice’s specialty 
• Sharing clinical insights, trial data, or case studies during back-office waits
• Offering refills or affordability information via screens or print materials at checkout 

Educational messaging empowers HCPs, supports more informed patient conversations, and elevates the brand as a trusted, resource-first partner. Learn more about reaching HCPs in this POC Academy course.

Use POC to Bridge Messages from Patient to Provider

POC serves as a critical alignment point between patient-facing messaging and HCP communication. A patient may encounter a treatment or symptom prompt on a digital waiting-room screen, later see brand messaging in the exam room, and—ideally—discuss it with their provider. By also targeting the HCP with reinforcement content (via back office or EHR systems), the messaging loop closes with consistent, cross-channel reinforcement designed to drive conversions and adherence.

Leverage Full-Funnel Strategies

POC isn’t just an awareness or conversion play – the POC funnel covers awareness, consideration, conversion, and retention. That means you can (and should!) consider it as a full-funnel channel, and you should deploy your campaign’s resources accordingly to ensure you’re taking advantage of all opportunities to reach patients and HCPs at the POC. For example, unbranded migraine awareness campaigns can drive patient conversations, while branded assets in exam rooms can support diagnosis and conversion. Retention is reinforced through pharmacy messaging and savings card registrations. A balanced funnel strategy ensures no stage of the patient journey is overlooked.

Best Strategies and Tips for Optimization and Measurement

Planning and creative are only the beginning. The strongest marketing strategies evolve through optimization and measurement.

Leverage Test vs. Control Studies to Assess Campaign Outcomes

Third-party partners with claims data access can measure campaign impact through test vs. control methodologies. These studies assess whether POC exposure drove incremental prescriptions, new diagnoses, or broader category growth. The test vs. control studies should be built to measure your campaign’s specific KPIs established at the beginning of your planning cycle. 

Optimize Your Creative Mid-Campaign for Maximum Performance

Digital POC formats allow for real-time adjustments. If engagement or Rx lift lags in certain placements, creative can be refreshed, targeting adjusted, or new formats layered in. Building flexibility into contracts ensures room for optimization.

Audit and Report Consistently

As emphasized in the planning and auditing module, frequent audits ensure campaign delivery matches contracts and expectations. Discrepancies (e.g., under-delivery of impressions) can be resolved through make-goods like additional time, frequency, or reach extensions. This transparency between vendors and advertisers builds confidence and informs future investments.

Tying It All Together

As the healthcare landscape continues to evolve, Point of Care marketing offers pharmaceutical marketers and agencies a uniquely powerful channel: one that delivers trust, timing, and measurable ROI. From planning and list matching, to creative development and audience engagement, to measurement and optimization, POC provides a framework for reaching patients and providers at the moments that matter most.

POC is not only a fast-growing media channel—it is also one of the most trusted, effective, and strategically essential.

Marketers who include POC in their 2026 media plans will not only capture attention but also can influence meaningful health outcomes.

To get started with your point of care media plan for 2026 today, reach out to members of the Point of Care Marketing Association. For a complete list of members, visit https://pocmarketing.org/membership/meet-our-members.