Case Study: How "Bubbling Up" Marketing Transformed a Pharmacy Consultant's Go-to-Market Strategy
The Background
A pharmacy consultant specializing in compound pharmacy regulations and licensing had been wrestling with a go-to-market challenge. She was marketing her licensing services to pharmacy owners, but the message wasn't resonating.
Owners viewed consulting as an expense, not an investment.
Then she read my blog post about "Bubbling Up" marketing - the framework explaining how Carfax and Elf on the Shelf created demand from the bottom up rather than the top down.
She had an insight.
The Self-Directed Breakthrough
Instead of marketing only to pharmacy owners (the buyers of her service), what if she empowered individual pharmacists to advocate for licensing support from their employers?
The parallel was clear: Just like Carfax marketed to car buyers instead of dealerships, she could market to the people who felt the compliance pain most acutely - the pharmacists whose personal licenses were on the line.
She reached out asking for help validating the strategy and figuring out how to execute it.
The Validation & Execution Support
Rather than just confirming "sounds good," I helped her:
Pressure-test the strategy against her market realities:
- Would pharmacists actually advocate for this?
- How much influence did they have with ownership?
- What messaging would empower without alienating?
Strengthen the framework application:
- The Carfax parallel was spot-on, but we refined the execution approach
- Identified the specific pain points pharmacists would respond to
- Mapped out how to create the "bubble up" pressure on pharmacy owners
Bridge from insight to immediate action:
- Introduced her to AI tools she hadn't explored since earlier in the year
- Showed her how to use ChatGPT to pull contact lists from licensing databases
- Helped her move from strategy to execution within days, not months
The Result
Within one week of our conversation, she had:
- Built a database of several thousand individual pharmacists
- Developed new messaging focused on pharmacist empowerment
- Launched her new go-to-market approach
- Completely pivoted her business strategy
The Client's Response
"Thanks for your time and insights the other day. I've gotten to work using ChatGPT in various ways - I hadn't really messed with it since maybe the beginning of the year. I'm amazed.
It helped me write code to be able to pull several thousand pharmacists from various lists that we can then use to market. I got the idea of marketing directly to the pharmacists that hold these licenses after reading your blog about Carfax and their original marketing strategy.
Thanks again!!"
The "Bubbling Up" Framework
From the original blog post that sparked her insight:
The founders of Carfax created demand at the ground level that forced the marketplace to buy them. They didn't target dealerships with their car history product. They targeted consumers. And once they showed that having a true history of a car was a necessity, they changed their message to: "Ask your dealer for the Carfax history report."
Now dealers HAD to sign up for the service. Because consumers were coming in and asking.
The same pattern appears with Elf on the Shelf - kids convinced parents at the ground level, creating inevitable demand. It's what EV manufacturers should have done: market practical daily benefits to families instead of leading with environmental messaging that only resonated with early adopters.
This is "Bubbling Up" marketing: driven by the people who aren't expected to spend the money to purchase.
What This Demonstrates
Thought Leadership That Creates Independent Insights
The blog post alone sparked a strategic breakthrough. The framework was clear enough that she could recognize the pattern in her own business and apply it without hand-holding.
Strategic Validation, Not Just Agreement
When founders have insights, they need someone who can pressure-test them, refine them, and help them avoid blind spots. That's different from just saying "great idea."
The Strategy-Execution Bridge
Strategy without execution support is just theory. By introducing practical AI tools and showing immediate application, we went from "interesting idea" to "launched new approach" in days.
Cross-Industry Pattern Recognition
The automotive industry insight (Carfax) solved a pharmacy consulting problem. Once you see patterns across industries, you can apply them everywhere.
Speed to Value
One blog post created the insight. One conversation validated and enabled execution. One week to complete strategic pivot.
The Broader Lesson
This case illustrates a core principle:
The best decisions often come from asking "What if we're solving for the wrong audience?"
Most businesses default to the obvious audience - the person who pays. But the right audience is often the person who creates the conditions where paying becomes inevitable.
The pharmacy consultant was solving for pharmacy owners. The real opportunity was pharmacists - the people who would make hiring her inevitable rather than optional.
Pattern recognition across industries beats deep expertise in one.
You don't need to know anything about pharmacy consulting to recognize this pattern, because you've seen it in automotive, retail, toys, or technology.
Once you see it, you can apply it everywhere.
Read the full "Bubbling Up" framework: ninefivepartners.com/the-blog/f/bubbling-up
What complex decision are you solving for the wrong audience?
This case study demonstrates the Decision Clarity Intensive approach: frameworks that create insights, strategic validation that strengthens execution, and practical tools that enable immediate action.
