Back in Healthcare RM with Crossix

After a hiatus of a few years doing CPG analytics with IRI, I am working again in Healthcare with Crossix Solutions

I am now VP of Product Strategy, leading development of targeting and measurement solutions for healthcare manufacturers and their agencies.

Looking forward to continuing the dialogue with you all.

Moving to CPG and OTC

Typical OTC Medication Aile in Drugstore or Grocery

I'm very excited to have made a career change, and as of December 3 have been working at Symphony IRI Group.  Formerly known as Information Resources, this firm for over 30 years has collected and analyzed shopper scanner data from groceries, drugstores, and other retailers.  They also manage a large consumer panel of individuals detailing their shopping patterns and motivations.

As a result, I will be deeply involved in data mining, and looking for innovative ways to summarize shopping patterns to help both manufacturers and retailers.  Application areas like media planning, inventory and assortment, and pricing.  These are the core business problems of consumer packaged goods (CPG). Fascinating discipline, filled with smart data scientists.  

From a healthcare perspective, most of my focus will now shift from the Rx world to the over the counter (OTC)  world; where consumer are playing an active role in managing their health in areas like pain relief, allergy, well-being, vitamins, skin care, etc.   One might think of this as the beginning of a patient's journey, before seeking physician consultation, or perhaps a parallel customer journey. 

Also on the docket, how does CRM, digital and social, affect the worlds of CPG and OTC?   Stay tuned.

Digital Commuting Rule of 2-1-1

Every morning I ride the NYC subway from my home to the CementBloc office in Manhattan.   Needing things to do, I have taken to conducting an informal poll of everyone in the subway car.  the poll is observational, and I am categorizing people based on how digital they are on their morning commute:

A)  Digital: Using some sort of electronic device:  smartphone, tablet, even an MP3 player with headphones

B) Analogue:  Reading a newspaper or a book, or a magazine.

C) Totally disconnected:  taking a nap, speaking with a neighbor, or thinking idly.

The typical results of my poll:  Roughly,   (A) is 50%, (B) is 25%, (C) is 25%

By the way, if you are like me, with the newspaper (Wall St Journal) and the smartphone (iPhone) checking email and music concurrently, ou get assigned to the Digital

In other words, the ratio is 2-1-1.  Of course, this depends on the audience and the time of year.  I find that around 7:30 am or 8:00 am the 2-1-1 holds due to students and business commuters that need to stay connected.  In summertime or midday if I run late, a different demographic takes over and you can get more like a 1-1-1 or a 1-1-2.

What does this mean for advertisers who are seeking CRM acquisition prospects?  You may have a captive audience if you can get mobile.  

Getting ready for the Fall Semester

I'm getting the syllabus and lectures finalized for my Fall 2012 course in

CRM at Rutgers Business School, Newark Campus.  I'll be using my textbook, Healthcare Relationship Marketing, by Gower Press, plus additional readings and other case studies.  The course will be cross-industry, and I expect to show many good examples from retail, financial services airlines, and hospitality.   WIll cover both consumer and professional

The emphasis will be on learning the practical aspects of designing a CRM program based on strategy, deploying with technology, and measuring.   Check out the syllabus.  Would love to hear ideas of best practices that you have on CRM.

Patients online finding, rating, scheduling doctors

Two websites that empower patients like never before have really taken off. 

ZocDoc lets patients schedule appointments with physicians, by linking directly to their office  scheduling systems.

HealthGrades enables patients to find a specialist near them, and rate the experience afterwords.

All about extending the convenience and immediacy of healthcare to patients, while providing access and promotion to talented capable physicians. 

Both are available across a growing number of major metropolitan areas, going national and perhaps beyond.

Think of this as a new entry channel for CRM systems.  Additionally in the future there should be a chance  to really perform analytics and understand the health consumption patterns across the country, by specialty.

Going organic: customers, markets, and analytics

It is fascinating to think about the depth of data and connections that one can find when focusing on a particular topic. Take "organic" or "all natural" My colleague Elizabeth Elfenbein and I wrote a Mediapost article with stats on organic trends in the USA. What seemed amorphous is actually quite organzed and is named: Lifestyle of Health and Sustainability. The trend is of continual growth.

We also brought up the perennial nature of organic online behavior, which tends to be of higher quality than promotion responses.   This is because organic visitors to web sites usually have already gathered some other information and are motivated to learn more.

We were also brought into the community of the National Marketing Institute, who has done significant research in this area. They contacted us directly with their expertise. Lesson learned: explore a research project in depth, and reach out to the experts.

iPharma Connect conference: interactive selling and patient advocacy groups

There were some very active conversations at the iPharma Connect conferences in Philadelphia this past week. Two in particular caught my attention:

Several examples of case studies of interactive selling with iPads, including a joint presentation by Novartis Vaccines and The CementBloc on iPad deployment and organizational change, and a nice presentation and moderated discussion from Jim Currie of PamLab.

Here are some eyebrow raisers:

* many of the District Managers who must train the sales reps on iPad usage have in fact never used a tablet or iPad for selling themselves

* physicians may be so impressed with iPad details they presume virtually unlimited information is magically available to show

* decisions on rolling out measurement vary across the industry

* some corporate boards are skeptical of iPad selling impact v. the investment

Another fascinating conversation was during a panel on "Patients Speak Out" where patient experts asked for pharmaceutical companies to provide more openness and transparency, even as they build relationships with patient advocacy groups.

For more of the tweets and reactions, see here:

There were

Lessons from the ePharma summit

It was a pleasure to participate this month in the ePharma summit in New York, giving a lecture entitled, "Transform Your Organization through Interactive Selling." The messages of gearing your whole organization for iPad selling, segmented messaging and measurement were quite resonant.
Please feel free to contact me for a copy of this presentation.

There were other lessons as well.

* Mobile pharma applications are increasingly common, and vary from text messaging to full scale applications.

* Social media presence in pharma remains predominantly corporate, but content is reaching out to consumer submissions.

* Professional non-personal and multi-channel promotion has become manstream, and solutions are proliferating.

All in all, a dynamic marketplace for sure. Keep reading here for the latest. Or read The Bloc's latest on Convergent Times.

New Year's Resolution: Pilot innovative analytics

With the new year coming, companies are thinking fresh regarding innovative programs they will be running. Examples may be:

* multichannel marketing,
* digital interactive sales aids on iPads, perhaps with segmentation,
* social media presences, or
* online portals or communities.

With these efforts and the appropriate measurement planning, will come innovative data sources for your companies. Your new year's resolution can be: let's explore analytics for these new data sources, learn how to analyze, and discover what trends there may be.

The right analytics partner can help in translating your business objectives into analytics frameworks. Your partner or staff can also determine the approriate exploratory analytics software. The image posted here is one example of a data visualization and dashboarding tool called Spotfire, of which I have found valuable during yeras of use for detecting trends and bookmarking insights. In addition, I remain a frequent user of Netbase for social media, SAS products for data cleaning and statistics, and Angoss data mining software. There are more tools, a great resource to find them is KD Nuggets.

So, don't wait, make it your resolution to dive in and mine those behaviors.

Rise in use of QR Print to Online Codes

hSince I last blogged about these 2-D print  "action codes,"  especially QR codes, in February, boy has there been a dramatic increase in their usage.  Take a look at the exponential increase in 2-D action codes in magazines:  over 500 in the month of September, as Mediapost quoted a study by NellyMoser.

QR codes have the highest market share of these at 60%.
The codes are mostly in consumer magazines, and mostly in advertisements.  Healthcare specifically is not cited.

 Thanks to the comment (below)  by reader Ardash K, we can also see there has been a dramatic rise in Google searchers for QR codes.

This shows the mainstream exposure to certain core demographics, and that is a trend that consumer healthcare marketers should realize is at least worth a test.

Copay cards - follow the money

Co-pay cards are an often used tactic to encourage patients to try a new branded medication that is prescribed by their physician, eliminating the concern for an expensive co-payment that can come with a Tier 3 drug. In CRM terms, they are used as a conversion tactic, and can even be the gateway to an adherence program.

Here is another perspective on co-pay cards:

In a very interesting article and interview in MMM, the Pharmaceutical Care Management Association is cited in an estimation of how much additional cost must be reimbursed because of the use of copay cards: $32 billion over the next ten years. In addition, the PCMA clarifies who is paying for those costs: employers, unions, and state employee plans. As well as taxpayers.

In other words, someone has to pay the insurance companies the money they expected in their copayments. Some is borne by the phramaceutical manufacturers, but some is also paid for by those who contractwith the insurers, like employers et al. The details of this analysis are not crystal clear, but it most likley is based on the missed savings that would come from generic usage. In any regard, this is a thought provoking total.

Want to read more about the perspective of the PCMA?: Browse their website, or a research report (by Visante) about their planned drug cost savings over the next 10 years.

Turning the Waiting Room into an Education Center

The medical practice waiting room can be a point of either acquisition or conversion for CRM, depending on how educated the patient is about the therapeutic category, and whether that patient is aware of the treatment options.

Come read this week’s MediaPost Marketing:Health Blog to get a perspective on how waiting rooms can be leveraged for better education, and facilitating the patient-doctor dialogue.

There are discussions of how to better educate patients before they see the physician, and techniques for measuring the effectiveness of waiting room programs.

High Stakes Business Analytics Across Industries

This Wednesday I had the pleasure of participating in the first Aberdeen Business Analytics Summit in Boston. It was a fascinating collection of business and I.T. speakers across industries: banking, packaged goods, semiconductors, auto, health, etc. These business leaders have critical jobs like forecasting customer demand, optimizing the supply chain, or monitoring efficiency and profitability at retail locations across the country. Having access to real time, insightful analytics is critical to performing these jobs.

I participated in a panel on how better alignment can be achieved between "business users" and the "I.T." community. There was a surprising statistic that Aberdeen found which as 57% of business user do not see the value of business analytics. What shocked me was that... the business users should be defining and driving the value in the first place!

At times it can seem like two very different environments: the world of data and technology on one hand, and the world of marketing, sales, and supply chain on the other. I've been fortunate in my career at General Electric, Pfizer, and even now at The CementBloc, to be part of a "bridge" department that spans both worlds.

However, in these days of convergence, the more each of us can understand the language and motivations of our collaborators, the better our companies will be.

I would love to hear comments from readers on your perspective!

Linked in Groups - redundancy and analytics

For those of you participate in LinkedIn, you may have joined a few groups. I must confess that my visceral reaction to LinkedIn groups is an optimistic one, hoping that they are useful for networking and solution finding, and even can recapture the old days in the 1980s of Usenet groups.

However, ever notice how much there is duplication across these groups -- they have similar sounding names, overlapping memberships, and similar content. Here are a few of my groups:

* AWA - Advanced Web Analytics

* Advanced Business Analytics, Data Mining and Predictive Modeling

* Analytics Executives Network

* Business Analytics

* CRM Experts

* Data & Text Analytics Professionals

* Digital Analytics Careers

Get the idea? Can you tell these apart by the names? And I only listed up to the "D's" Plus each of these send me E-Mails weekly (daily is optional too), and I rarely open. Those who are considering making another LinkedIn group, first check to see what is there.

However, there is an upside to LinkedIn group creators. As reported in the Mashable Blog, LinkedIn groups now have analytics dashboards. The new dashboards show displays with various demographics on membership, growth of members, and activity of posts.

For more details, you can also see the LinkedIn Blog.

So, let's keep this valuable networking resource user friendly.

Brainstorming: food for thought

Ever get a group of cross-functional people in a room for a CRM or PRM tactical planning session? Perhaps to plan media placement or other promotional ideas? Better ask them to do some self-study ahead of time.

A recent article in The Washington Post by Jena McGregor comments on a research study about brainstorming. The study was done in the Journal of Cognitive Psychology by Nicholas Kohn and Steven Smith, two researchers at the University of Texas at Arlington and Texas A&M University.

The researchers asked undergraduate students to contribute ideas, both individually and in collective groups. They shared the ideas on a computer, either in small chat groups or alone, but combined together after the fact. As expected, those made up of individual ideas that were later pulled together, outperformed the real chat groups, both with the number of ideas and the diversity of them.

Thus, think about asking teammates to make a short list before hand, to avoid the herd mentality.

Convergent Times

Check out some great healthcare, multidisciplinary thinking on the new website: Convergent Times There are articles on ipad selling, managed markets, consumer experiences, and much more.

Let us know what you think... join the convergent conversation!

Consumer Youtube channels -- various industries

I've been reviewing YouTube channels of various companies and industries that need to reach consumers. I'm looking for inspirations particularly outside of traditional pharmaceuticals, to industries where consumers need information on how to use products, before making a purchase decision: consider automobiles, cosmetics, and consumer electronics.

The spectrum of channels seems to range from advertising outposts to true peer to peer experiences. At the one end, Honda channels are predominantly commercials, and a few public service corporate videos. Apple's channel is in between in that it delivers instructional videos, but they are delivered in the official corporate messaging and video quality: see this iPad2 video on Apple channel.

Two companies for me have channels exemplifying more of the peer to peer, instructional nature taht consumers in the acquisition stage of CRM really need: http://www.blogger.com/img/blank.gifthey must understand how to use the product. See for example The Mercedes channel, with sample start ups. Video quality less slick but authentic, nad I learn something about the dashboards, engine noise, etc. Then there is Destination Beauty by L'Oreal Paris. Sure, cosmetics firms make plenty of slick commercials with movie stars. But rather than show those, this YouTube portal is a series of tutorial videos by consumer-friendly "artists" that present peer to peer instructions on hos to use the products for face, or hair.

The more authentic, and the more helpful, the YouTube videos, the more influential on CRM conversion they will be.

Upcoming Presentation at INFORMS NY Oct 5th

Analytics for the New Healthcare Relationship Marketing

Ira Haimowitz will describe how the healthcare landscape has changed, and what the implications are for the design and measurement of relationship marketing programs to patients and healthcare professionals. He will also demonstrate a new wave of analytics for measuring program effectiveness.

Wednesday, October 5, 2011 from 12 Noon until 2 PM

The Penn Club, 30 West 44th Street, New York, NY

RESERVATIONS: Call Sam Koslowsky at (212) 520-3259 or email samkos@aol.com
Reservation deadline is Friday September 30.

$50 for non-members, $40 for chapter members
$5 surcharge for walk-in without reservation.

Free meeting to new members: Luncheon seminar fee is waived if attendee joins chapter as a new first-time member (attendee must complete new member application and pay $30 chapter membership fee).

For more information visit our web site http://www.informsny.org/

Toggling Innovation Ebooks on my Nook

The nice thing about carrying around a Nook is that I can toggle back and forth between three books at once, multitasking while not carrying extra weight. So what am I reading now? Three books that address innovation and entrepreneurship in different ways.

Two of these are about successful internet powerhouse companies born in the online boom of the late 90s. The recent book I'm Feeling Lucky by Douglas Edwards, about the early history of Google. Fasinating case studies about the culture of a start up, and how engineering and technology overrules marketing. Another is Delivering Happiness by Tony Hsieh [Hachette Book Group]. Again, the hectic, sometimes chaotic life of a startup comes shining through, as well as the continual enthusiasm and perspective to stay happy.

Ten as a sports nut I am finishing up a biography of Babe Ruth, "Babe Ruth as I Knew Him," written by his teammate Waite Hoyt [Dell Pub] Certainly Ruth did not invent the home run, jsut as Google did not invent the search engine. But, again like Google he did make it is own, come to dominate, and even get his terminology: "A Ruthian Blast."

By the way, also interesting to read about Novo Nordisk putting diabetes health education management on the Nook and Kindle for patients, in a new, more cost effective distribution mechanism. I imagine it can increase distribution and reach beyond the doctors office

Lessons from Industry Conference on "Next Generation"

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Several lessons were learned at last week's Next Generation Pharmaceutical Sales and Marketing conference in Philadelphia, at which The CementBloc had a panel and a booth.

The predominance of analytics and accountability was quite apparent, as several presentations discussed the need to measure effectiveness of initiatives. There was a start up company bringing dashboards across mobile applications. Another innovative vendor promoted multichannel analytics for "software as a service."

Representatives from BMS and sanofi-aventis discussed centralizing their closed loop marketing practices across categories.

Others emphasized the increased complexity of the pharmaceutical customer base, such as integrated delivery networks, and a resulting need for Strategic Account Management.

At The CementBloc, we emphasized our Convergent Branding across channels and in a panel marked by lively feedback. It was a pleasure participating.