List purchasing and direct mail

One of the ways healthcare companies perform acquisition is via direct mail. It can be a targeted approach to acquire lists and then send patients information. Of course, direct mail can be expensive depending on the piece, and you might expect to get a 1% to 2% response rate on actions like website registrations or calls. Definitely this is an acquisition channel where you can create a basic pro-forma spreadsheet model to gauge potential ROI.

I would recommend Email as an more cost effective alternative for consumer acquisition. These also can be list purchased.

Where do the sources of the lists come from? They are opted in at various sources by the consumers who note that they have a particular condition. The sources of a pharmaceutical direct mail piece to patients is illuminating; see this blog entry and article.

I recommend a test and learn approach when it comes to pharma lists for direct mail or email. Rent a random fraction of the list and see the response rate. Or better yet, use a quantitiy you can afford. Also, consult an agency you trust to find the right list suppliers.

Digital Response Curves are Rapid

Above is the google analytics tracking of visitors by day to this particular blog. As my readers know, I post about once weekly, and then promote each post via twitter, linkedin, and sometimes facebook and email. There are also baseline pointers from referring sites like The CementBloc Website and Gower Publishing.

What does this figure show us? That in the electronic world of promotion, responses are rapid, within a day, two maxiumum. All of the spikes on the chart above are the very days where a new blog post was entered by yours truly. But within two days, back to a fairly low baseline.

Think about this during your email, twitter, or facebook campaigns. You have to keep communicating and keep content fresh to attract visitors. Do not fall into the "build it and they will come" complacency.

Want to learn more about response rates? -- a good place to start is the Direct Marketing Association and its annual fact book. There are breakdowns of response rates by industry and channel.

Happy promoting, effectively and efficiently.

Measuring Marketing Promotions? -- Have a Plan

If you are about to launch a major marketing initiative, whether local or national, awareness or direct response, you probably are being asked to "measure the impact." or to "calculate ROI." Be aware that planning your measurement is part of planning the project itself.

One has to translate the business objectives of the promotion, or the RM program into measurable quantities that can assess whether those objectives are filled. Think in terms of the RM continuum. What are you trying to achieve?

* spread awareness: better have surveys to measure if they are aware, before and after

* get people to respond? Better have response mechanisms with data streams, and coded by source

* convert patients to drug? Getting doctors to write Rx? How is this data coming in?

* encourage advocacy? Make sure your advocacy tactics has a tracking breadcrumbs.


This sounds obvious as written, or in hindsight, but really this sort of planning requires a half day workshop of a cross-functional team.

At least.

The long tail of online media

How well do you understand online advertising, and where your media company is placing your banner ads and search box results?

Try an exercise... go to Google and type in a small business in your neighborhood.
Perhaps's "Joe's flower shop." You might get a search engine result like this where the results are about florists, and where the text box ads are also about florists and related items. So far so good. Now click on one of the local results, adn you might get a a directory listing link like this.

Notice the banner ads on your local flower shop? Not about flowers -- maybe the ads or for cars, sneakers, mobile phones, even pharmaceutical conditions or particular drugs. Why is this? You weren't looking for these things in your search.

This is a combination of several effects. One is that if you are logged in, and you have cookies enabled, there is demographic and behavioral information that can be leveraged for online media placement. (In fact, try the same exercise while not logged in to any email or social media systems). The other major effect is the media industry's design, a tactic called "the long tail." Note that Ford motors, Nike, or that pharma company did not particularly wish to target Joe's florist and other small businesses for media placement. But their media company may have paid an ad network to find people in a certain demographic: age, gender, spending levels.

Now, how likely is it that a person trying to order flowers from a local shop, will suddenly become interested in buying a car, or go to their doctor about a new pharmaceutical drug? The effect is more likely to be very subtle branding, but not much direct response.

So, if you are placing online media for a direct response consumer RM ad, be proactive and intelligent about where your media company is placing your banners. What percentage of your spend is on this "long tail" that is probably not going to get a very high response rate, due to lack of relevance to the search. If you are paying by the impression (CPM), it may be costly, if you are paying by acquisition (CPA), then perhaps the low hanging fruit can accumulate.

Convergence: Email and Social media

An interesting article on MediaPost last week by Jack Loechner pointed out an
increasing trend of social media and email convergence by small businesses. In 2009 all of these useful cross-digital channel tactics were only done by 20% to 36% of small businesses surveyed:

* Tweet email newsletters
* Broadcast blog entries to email list
* Add sign-up forms on social media pages
* Include follow links in email messages
* Place link to email in social media pages

However, the same survey found that in 2010 roughly half of small businesses plan to integrate in at least one of these ways. Why? Increases brand awareness, grows email lists, and accelerates the ROI of either together.

This is all about channel convergence. Make the different promotional media work together to reinforce each other, and cross-reference each other. Especially because our consumers are fickle, and are swapping and experimenting in the digital world. Know what else this means? Move beyond just the "hub and spoke" architecture of the website in the middle and other online venues pointing to it. The "spokes" or "channels" can point to each other just as well, and the consumer journey can stay exclusively on the other digital channels and never get to any "core" website.

In healthcare, one just needs to make sure the appropriate experience is well documented and approved by review committee, as needed.

Cutting through the clutter

Very different stories this week bring up an old theme.

One is the uproar at this month's World Cup football tournament in South Africa over the vuvuzela trumpets, which create a dull, bee-like drone to those playing or watching the sporting events. Announcers, chanting, singing, are all inaudible due to the constant hum of the vuvuzelas. Many have been calling for their ban, others say part of the local culture. Each fan thinks they are cheering for their team, but in aggregate is just part of the hum.

Another, reported in MMM online is the recent phone survey of about 1,008 U.S. adults by Kyp and Opinion Research that patients are finding too many options for health websites. The article notes that "while 76% of respondents search the internet for health information, only 22% use the web as their first port of call after they suspect a health problem – seemingly because of the confusing number of online sources. Even in the 18-34 demographic, more than half (55%) report that 'there is just too much choice' and that they 'simply don't know where to turn for the best advice.'"

The common denominator of these two articles is what we in direct marketing have been calling a need to "cut through the clutter," whether the audio of the vuvuzelas, the stacks of direct mail each day, rows of "spam" invading email inboxes, or broad array of similar websites.

Solutions?

- more intelligent search engines, and search engine optimization for those genuine authority health resources (inbound links from referrals)

- distinctinve, relevant messages, offers, and creative that get noticed

- in-market testing, especially on email subject lines.

Talk to us for more, we can help you "toot your horn."

Don't forget the campaign operations planning!

I have seen this time and again, across multiple clients and brands, over the years. Marketers launch a series of concurrent marketing and sales tactics at the same time, and yet do not plan for the operational coordination between them. How does this show up? Here are some examples:

* Banner ads or print ads drive to web, and the landing page is not ready yet.
* Media on a coupon offer is launched late, and is not in market until the expiration date is almost offer
* Registration form questions that are inconsistent in print, website, and phone channels.
* Patient feedback systems like Infomedics are underutilized and misunderstood by the sales force.
* Not being able to tell which acquisition tactic brings in leads, due to lack of source coding.
* Direct mail is sent to long expired addresses, not cleansed by change of address.

I could go further, but these are just examples.

The consequences: bad customer experiences, and missed opportunities.

Campaign management and operations is a discipline that insures reliable patient and physician experiences witin relationship marketing. It is a combination of database skills, project planning and oversight, and optimization. Make sure your agency has specialists who can bring these skills, and make that investment. Also, check out the Direct Marketing Association for best practices.

Not only are problems avoided, but there are positive benefits to campaign operational planning. Cost savings, better targeting, and better patient and physician loyalty.