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.

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.

Web analytics trends: more focused, less bouncing

A recently published study, reported on the KissMetrics Blhttp://www.blogger.com/img/blank.gifog, is The 2011 Web Analytics Review. The source of the data is traffic trends from hundreds of thousands of websites across the globe, which have participated in Google’s ongoing study of web browsing behavior.

The study shows year over year differences of a three month time period: Nov. 1 2010 to Feb. 1 2011, versus the same time period a year before. The findings generally show:

* lower bounce rates (leaving from the first page) at 47% on average now
* shorter time on website, at 4:50 average now,
* and fewer pages viewed, down to 4.5 on average.

These figures make good benchmarks for judging engagement of one's own website, although realize that results will differ by country, category, and media mix.

Yet, the trends above hold true worldwide, and also in the USA. There are results for other countries in the report as well.

What might explain these trends, over such a large sample? It can well be the benefit of targeted advertising, combined with improvement of website navigation to be more goal oriented. With this combination, a website has more qualified leads, people with interest and intent, who come to visit. Those interested visits are quickly led to a goal page, or to the information they need.

There are also results broken out by source of website traffic. The most efficient source of all? Cost Per Click paid search, with the lowest bounce rate, the shortest time on websites, yet the highest page totals consumed. This is consistent with the interest of a search initiated customer.

Managing display and search simulatneously

An interesting new research study by Efficient Frontier and Forrester Consulting showed that digital marketers are struggling with managing integrated search and display campaigns.

I have witnessed these struggles on my own as a pharmaceutical manufacturer employee, and see it now in my clients, as we deliver communications and we partner with media companies.

Some possible underlying reasons for the struggle

* Media companies are often conglomerates, and have acquired distinct and separate sub-agencies that handle search from the people who handle banner placement.

* The two tactics have fundamentally different objectives: search is for mid to bottom of funnel consumers that are expressing an interest in finding out more or in making a transaction. Banners are for upper funnel consumers, where you catch them by surprise in their reading other web pages, and hope your visual branding and offer may be appealing to warrant an interaction or a click.

* You cannot use impressions for both in the same way. Search text boxes do not grab the same share of attention as banner ads do.

* Therefore click through rates mean slightly different things.

* Interestingly, search click through rates are much higher than banner click through rates, since the consumer is more interested in the results. This despite the over-inflated impressions.

Nonetheless, a good marketing agency or media company should explain the relevant value of each of these digital channels, as they relate to the client's brand goals.

Measurement's role in the journey to health

A trio from the CementBloc, yours truly included, described the journey to wellness in a recent article on Mediapost.

In particular, consider the role that measurement plays as patients are taking medication to get healthy. Illness is often accompanied by one or more physiological metrics that are out of the normal range. As a patient is undergoing treatment, a primary way to measure return to health is by tracking those metrics as they return to the normal range. A patient can work with his or her physician to adjust the therapy based on how these health-related metrics change over time.

Metrics on wellness can be thought of individually or collectively, and technology plays an ever-increasing role in both cases. Individually, patients have more means than ever to quickly and automatically see how their health is improving. Just a few examples are the Wii Fit with built-in scale, the Bayer Contour USB glucose meter, and the Nike training and heart rate monitors. Pharmaceutical relationship-marketing programs come with pill reminders and online pain management diaries. These diaries have evolved from paper-based journals to secure Web pages, and now reside as apps on personal digital assistants (PDAs) and mobile phones.

Collectively, healthcare companies and device manufacturers want to measure overall utilization of wellness, conversion, and adherence tools placed in the marketplace. Web analytics data can signify which patient resources are most being utilized, and which features should be improved.

It is fascinating to think of what role media can play on this journey. Imagine if one's weight loss is not progressing as rapidly as needed, or pain relief is not coming quickly enough. Could one's PDA tracker or personal monitor someday become a venue for product placement for better nutrition products, exercise equipment, or even medication? As our country debates individual Web site data privacy issues, this may be a new angle to consider.

Display banner click rates - falling, but relevant?

A recent article in eMarketer cites a Mediamind study on banner response rates shows a decreasing average annual banner click through rate over the past three years: from .12 percent in 2007 to .09 percent in 2010.

For those not used to reading small banner CTR numbers, what does this figure mean: if you put a banner campaign out in the consumer world, then for each million impressions - per million - then 900 people would click through to your website. Note that if you are running and acquisition campaign and have a great website rate of 10% signups, then your million exposures get you 90 acquired leads.

Thus banners for consumer RM acquisition are, on the surface, not as effective a source as they used to be. True? Is it still a wise choice? That depends on the cost you pay, measured as cost per "lead". You might think of a lead as a website visitor, but really you should get as close to "purchase" as possible.

The study claims that viewers of banners are more likely to purchase than the average person.
However, keep in mind that since banners target by demographics, geographics, and past website viewing behavior, this targeting effect is expected. Also, people rarely view banners in isolation, but as part of a combined media campaign.


To download this report and see the details, click here

The more I experience banner campaigns in pharma CRM, the more I feel that banners are best thought of as brand awareness advertising to reach people near the top of the funnel. Like magazines and billboards, but usually cheaper. Success for banner campaigns is about placement to target audience, and cost efficiencies.

Cost per acquisition buys do exist. However, in healthcare and pharma, the question remains as to whether they can acquire enough.

Thankful for an Astonishing Age

Thanksgiving is a day when we all can be thankful just for health and family. Yet since I was a boy I've always admired sports columnists on this day who write about being thankful for professional reasons: athletes who are good leaders and exhibit sportsmanship, inspiring stories, etc. As I reflect on Healthcare Relationship Marketing, here are some reasons to be thankful for professionally in this revolutionary age:

* The astonishing era of new drug development we live in. Thanks to genomics, stem cell research, and other technologies, diseases once intractable are gradualy becoming dissected and understood, and innovative medicines are extending lifespans and their quailty. See this MIT Technology Review index for a few examples of the cutting edge. Or start at The National Cancer Institute and see the wide range of clinical trials.

* The multi-channel revolution in promotion to both consumers and professionals. No longer is it merely print and TV to consumers, and sales forces and congresses to professionals. There are alternative tactics that can be rapidly developed, orchestrated according to designed experiences, tested, and measured for success.

* The remarkable acceleration of data mining and visualization software tools with gradual learning curves. See KD Nuggets for a great software index. Gosh, in graduate school I wrote my own LISP code, and then I thought SAS and S-Plus were transformative. Now it's revolutionary just being able to install a shrink wrapped software and dive right into clustering, decision trees, multivariate modeling, or 3-D trellised scatter plots. Unbelievable.


* Search engines, around since Archie and Veronica of the early 1990s, then Excite and Ask Jeeves of the mid to late 1990s, to today's Google dominance, Bing challenge and embedded search in online portals. Gives the masses access to critical health information, and delivers a way for mid-funnel interested parties to reach their health seeking goals.


* Social media, that is giving people with serious medical conditions access to clinical trial and treatment information critical to their health in ways faster than ever. Could Patients Like Me have existed ten years ago? Of course, caveat emptor, not all news in the social frontier is accurate; still see a physician for treatment. But social media helps you know which specialists to see and how to discuss health topics.

* This transformation of the publishing world, where E-books enable wider and greener distribution of traditional edited tomes (mine included, see forthcoming book and an online book seller ), and blogs like this one can spread readership virally around the world in a loose meritocracy.

* Most appreciative to forward thinking marketing and sales clients who are willing to push the envelope of their professions in order to better serve patients and healthcare professionals.

Teamwork Triad and the Digital Campaign Launch

What is the benefit of working in a small, focused agency without walls? Multi-disciplinary teamwork and relentless focus on high performance.

My department has three components: analytics, campaign management operations, and media services. All of these are both consumer and professional. In larger agencies, these functions are in different departments, even different divisions or buildings. For The CementBloc, all these functions sit together, literally in the same workspace on the same floor.

The benefit of this has become really apparent to me this year as we launch our series of digital campaigns, complete with media promotion and operations.
Take a look at a few of them:



* Professional diabetes
* Consumer cosmetic dermatology
* Consumer social community for breast cancer

As campaigns like these are prepared, the disciplines work together to prepare promotional planning, insure smooth operations, and design for measurability. Once we are up in market, the energy is palpable. Folks literally running to each other's computers, hovering around the same screen as the hourly results come in. How did the email blast go? What are the search click throughs? Which banners are getting highest response rates? Most importantly: how can we keep optimizing!?!

Nothing like it.

Pharma media schedules for public view - wither violence?

It's remarkable to notice how a public advocacy group like the Parents Television Council can influence ED drug makers to publish their television media schedule for Viagra and Cialis. One can see how the two firms Pfizer and Lilly are focused on late night, sports, and news programs, essentially all in the evenings.

As a parent, I can empathize with other parents who may want to avoid certain content. However, personally, I feel more strongly about the rampant violence of commericals during afternoon broadcasts; even for actual network shows. Those seem impossible to avoid.

Blogging on the plane -- abrupt Tysabri landing by AdChoices

OK, while using wireless at 35,000 (first time, thanks Delta), I surfed my personal Yahoo Email and noticed a banner ad at right for Tysabri, a multiple sclerosis medication. Out of place for me given my personal situation. Not sure how I was behaviorally targeted. Learn more about such targeting from Adchoices, click here.


Definitely this was a CRM consumer acquisition media buy. However,
the banner ad brought be abruptly to this landing page. This was a bumpy user experience, I never really learned much about what the drug was, or what the condition was. Just brought me right to the registration form without further explanation.

Lesson learned here? Think about the user experience, and test it in research.

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.

Consumer media consumption: major age differences

Recommended reading: The Experian 2010 Marketer report that provides lots of statistics on consumer attitudes and behaviors across different media channels,

While not specific to healthcare, they point to what devices Americans need to have, where they go first, how they use digital to make online purchasing decisions.

Not surprisingly, younger audiences are highly weighted to mobile and social, and older audiences more biased toward computers, email, even TV.

Multichannel experience is also emphasized; more and more marketers are using multiple channels to reinforce each other, Emails reference social media.

Direct marketing is more complex than ever, and more innovative, but worth putting in the effort

Holistic Learning: Optimizing your CRM or PRM Campaigns

When developing a learning or measurement plan for your relationship marketing campaigns, don't stop at the dashboards, charts, and graphs. Be sure to anticipate the potential enhancements you may implement to optimize your campaign, depending on what the results are.

Improvements to RM, whether for consumers or healthcare professionals, can range from the most concrete to more abstract decisions, as itemized below:

* Operational Improvements

* Media Optimization

* Promotional Tactical Changes

* Adjusting Program Elements

* Changing the Offers or Incentives

* Adjusting Segmentation

* Re-Thinking the Campaign Strategy

Certain types of measurement findings are more indicative of each of these required changes, and a combination of insights can "triangulate" or combine to support particular optimizations rather than others.

For these reasons, campaign measurement reviews should be holistic, and should gather data from all facets of your campaign: media, promotion-response, website and call center activity, RM participation, and incremental conversion and adherence.
Making decisions based on reports from one class of metrics is, well, sub-optimal.

Pharma DTC Spending Holds, and Digital Rises

Recent posts in Medical Marketing and Media notes that Pharmaceutical DTC spending has held firm in 2009, rising 1.9% to $4.5 billion over 2008 spend. Data is from the Nielsen Company. Considering reductions in sales force sizing, that means a relative rise in the percentage of spending in DTC in pharmaceuticals.

A closer look at these numbers brings insights by channel. Television spending is shifting from networks to cable, and magazine spending is down.

A note worthy trend is a rise in Internet ad spending of 31%, to $117 million. Of course, Internet spending is still small in the relative DTC marketing mix (less than a tenth of overall print or overall TV).

Still the rise shows that increasing numbers of pharmaceutical marketers are seeing these benefits of digital advertising:

Targeting: Online media can be targeted to consumers' behaviors, and their searches. It can also be placed within content areas geared toward disease education vs. specific products.

Direct response efficiency: On a cost per lead basis, search and direct response banners are very efficient.

Faster and Easier Measurement: Data on impressions, click throughs, and landing site activity comes in within hours and days after the campaign launches. This enables marketers to understand what their audiences really need and how well they respond to alternative offers.

Testing and Learning: In a related note, setting up parallel test cells for search or banner campaigns is straightforward using platforms like Omniture or Google Analytics. The rapid results noted above help you see which offer or creative is yielding the biggest response or most website traffic.

Rapid Media Optimization: One corollary to rapid data within a test and learn environment is enabling of rapid media optimization. Decisions can continually be made of what media changes to make.

These benefits should continue to make digital an ever increasing channel for consumer advertising and relationship marketing in pharmaceuticals in the future.