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.

promotional planning on rainy days

Sometimes rainy days come unexpectedly, and one must rapidly determine how to respond. This weekend was a great lesson for me and thousands of others in Blacksburg Virgina. At the Virginia Tech graduation, the initial ceremony in the large football field was curtailed as lightning and rain approached. However, spirits remained high. Some wondered if the ceremony should have been moved indoors, meaning more safety but far fewer attendees. Anyway,the next day grads got diplomas, the sun stayed around for photos, and then the rain continued off and on. At a barbecue were wetness made it seemed lost, a group of us pressed on and served up a happy lunch repast in celebration.

In business, rainy days can mean a quarter or two of disappointing product sales, and businesses should keep two things in mind:

* dig deeply into your analytics dashboards as to what the root causes are. Which customer segments are performing better than others, and in which channels? Which promotions and media are more effective than others.

* plan for efficiency in promotion, and invest where the highest sales leverage is.

* use quality and six sigma frameworks to trim the inefficiencies. However, by all means, keep investing in what has been working.

A thought-provoking, whirlwind 48 hours

After some hiatus from blogging due to vacation and burnout, I return to writing the blog. The reason: a stimulating, but all too short trip to the PMSA conference in Miami Beach.

Many lessons were learned.

First, I was still in the wake of The CementBloc Agency of The Year Win from Med Ad News. Lesson learned: winning makes the toil and long hours of entrepreneurial agencies turn from bitter to sweet.

Continuing in the entrepreneurial spirit, on the plane ride to Miami, I grabbed a copy of Fast Company Magazine. I had forgotten how good this was; especialy because of the plethora of business growth ideas across all industries: sports, consumer goods, energy, environment, autos, etc. Lesson learned: do not swim in your own bathwater, do not read trade press only from your clones -- get stimulating ideas from elsewhere.

Then the conference itself. Lots of thought provoking talks and meaningful exhanges.

Christian Schuler, Partner and Head of Life Science, of Simon-Kucher & Partners, gave a nice tutorial on pharmaceutical pricing and manged markets contracting. The lessons learned were about value-based pricing, and one of its foundation, the preceptions of innovation. Additionally, a wealth of market research techniques on finding acceptable prices for stakeholders.

The opening pleanry session by Jeffrey C. Bauer, Ph.D., Health Futurist and Medical Economist was thought provoking, touching on technology, personalized medicine and health economics as fundamental waves of the future. Lesson learned: we are in an exciting times for quantiative analytics types in healthcare.

At the vendor fair there was an onsite independent bookseller from Miami called Books and Books, selling technical books for the audience. Including my textbook, and many more pop-culture, yet lower priced. It was fascinating to see people's reactions. Even autographed and sold a few. Plus, Raquel of Books and Books had a wealth of information about the publishing and bookselling industry. Lesson: you can learn from everyone and every situation.

2-D "QR" bar codes

There has been an acceleration of awareness and usage of QR (Quick Response) 2 dimensional bar codes over the past year. A current article in the trade publication CRM Magazine has a QR code overview. This technology is described as an innovative gamble that marketers are taking; it is a low budget allocation, and small but growing awareness by consumers, and readability by smartphone apps. There is even a running blog about 2-D bar codes with very active community postings, including about which mobile phone bar code readers are effective.

A good overview of QR codes and their history is in Wikipedia; they started in auto manufacturing for tracking parts and shipments. Now, an active growth area in QR code usage is in commercial sales and marketing applications.

For an array of pharmaceutical and healthcare advertisements using QR codes, see this link in AdPharm.

At The Bloc we have healthcare clients investigating QR codes for RM related purposes. The primary reason is consumer acquisition, driving from printed offline pieces to a registration website or a promotional offer. The QR codes may in principle be on:

* print ads

* packaging

* patient brochures

* outdoor advertising

All of these are typically a challenge to measure accurately, particularly in a direct response way. As consumer usage of QR codes grows, they may serve as a replacement for vanity URLs which are not always remembered.

Hard data on response rates for QR codes is not standardized yet, but that may be forthcoming within a year or two. In the meantime, this appears a worthwhile experimental healthcare CRM acquisition tactic.

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.

Consumer Multi-Channel Experiences

What can a faulty commute teach us about relationship marketing?

This morning the New York City number 1 southbound subway train stalled at 116th st, for about a mile. After being stationary for 5 minutes, we passengers got frustrated. The transit system responded with alternatives; a bus to the next free station, a mile south a 96th st.

New Yorkers reacted in alternate ways: some sat and waited, steaming or confused. Others piled into crowded buses southbound. Some hailed an expensive taxi. Finally, a large pack, including myself, saw the bright sunny morning and decided to walk for 20 blocks downtown, enjoy the weather and get healthy exercise.


So too with acquisition campaigns for relationship marketing. They need multi channel response vehicles (web, phone, text, and sometimes even mail?) to allow for alternate consumer preferences for their experiences. The multiple channels also provide backup coverage in case.of a temporary fault.

Of course, efficiency in your CRM system is still a valid concern, as it is for the Metro Transit Authority. Measure each response channel for throughput on its funnels, and monitor for quality control to keep faults and delays to a minimum.

Professional Value and Multi-Channel Marketing.

At this week's PMSA conference in Savannah, new models of professional promotion were featured prominently.

Angela Bakker-Lee of ZS Associates described the success of "Value Based Selling" where representatives listen to physician clinical and practice needs, and helping to achieve these ends up within the rep's goals too. She cited positive examples from technology, airlines, and healthcare.

Richard Greenburg of Inventiv Health gave a thoughtful overview of multi-channel marketing, He noted the challenges of analytics from multiple-channels, requiring data integration, and faster speed of analysis required to be responsive and adapt.

We at The CementBloc had a poster presentation of design and measurement of Professional Relationship Marketing, which really tied the above two concepts together. Physician value can be actually be enhanced and measured through deployment of a PRM system offering a range of services that go with the product information. Furthermore, through online surveys and click stream data from registrants, professional goals can be better assessed, and even brought back to the healthcare company or the sales rep in a feedback loop.

As two examples of this approach to PRM value in the marketplace,
consider Bayer's new Simple Wins Professional as well as J & J Vistakon's Partners in Practice On these company portfolio portals, healthcare professionals can find practice resources as well as product information.

With these portals, healthcare professionals are receiving more value from healthcare firms, who can measure, gather feedback, and be more responsive over time.