Campaign Management Playbooks

It's a great deal of effort to design a relationship marketing campaign, from the first brainstorming of business goals, to the user experience designs, through to the final creation of communication pieces and the media planning. It's critical not to let that careful thought go to waste as you are about to head into market.

The campaign management playbook is where all of the operational specifications sit in one well-structured document. The playbook includes the segmentation specifications, and how segments are computed at registration time, or from the database. It maps out the communication plan by segment, and the business rules for determining under what conditions each communication is sent. Also included are the fulfillment requirements for each communication, and each testing plan.

The playbook should not be massive or burdensome; 10 to 25 pages, including figures and tables. This is the necessary script that all vendor partners must follow, so put time into a clear design.

Having this playbook is critical to insuring that when executed in market, your relationship marketing program brings the consumers or healthcare professionals have the experience that was designed.

Is this topic a bit dry? Sorry about that; but the intention with playbooks is to avoid the excitement of in-market mistakes later.

Coming down to the wire - finishing it off

June, 2010 is an interesting confluence of several factors all dealing with "coming to the finish line." The kids finishing school, the little league heading toward the playoffs, my book deadline imminent. Even the just completed Belmont Stakes horse race has its finish line. Plus I'm involved with multiple relationship marketing projects due to rollout within a month. These are all examples of homestretch, approaching a deadline.

When this happens, it is always a mix of emotions:

* desperation to get the project finished

* intensive, often late night work, to meet the delivery time.

* a thrill that the moment of truth is arriving.

Just as with patient conversion in CRM, do not presume that once the Rx is given that it will actually be filled (payer issues must be managed), and even if filled, that the drug will be taken (instructions and support are needed for adherence). The optimal patient experience must include the finish line.

Yet one thing is very important, at the finish line, not to let up on quality, not to forget the details. Otherwise, the competition may come back and pass you as you aim to cross the finish line. My son reminded me that come from behind victories happens in every horse race. Indeed the lead horse must stay vigilant.

How does your organization prepare for the big conclusion at a deadline?

How do you strike the proper balance between eagerness to complete, while still maintaining high quality?

Facebook as the new homepage - Thoughts on Juverderm

Increasingly, healthcare companies are dabbling with some kind of presence on Facebook. The most impressive execution I've see thus far is the Facebook pages from Juvederm, an aesthetics product from Allergan.

The Juvederm Facebook presence is essentially an alternative home page, with extensive product information, a doctor finder, and before/after pictures. Also included is detail on a promotional campaign celebrity spokesperson (Dayna Devon). There is fair balance as well. Most of these Facebook panel sections actually click through to interior pages on the Juvederm website; making this Facebook an alternative home page, or perhaps thought of as a "landing page."

But the question arises, from where are people landing? That is, what is the beginning of the prospect's user experience that gets them to Facebook? Not clear from browsing around, but here are some potential examples:

* A 40-something Facebook user sees a friend's post and perhaps photos of a friend who describes taking juvederm, or the friend uses more general terms like "dermal filler." This can prompt our prospect to search within facebook, and call up the Juvederm presence

* An offline advertisement (print, TV, in office, out of home) says, "see us on Facebook," prompting a prospect to search there.

*An online referral right to facebook, from a website or even another Facebook presence.

Hopefully we will be able to measure the pathways similarly to how we can measure website referrers.

Thus it seems that Facebook is growing as an acquisition component. 30-somethings and 40-soemthings are using it increasingly. However, marketers are encouraged to not build another island, but think through the experience to get them there.