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.

Invest a Bit to Measure

When investing millions in a new major promotional campaign, or a new selling technology, think about this: how will you be accountable for that investment? How will you know if that investment in advertising, communications, and technology is actually paying off? In today's corporate environment, answering those questions is paramount.

The Dutch physicist Heike Kamerlingh Onnes (1853-1926) cleverly remarked in rhyme: "Door Meten tot Weten:" Through Measurement is Knoweldge.

Yet I often see clients, and agencies, omit the small proportion of the budget required to measure, which insures understanding of success, and the ability to optimize and improve. I would say 8% to 10% is a good minimal requirement benchmark for a measurement budget -- others would go much higher -- see this ClickZ point of view.

What does measurement look like? Especially with new technologies like multichannel, closed loop marketing, RM, iPads, QR codes, etc?

Ultimately, you want linkage between your promotional investments and incremental sales.

However, there are other critical evaluations that should be performed, on how the marketplace is behaving and how perceptions are being changed. Some call this "engagement." I like to think of it as: "are my stakeholders behaving the way I intended?"

Measurement is in large part the comparison of actual behaviors to what you expected when you set up your mutli-channel program, or your sales force automation system. Are the sales reps detailing as you intended? Are the physicians or consumers interacting with the media you have placed? Is navigation on websites achieving to goals that move your brand?

Therefore, when investing in promotional platforms, give some thought as to the expected marketplace experiences. And save some funds for measurment to confirm or optimize your plans.

Healthcare is Digital and Pervasive

This Tuesday our firm The CementBloc hosted an event during New York's Internet Week demonstrating multi-channel solutions in the Health and Wellness Sector. We received an impressive response of over 100 registrants, and we showed four waves of attendees through our offices. The context was a patient journey for a prospective traveler to the Far East, and how that consumer learned about all of the required vaccinations from web, mobile, office materials, EMail, and so on. Furthermore, healthcare professionals, be they primary care physicians or travel clinic specialists, hear about vaccine updates via professional portals, Epocrates, and ipad tablets from their pharmaceutical sales representatives.

For some first hand accounts of this exhibit, please see Yahoo and also Mediapost. For an impact on how this affected TheBloc and beyond, see My Life as a Focus Group.

Communications in healthcare can only be impactful when they can reach the target audiences where they gathering informations and making decisions. By necessity, that means placing portable information assets at various places: online, within communities, in office, (E)mail, out of doors, and in various media: print, digital, and video. The days of building monolithic websites with many bells and whistles is drawing to a close. Instead, one must design an interconnected distributed system that collectively accomplishes CRM or PRM.

Furthermore, that means working in medical communications is an exciting place to be.

Facebook silent no more for pharma

Until now pharmaceutical companies could launch a branded Facebook page, post news and offers, yet disable comments by viewers to avoid monitoring for adverse event postings. Typical for corporate pharma facebook sites, product pages are harder to find.

However, Facebook has notified pharmaceutical companies that by August 15th they must allow dialogue on these walls. The reason was to enforce and preserve the social spirit of Facebook.

What choices do pharmaceutical companies have after this deadline? There seem to be three options:

(1) Keep their wall pages post free, rendering them like a static website and discouraging return visits and engagement. Per this example.

(2) Continual monitoring and vigilence of content for adverse events using a specialized app or wrapper around the facebook page, and reserving the right to screen for event tracking.

(3) Stay on the sidelines, hard to imagine viable in the long term, given the millions in target demographic consumers that regularly browse Facebook daily.

I would predict an increase in option (2) by this time next year.

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.

Social media for healthcare - april fools vs reality

OK, how many took this article seriously?
Supposed social media guidelines on MMM.

How many passed it to co-workers without even reading it? Who thought it would impact their upcoming project? Of course, reading this through makes it apparent as an April Fools joke, either developed by the magazine, or done by a hacker getting into it.

The reality is that social media is already a viable communication channel in healthcare, and is being implemented responsiby, respectfully, and meeting whatever guidelines do eventually come up. Especially for unbranded, disease category communities, as noted in this Wiki on Dose of Digital.

Peer to peer advice and case based learning have always been powerful forces in medical decision making, for professionals and consumers.

When the real guidelines come out, they should take into account the positive good already taking place.

Team Chemistry - Sports and Analytics

Late March is as good time to speak about teamwork. For basketball teams, the right group chemistry is essential, and this on display in the winners of the NCAA tournaments. You can also see how fragile team chemistry can be, in the shift that results when an NBA team adds a "superstar" yet changes their whole approach to playing. The coach has to decide how to best leverage the new individual talents while still maintaining a winning framework.

If you are growing or leading a sales or marketing analytics group, you have choices to make:

- the mix of hands on analysts versus consultants

- whether to staff in house or outsource, or even offshore

- having people steeped in your industry as well as other categories, for a fresh perspective


Then of course, the coaching and training are critical. Analytics is rooted in mathematics and algorithmic techniques which have been around for decades. Yet there are innovative digital, multichannel methods. Thus a leader must find the right mix of setting standards, yet delegating and allowing the group to develop some new innovative thinking.

Methodically removing balls from the air

Ever feel like you are working on so many responsibilities and immediate deliverables at once? It can be just like you are simultaneously juggling many balls in the air. This can happen in the "functional service areas" like analytics.

The key is to focus on getting items completed, one by one. Not on getting overwhelmed with the total set. Each completed and transitioned result will provide satisfaction for oneself and one's "clients."

But how to choose which one to complete first? You need some kind of "greedy algorithm:"
- first in, first out?
- nearest to the deadlines?
- easiest to get over with?
- task with the most pressure and stress attached?

The "greedy heuristic" you choose for getting the first one off your plate may be up to you, or handed to you.

As you plow through your list of tasks, some might be thorny, and need a new perspective, even a chance to put aside and "sleep on it" before solving.

I remember fondly my days on the high school mathematics team when there was a book called: How to Solve it, by George Polya It gave great problem solving techniques for seeing mathematical puzzles and theorems from a new perspective.
Examples of these techniques are:

* break into sub-problems, relate these to each other, and solve the core sub-problem.
* draw diagrams to represent the core issue
* apply a rotation, or a transformation, so the relevant dimension is more obvious
* find an analogous problem and solve that.

For the technically and mathematically inclined, this is a paperback investment well worth it.

Chronic conditions, and amplified milestones

In the recent Mediapost "Marketing: Health" online article, Elizabeth Elfenbein and I describe how the basic accomplishments and milestones of daily living are amplified and made more challenging for a patient having a chronic condition. Landmarks that would be ignored or taken for granted are now significant accomplishments. Timescales that would move quickly slow down.

All the more important is the measurement of progress to a patient treating such pain. Diaries, assessment tools, and interactions with caregivers and healthcare providers are critical to obtain positive feedback on treatment.

Have a read at this case study, and let us know your thoughts.