It may seem like an uphill battle. How could a patient change the way a physician prescribes? Believe me, I’ve heard it many times before. “We don’t focus on patients,” and “Our only real target is physicians – patients don’t matter.” Really? That sounds like a great strategy – for 1997. Let’s keep up with the times, people. Consumers are hungry for information. It doesn’t matter what the category. My dad used to choose whatever the local mechanic recommended, but now he won’t even buy a new headlight without searching ratings, reviews, and shopping engines. People want to be fully informed before making a decision. Show me the CARFAX!

So why would we think healthcare is any different? People want to make the right decision when it comes to health and safety, and they will do the research. So why fight it? It isn’t hard to give people what they want. It doesn’t require a multi-million dollar ad campaign. You just have to be there when they are looking for you (even if they don’t know they are looking for you).

1-800-flowers can run commercials all day long and I may never feel the need to order flowers. However, a search ad is very likely to get my attention when it appears for the term “same day flower delivery” on October 7th (my Mom’s birthday). This is exactly how it works in pharma. Consumers develop symptoms/are diagnosed/need a refill and immediately start searching. These are the opportunities you must pounce on. They are looking for you. They want your help.

Encourage them to seek diagnosis. Prompt them to ask questions. Help them save money.

If you don’t, your competitor will. I have a great case study, but first something I stumbled upon while writing this post. I asked a coworker to pick a random disease and then I started searching. “how can I stay awake?” “narcolepsy treatment.” “ghb coupon.”All roads should have led to Xyrem. But they didn’t. They led to Nuvigil. Even a search for “xyrem coupon” led me to Nuvigil. The icing on the cake – Xyrem.com won an eHealthcare Leadership Award in 2008 for “best website.” People want to be empowered, and they will use the tools you make for them. But only if they can find them…having a great site does nothing for you if people can’t find it!

Let’s get back to my original question. Can patients influence prescribing habits? Well, I work with a smaller brand in a marketplace dominated by several blockbuster drugs. This smaller brand can’t afford a big consumer campaign, but they do make sure they reach the right people at the right time. Year after year they continue to prove that smart paid and organic search campaigns get results. Results that are driven by patient requests. Patient requests for a brand that those patients had never heard of before they started searching.

This brand dominates natural search, continually being the only brand on the first page for key disease-state terms. This natural search presence plus a strategic paid search campaign has resulted in highly qualified patient traffic that continues to increase every year. More than 20% of their traffic in 2009 printed a coupon and 30% of those prints were redeemed. Need more proof? The brand did a 3rd party study and found this interesting stat:

In 2009, 10% of their prescriptions were driven by patient requests.

Not bad for the annual cost of a handful of sales reps.

The path goes something like this:

• Identify an emerging trend that presents a new marketing channel opportunity (ie, the Internet)
• Research and purchase a large, comprehensive system or platform that is a “best in class” solution for highly sophisticated marketing campaigns (think BMS and Broadvision)
• Pay an enormous sum for an outside consulting firm to determine the best way to implement the platform and train the organization…and then spend a year+ doing so
• Attempt to force brands to use the resource by mandating platform usage as well as providing partial funding and man power
• Do all this before the solution has been proven successful to brand marketers, or before they understand how to integrate it into their marketing plans

What then follows, of course, is that the platform is under leveraged and usually deemed obsolete three years later, after millions of dollars have been invested and much time wasted. Finally it took some “Cowboy” brand manager on an overlooked brand (See Famvir at Novartis, circa 2001, the first brand to utilize an online coupon) to be the first mover, which the company then used as a model for the rest of the organization.

Why didn’t this path work for “e”, and why won’t it work for HCP RM? Two reasons:

1. The company failed to follow a simple business rule – fulfill market demand. In this case, the “market” is their brand management, and no one in brand management was clamoring for a sophisticated, enterprise-wide solution. They wanted to dip their toe in, follow the guidance of their agency partners and test different solutions, different approaches. They didn’t want the 500 lb gorilla solution, and they weren’t prepared to leverage it so early in the adoption lifecycle (Neither was MLR or the rest of the organization).
2. The company tried to circumvent evolution – the most effective form of natural selection. Innovative brand marketers (aka, the “brand cowboys”) will see the new channel opportunity and find a way to test it out, to start small, to move in the right direction. If successful, this effort will grow and evolve and eventually become something comprehensive that can be replicated across other brands. Think of the early brand adopters of paid search, and how that spread like wildfire once the ROI was demonstrated! If unsuccessful, the solution will fail, without undue time or budget waste, and it will be up to the next brand or partner to do better. By starting with a massive and mandated solution, this process was overridden and platforms that did not serve the needs of the brands or the end customers were mistakenly chosen.

I certainly understand that HCP RM is complex, more complex than internet marketing, and involves many groups across the organization. Thus, no one brand cowboy can likely implement a true RM program without a lot of internal support and collaboration. However, let’s pick a cowboy on a brand that has much to benefit from RM; start small and simple, and scale up from there. Once success has been demonstrated and processes have been worked out, then consider what larger platform or system might be needed, and what other brands can be added. At the end of the day, it will have taken just as long to get the whole company on board, but the solution will be far more suited to the needs of the company/brands, it will have been proven successful in driving business and there will be meaningful support and adoption throughout marketing and the rest of the organization.

Two tips to consider as your develop your HCP RM programs:

1. Develop a program of tactics. This is not about eMarketing or Interactive Marketing, but about giving your targets another opportunity to engage with your brand. It’s less about selling and more about customer service. There is seldom one singular tactic that you can pursue at the expense of all others. Tactics should be regarded as an entire program. Thinking multimodal is key. We have to give physicians a chance to respond to determine their preference for not only the tactic but also how it is delivered. The good news is that physicians are already accessing some of the technology you’ll be using. An estimated 80% of all physicians under the age of 45 carry smart phones and nearly 1 in 4 participates in eDetail programs¹. There are many vehicles at your disposal—take the time needed to invest in the right ones.
2. Don’t lose sight of the message. If you’ve been delivering the same message to your audience for a while, changing the medium in which you communicate that message is not likely to have much of an impact. Concentrate instead on delivering information that’s new and meaningful to physicians. Translate those hours and pages of physician insight research into meaningful content that can result in behavior change. Find a balance between branded and unbranded communications. Focus on providing needed services to your audience versus simply selling yourself and you just might find yourself becoming the de facto expert in an area.

¹ – Manhattan Research, 2009

HCP RM: Why Now?

The old model for how to target and communicate with healthcare professionals has been turned on its head. The time physicians have to interact with sales forces continues to diminish and access to physicians is becoming increasingly difficult. Up to 35% of all physicians are now considered “no see” docs¹ and some states such as Massachusetts are imposing restrictions on sales rep activities. Add to this the fact that pharmaceutical companies are drastically cutting their sales forces and you have an environment that’s ripe for new and more effective ways to reach HCPs.

What HCP RM Is Not

They are not newsletters or mailers or phone calls created in a remote conference room and then force-fed to a recipient. They are not comprised of generic content that makes no provision for how the recipient wants to be communicated with, what his or her level of knowledge is with the brand, or where the recipient resides along the brand adoption continuum.

They are, instead, customer-focused programs, delivering the right message to the right audience segment at the right time using the right channel. The right message is one that is meaningful to the HCP.  Figuring this out means understanding who the HCP is—what their needs and interests are, what motivates them—so that you can truly service their needs, not just sell them stuff.

Where To Start

When many pharma marketers hear the term relationship marketing, they are quick to think of patient relationship marketing efforts such as compliance programs. But given that physicians either cannot or do not want to meet with reps and that many prefer other and more varied forms of contact, it’s clear that HCPs want to engage with the brand through several communication channels.

Building a successful HCP RM program is no easy feat. It all starts with understanding the different segments of your audience and delivering tailored, meaningful communications to them in the form, method or vehicle they prefer. Every disease state and therapeutic class is different.  Organizations will have to adopt a different mindset beyond just a rep knocking on a quickly closing door. Finding success in this area requires understanding your customers like never before in order to offer them meaningful information and tools that they actually want to use. By integrating these tactics and resources so they all work well together you can successfully shift from the mindset of physician “selling” to one of physician “service.”  Making that shift will strengthen your relationships with all your key targets—a critical requirement in moving HCPs closer toward ultimate brand loyalty.

¹ – SK, A, 2009

The growth and usage of “new media tools” will always surpass and ultimately replace “traditional methods”. Smoke signals were replaced by guys with sandwich boards, who were replaced by newspapers, then radio then print and TV. There will always be a constant evolution. Marketing doesn’t change, the mediums that we use will always change, but at the end of the day, it is still marketing.

Having said that, how we approach marketing is changing, and quickly. In this past year we have heard a lot about Relationship Marketing or (RM). It was first discussed in the form of patient compliance programs, and most recently, given the changes in the sales force structure, size, and regulations, HCP RM. Both are the same, it’s about marketing to specific segments.

Segmented marketing the ability to identify and successfully reach and market to multiple different and distinct target audiences which has been pioneered and perfected by Interactive will continue to evolve as the marketing approach. In the past promotional campaigns consisted of leveraging one benefit into one message and then communicating that message through the reps, journal ads, and TV. The Intent has allowed us to think in segments. Going forward the agencies that will serve their brands best are the ones that internalize this approach across everything they do, from label design to brand messaging to all the promotional activities.  It is no longer what is the one message, it’s which segments do I want to reach, influence, empower; how do they want to consume my message (with or on the phone, online, in person, etc) and when do they need the information?