Market Research
Reprint List The Absolute, Relative, and Incremental ROI of DTC e-Marketing
The debate surrounding the strategic and economic value of having an online DTC strategy rings loud and clear at most global pharmaceutical companies today. This article focuses on the power of the product Web site as a conversion tool.
Accomplishing Adherence
This article reviews presentations made at the recent eyeforpharma Patient Adherence and Persistence Summit including a presentation by David Baker, VP & General Manager of Shire’s ADHD Business Unit, who presented on ‘Best Practices for Fostering Adherence.’ He used the ADHD market as a case study.
Adherence: Do We Really Need an App for That?
Do the Benefits Outweigh the Risks?
Lots of patients — even patients taking life-saving medication — are not as “adherent” as they should be, which means that the treatment does not work as advertised and drug companies lose money. There have been many attempts by the drug industry to improve medication adherence, but it has been a tough challenge. The industry, however, has not given up. The new battleground for combating non-adherence is the mobile smartphone and the smartphone app is the weapon of choice. Are the benefits worth the risk?
Are Sales Reps as “Useful” as PhRMA Wants Us to Believe?
Let’s Look at Some Data PhRMA Doesn’t Mention
“New Survey Emphasizes Value of Biopharmaceutical Company Engagement With Healthcare Providers” is the main point PhRMA (Pharmaceutical Research and Manufacturing Association – the industry trade association) emphasized in its press release regarding a survey of physicians it sponsored. PhRMA also pointed out that nearly 9 out of 10 physicians considered company-sponsored peer education programs to be “up-to-date, useful and reliable.”
That’s good news. But it’s always educational to go beyond the PR to learn something new, even some things the drug industry may not want you to learn.
What else does the survey reveal about the value of sales reps?
Cholesterol Drug Users Discuss Their Medication
At breakfast recently in one of his favorite coffee shops, Jim Avery, professor of advertising at the University of Oklahoma, was talking with some friends who he knew had some health problems. Avery took the opportunity to turn the breakfast meeting into a little impromptu focus group. This article summarizes what he learned.
Data Mining in the Deep, Dark Social Networks of Patients
Advice for Pharma: Caveat Emptor
If pharma marketers wish to tap into closed online patient communities that are rich sources of information, they need to pay careful attention to the rules lest they suffer the consequences to their reputations.
Topics include:
- The Dark Depths of “Closed” Patient Communities
- Patient Information for Sale
- Pharma Trolls Social Media
- Transparency, Openness and Privacy
- Beware of Stolen “Copper”
- The ePatient Perspective
- What Are Your Social Media Principles?
- Aligning Your Message with Patient Needs
The Digital Life of Doctors
While primary care physicians in general are frequent users of the Internet, oncologists see online sources of information as more important than PCPs and therefore may need less personal contact to learn about products. That was just one of the results from the 2011 Digital Life survey of 1,454 physicians summarized is this article.
Digitally-Feeble Pharma
Is Your Brand a Digital Genius or a Feeble-Minded Idiot?
When it comes to digital IQ, some brands are geniuses and some are feeble-minded idiots, according to the “L2 Digital IQ Index” for pharmaceutical brands, a first-of-its kind measurement of the digital competence of 51 pharma brands across eight therapeutic categories.
Direct to Physician Telemarketing and Sales
The point of diminishing returns in the sales trench warfare has been reached. For most companies it makes no sense economically to add field staff, especially to cover “white” territories spread across large, mostly rural areas. Another option is telemarketing offered by companies such as ADG Pharmaceutical Biotech Marketing (ADG), which specializes in providing hosted telemarketing services for the pharmaceutical, life sciences and biotech industries.
Topics covered include:
- Outsourced Telemarketing
- Demonstrable Return on Investment — A Sales case Study
- Market Research
- Seminar & Webinar Recruitment
DocCheck: Das Portal
This article describes the services offered by DocCheck and specifically focuses on the portal’s market research and physician-targeting capabilities, which any pharmaceutical marketer wishing to do professional marketing in Germany should know more about. Includes sections:
- Day of the Portals
- Universal Physician Password
- eDetailing in Europe
Drug Marketers Need More Than Demographic Data To Effectively Market To Consumers
Pharmaceutical firms should use not only demographic data but technological and health dimension data as well when developing direct-to-consumer marketing tools, suggested Michael J. Barrett, senior analyst at the marketing research firm Forrester Research Inc. Forrester Research has polled consumers to determine how these attitudes differ according to disease state. This additional technigraphic, attitudinal and psychographic data can help pharmaceutical companies to craft effective DTC marketing tools.
eDetailing: Yesterday, Today and Tomorrow
eDetailing proponents, inside pharma companies and outside, use survey data to justify their arguments for greater spending on eDetails. In some cases, however, the numbers seem to show confusing trends and even may suggest that eDetailing may not be all that it’s cracked up to be.
Fast Start to Customized ePromotion and eLearning Physician Programs
There is a broad spectrum of online promotional and educational opportunities that pharmaceutical companies have at their disposal to interact with, inform, and influence physicians. Lathian Systems, a provider of online marketing and sales solutions, offers these and more in its Spectrum of Solutions for life science companies.
Finding the Consumer Within the Patient
Insights Into How Healthcare Decisions are Made
Self Care Catalysts’ Patient Intelligence Insights Guide™ on Diabetes is the only integrated patient-and consumer-centric report that explores how people suffering from an invisible condition such as diabetes actually circumnavigate their health condition, using the unique Self Care Health Decision Making Dynamics framework™. It is an example of what Grace Soyao, Founder & Chief Strategy Officer of Self Care Catalysts Inc., a health research and strategy company, means by “Finding the Consumer within the Patient.”
Getting Market Research Right in Emerging Markets
With the challenges facing the pharmaceutical industry in the more developed markets of the US, Western Europe and Japan, the emerging markets have become the growth engine for many businesses, including Big Pharma, which is shifting its investment to new geographies. Nevertheless, in countries where market research is not yet established, e.g., China, India and the Middle East, online penetration is limited, secondary data sources are nonexistent, and the challenge remains how to get the insights required to guide business strategy in these markets.
This is the first in a series of articles summarizing highlights from a recent webinar focused on getting market research right in emerging markets. It features experts from Kantar Health, a global consultancy and marketing insights organization that was formed in 2009 by uniting Consumer Health Sciences, MattsonJack, TNS Healthcare and Ziment.
Getting Market Research Right in India & China
This is the last in a series of three articles highlighting points made by Kantar Health executives in a recent webinar titled, “Getting It Right in the Emerging Markets: Identifying the opportunities and avoiding the pitfalls in conducting market research in new geographies.”
Getting Market Research Right in the Middle East
A Land of Diversity, Opportunities and Unique Challenges
If the Middle East was a single country, it would be the fifth largest market in the world in terms of GDP. The sales of pharmaceuticals in the Middle East surpasses 20 billion US dollars per year and is growing by 10 to 15% per year.
This is the second in a series of three articles highlighting points made by Kantar Health executives in a recent webinar titled “Getting It Right in the Emerging Markets: Identifying the opportunities and avoiding the pitfalls in conducting market research in new geographies.”
HealthPrize Teams Up with RealAge to Improve Adherence
High Engagement in Reward Program Among Asthma/COPD Patients
Unless taken, medicines don’t work. Lack of medication adherence is a major issue contributing to poor health outcomes and higher costs. HealthPrize Technologies believes it has at least part of the solution, which is to provide an innovative approach with an online and mobile-based program that is fun, engaging and educational. This article summarizes the results of a six-month asthma and chronic obstructive pulmonary disease (COPD) pilot study in which HealthPrize partnered with RealAge to test patient engagement with the HealthPrize online and mobile platform.
Helping Pharma eMarketing “Grow up”
comScore’s eMarketing Benchmarks
Pharmaceutical marketers are continually challenged by their superiors to quantitatively measure the return on investment (ROI) of their campaigns. This is especially true for their eMarketing initiatives.
So, how do you know which online tactics are giving you the best return on your investment? To get started it is helpful to compare and contrast your own online strategy’s performance against competitive and perceived “best-of-class” tactics to evaluate the effectiveness of online programs, emulate effective strategies, and establish best practices. In other words, you need some eMarketing benchmarks.
This article summarizes a Pharma Marketing Talk conversation with Carolina Petrini, SVP, Marketing Solutions, comScore, regarding her company’s consumer e-marketing effectiveness benchmarks for the pharmaceutical industry.
The iPad in the Doctor’s Office
Understanding What Physicians and Patients Desire from mHealth Applications
The Apple iPad has also become a “must have” for pharmaceutical sales reps, but how are physicians and their patients using the iPad within the clinical setting? That was the focus of a study done by a team consisting of healthcare professionals in an NYU Langone Medical Center department, led by Douglas Elwood, MD, MBA, who is currently Director, GMI Strategy and Innovation at Bristol-Myers Squibb. This article reviews the latest results of that study.
Is It Time to End Industry Sponsored CME?
Preliminary results from a survey of Pharma Marketing News readers about their views regarding industry sponsorship of accredited CME, including views on value, bias, ACCME firewalls, and alternative means of CME support.
Limbic Market Research: Plumbing the Subconscious Motivators of Physicians
Conventional market research addresses a physician’s rational or higher brain and generally elicits responses that are not a sound guide to either what the physician really means or how he or she is likely to act. What’s needed is a way to look “behind the curtain” of verbal responses and reveal what truly motivates physicians. This article reviews Segmedica’s market research methodology, which applies behavioral science to medical market research.
Measuring Marketing Strategy
It has been said that there is only one way to test marketing: wait and see what happens. However, few pharma CEOs today would consider such a ‘watchful waiting’ approach to be appropriate. “This observation highlights an unmet need in the pharmaceutical industry,” says Mike Rea, Managing Director at IdeaPharma, a pharmaceutical marketing best practice consultancy. “While it is possible to predict and measure the effects of sales promotion by direct measures, or by modeling using surrogate measures, there are no empirical measures of the effectiveness of strategic marketing that can be used to judge effectiveness.” This article reviews Q2 Audit, a new company and an industry-standard measure of marketing effectiveness
A New Estimate of Drug Development Cost
Economic Experts Disagree Wildly on How Much It Costs to Bring a New Drug to Market.
How is it that the Tufts estimate is at least 14 TIMES the London School of Economics and Political Science (LSEPS) estimate? ‘Make no mistake,’ said Tufts. ‘Tufts CSDD will vigorously defend the scholarship, integrity, and validity of all its publish-ed research studies.
The New Written Prescription: Leveraging Technology to Measure Change in Physician Behavior as it Occurs
New Written Prescriptions (NWRx’s), which are uncontaminated by managed care intervention and patient fulfillment issues, are the ultimate measure of physician behavior and, therefore, the purest measure of promotional effectiveness, according to Nancy S. Lurker, CEO of ImpactRx.
Optimizing DTC Performance
How TNS Healthcare Helps Clients Build a Lifetime Connection Between Consumers and Brands
DTC spending is up 6.6% in the first half of 2006. What is the pharmaceutical industry getting in return for this increase? However you look at the numbers, typical DTC approaches often don’t deliver the impact they should for the dollars invested, according to TNSfyi, a product forecasting and healthcare/pharmaceutical modeling division of TNS Healthcare.
Patient-Level Data: A New Level of Analysis
The new kid on the block is patient-level data. Unlike physician-level data that describes the wholesale activity of Dr. John Smith as writing say 50 scripts of Lipitor, patient-level data zooms in on the patients of Dr. John Smith and specifies patient by patient who actually gets Lipitor.
Pharma Brand Personality Traits
Imbuing Brands With Human Characteristics Can Boost Sales
According to Lea Katsanis, PhD, Marketing Professor at Concordia University’s John Molson School of Business, developing a strong brand personality is an important way that pharmaceutical marketers can increase brand loyalty, brand trust, and ultimately brand equity.
Dr. Katsanis recently published results of a study that investigated the existence of prescription drug brand personalities as perceived by consumers in the Journal of Consumer Marketing. She was a guest on Pharma Marketing Talk on February 14, 2014, where she discussed the results of that study.
Pharma SmartPhone/Tablet Apps: Is There a Regulation for That?
Pharmaceutical marketers have jumped on the mobile application bandwagon as more and more companies roll out health-related applications for smartphones and touchpads such as Apple’s iPhone and iPad. But will the FDA regulate certain smartphone apps as medical devices? This article discusses the regulatory and other issues associated with pharma developed or sponsored health apps.
Pharmaceutical Competitive Intelligence
Forewarned is Forearmed
This report of impressions from a pharma CI conference is an insider view, primarily how-to principles for CI providers, rather than how-to-use concepts for CI consumers. Yet you don’t have to be an operative to benefit from reading this article, if for no other reason that to realize that SWOT is not just pitch-deck boilerplate, but the evolving awareness of your brand’s interactions with the world.
Physicians Favor Brands With a Compelling Adherence Program
Highlights from a Physician Survey by HealthPrize Technologies
This article summarizes the results of a survey of physicians designed to assess the value of various adherence solutions — including HealthPrize — and the potential of these solutions to influence physicians’ prescribing behavior.
Predictive Physician Marketing
Now there is a method proven to predict the success of a campaign prior to launch. The ProSigma Detail Model created by TargetRx, a marketing information services company located in Horsham, PA, helps pharmaceutical marketers develop the best detail and detail piece to drive prescribing behavior.
Quality of Pharma-sponsored Health Information on the Internet
With all the bad press recently about marketing directly to consumers and privacy concerns, perhaps it is time for the pharmaceutical industry to self-regulate marketing to consumers as well, especially via the Internet. What is the attitude of pharmaceutical professionals regarding the quality of pharma-sponsored health information on the Net? Does the industry perceive a problem in this area? To help answer this question, an online survey – Quality of Pharma-Sponsored Health Information on the Internet – was performed during the month of January, 2003. The results are summarized in this article.
Results from FDA Physician Survey on DTC Advertising
This article reviews a presentation by Kathryn Aikin of DDMAC/FDA in which she disclosed results from the FDA’s Physician Survey, which looked at the impact of DTC advertising on the doctor-patient relationship.
Sales Rep Assessment: Shoot the Messenger, the Message, or Both?
This article is a review of Metamorph, Inc.’s methodology of using specially trained physicians to assess and validate sales strategy, marketing messages and sales aids of pharmaceutical companies based on real-time calls with reps using a standardised set of data points.
Society of Industry Leaders: Help for Investors
The shifting pharma landscape makes it all the more important that investors make intelligent choices where to invest their money. The Society of Industry Leaders provides institutional money managers with timely information about the current state of the pharmaceutical market and how it is likely to progress.
Stop Wasting $Millions on Ineffective DTC Ads!
Testing Technology Can Help Improve Ads and Engage Viewers. This article highlights PreTesting’s ad measurement technology and reveals interesting insights about the major mistakes that pharmaceutical advertisers make with regard to measuring the effectiveness of their ads.
Topics covered include:
- Three Common Mistakes Made by Most Advertisers
- PreTesing Technology
- Case Study: Sleep Aid Ads
- Testing TV Ads in a TiVO World
- How to Create an Effective Drug Ad — 17 learnings from PreTesting
Top Companies, Classes, and Products in the DTC Space
This article provides an overview of DTC spending YTD 2002 compared with YTD 2001. The sources the data are Verispan’s Source Prescription Audit and other market research.
Understanding Drivers of Patient Behavior to Maximize DTC Effectiveness
This article summarizes the findings of the Market Measures/Cozint 2002 DTC Monitor study. While the study showed increased awareness of DTC ads by consumers, awareness varied considerably depending upon the medium. The study also measured perceptions of DTC advertising by consumers and segmented the results according to medical condition.
What the Next Generation Physician Wants from Pharma
This article summarizes results from Manhattan Research’s recently released survey: ePharma Physician® v3.0: The Future of Pharmaceutical e-Marketing, which focused on the adoption of emerging technologies by an early adopter physician audience. This audience is not small and cannot be ignored! Data are presented showing which online marketing programs are considered most effective by this group of physicians and what they desire as the optimal channel mix for marketing programs.
Why Pharma Can’t Ignore eDetailers
This article reviews a presentation by Elizabeth W. Boehm, Forrester Research Analyst in which she presented multiple data sets, including results from Forrester’s Technographics Benchmark Study and eDetailing Survey.
