Archive for the ‘Marketing’ Category

The Power of Targeted Healthcare Marketing

Sunday, January 24th, 2010

For centuries, healthcare was generally practiced under the assumption that the approach to men’s health worked just as well for women. But, advances in modern medicine and the evolution of specialized healthcare show that, even though there are similarities between men and women’s healthcare practices, it’s the differences between the two that mean the most.

So why then do so many healthcare marketers insist upon using the same approach when communicating to both men and women?

A recent study done by several healthcare ad agencies shows that women have different needs when it comes to their health than men. Furthermore, women can be segmented even further into age groups that have different healthcare wants and communication styles.

The answer to this dilemma, is effective, targeted marketing—a concept that many seem to have overlooked in the process of creating their advertising message. By looking at women as different segments, instead of a whole, the target audience can be reached more accurately and consumers are able to identify and connect more with the communications being sent out.

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Posted in AIR Health, Marketing, Segmentation | No Comments »

Handheld Branding

Tuesday, December 22nd, 2009

Even with the fate of online pharma advertising waiting in the FDA’s hands after the hearings, some have found a new way to get around the technicalities of banner advertising and have gone for a much more branded, yet handheld approach.

Ever since the iPhone and iPod touch came out, iTunes has been seeing owners download at least 10 new apps per month on average, and recently just celebrated it’s 1.5 billionth download.  Interestingly enough, the commercials you see are right: you name it and there’s an app for that. Some do nothing and sell nothing, like the Zippo Lighter app. But then there are other branded apps that actually provide value to a consumer. And now pharma’s getting into the branded app mix, too.

Sanofi-Aventis recently rolled out its GoMeals iPhone app that acts as “a food-tracking tool that allows users to search thousands of foods and dishes from popular restaurants and grocery stores to easily see the nutritional content of meals and snacks,” according to MedAdNews.

Even though GoMeals was created as a tool to support their online diabetes community, the app can be used by just about anyone who is looking to watch their daily intake. But more importantly, it gives the online diabetic community a trusted source of information and a brand to look to for all of their diabetic needs, even if Sanofi-Aventis isn’t directly selling Lantus, their 24-hour insulin shots.

Online advertising is no doubt a powerful means of communicating to targeted audiences. But, oftentimes a branded application or portal for information can be just as powerful when it builds up brand loyalty. Because once brand loyalty has been firmly established, you don’t have customers anymore; you have brand evangelists, which is one bond that’s incredibly difficult to break.

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Posted in Internet, Marketing | No Comments »

Hearing Aid: Will FDA Deliberations on Social Media Help?

Wednesday, November 18th, 2009

The fact that the FDA held Internet-related hearings for the first time in more than a decade is a good first step toward acknowledging the importance of social media (SM) in pharmaceutical marketing.

With nearly two-thirds of Americans regularly searching for heath care information online – Google recently reported more than 4.5 billion health-related searches annually at the hearings – and an estimated 75% of adults having access to the Internet, SM, and how people engage with it, is clearly much more than a trend. It is a continuing shift in consumer behavior and how patients process information and make decisions.

Beyond marketing, the pharmaceutical industry needs to be afforded the opportunity to disseminate critical and valuable information through the channels their customers are using.

And although only four pharmaceutical companies presented at last week’s hearings, by the time the consultation period ends on February 28, 2010, it is a sure bet that most, if not all, of the major players will weigh in.

Most of last week’s presentations centered around three fundamental, if not obvious, themes:

1. A decision must be made quickly
The Internet moves quickly and will not stand still, even for the FDA. Social media is undeniably a powerful and important means of communicating with highly targeted audiences. Reaching the right audience for any product or service is essential to success, and in no other industry is that more apparent and important than pharma.

2. You cannot control Internet content all the time
The fact of the matter is that you cannot police the Internet and all of the content that gets posted 24 hours a day, 7 days a week. As mentioned in the previous post, almost 80 percent of the Internet population researches health topics online. Pharma should have some way to interact with this population, regardless of whether it’s as simple as banner ads on a web page or more complex like ensuring that drug information is listed correctly on social media sites.

3. Present clear guidelines and they will be followed
The overall feeling of the hearings was not one of defiance on behalf of pharma and advertisers. Instead, there was a borderline plea for clear-cut guidelines and regulations as to what can and can’t be done with social media and Internet advertising. After all, the hearings were partially due to the fact that the FDA had issued 14 warning letters to several pharma organizations earlier this year.

But will these hearings yield any action, or at least clear direction? Technology and SM will not wait for the FDA to labor over establishing guidelines in the traditional manner. If they spend time frittering, people will no longer be Twittering and will soon be on to the next SM trend.

Timely and decisive action is needed. But the key component will be to build in the flexibility to adapt to emerging trends.

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Posted in FDA, Marketing, Pharma Marketing | No Comments »

AIR Health’s Innovative Pedigree - Lead Story in DM News

Monday, August 17th, 2009

As you have seen from the video testimonials, market leaders in their respective fields have chosen AIR to lead their marketing segmentation programs. AIR’s innovation has certainly delivered superior results for these clients, and AIR Health will bring this same ground-breaking thinking and expertise to the healthcare industry on September 9, 2009.

These are certainly not the only examples of client success. DM News (Digital Insider), a leading industry publication, recently highlighted AIR’s uniqueness with client Hershey Entertainment & Resorts. Here is an excerpt:

“We realized that we had not been doing enough with our data,” said Tjibbe Lambers, director of marketing analytics at Hershey Entertainment & Resorts. The company began working with direct marketing firm Air Marketing in 2007 in order to consolidate data across its customer relationship channels, sales, accounting and finance departments.

The theme park now has four audiences it targets with unique messaging: its family customers, couples segment, spa visitors and golfers. Hershey’s uses a combination of mailings, customer micro-sites and e-mail to connect with customers. A general brochure is still sent to all of the customer segments. After that, customers receive a follow-up postcard that is aligned with the recipient’s interest category, such as golf. The post card directs the recipient to a PURL, or personalized URL, that provides original content aligned with their interest. For example, golfers might find an “insider’s tip sheet” and spa-goers will see a health and wellness-related article.

“Consumers are tired of the old way of direct marketing,” Elaine Ralls, president of AIR Marketing, told DMNews.

There are many companies that are looking to capture and then analyze marketing and customer data across their organizations. However, Ralls believes her company has hit a “sweet spot” by tying in financial and accounting information as well. In the case of Hershey’s, Air Marketing is able to predict how much revenue various customers within each segment will bring in.

At the end of the day, the results are consistent across four market leaders in four different industries. Market segmentation has revolutionized their marketing, starting with a single view of the customer across all channels and ending with customized message delivery to attain remarkable ROI. In fact, one of AIR’s clients hit a 38 to 1 return on their marketing investment. Now consider how this could augment the usual 2-3 times return you see on most pharmaceutical marketing programs.

This week, you will hear more about AIR Health and its view of a comprehensive EMR/ Electronic Marketing Record for your target physicians. Stay tuned.

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Posted in AIR Marketing, Marketing, Return on Investment | No Comments »

Marketing ROI

Sunday, August 9th, 2009

In today’s economy, every pharma CMO, marketing manager and director is being questioned on the value of each marketing program. The days of free-flowing marketing budgets with bloated sales organizations and non-defined goals are long gone. Today, it’s all about running highly focused campaigns with direct, measurable results. That is what AIR is all about: Analytics, Imagination, Results!

In your microsite video, Andre Fournier from Destination Hotels and Resorts succinctly states, “The past has been about frequency and reach. The future is about quality and are we touching the right people.” In essence, he’s saying the best way to ensure maximum ROI is to have a clear definition of your target audience. The two are intricately related. Marketing campaigns built on effective customer/prospect targeting have a much better chance of delivering a significant ROI. So, what makes targeting an effective marketing tool?
To answer this question, you need to begin by clearly defining the objective for the marketing initiative. Once this is defined, it helps you determine the type of data that can be used.

Once the goal is established, you really need to make sure the parameters defining the target market are adequate. If you’re seeking to lift the ROI of Brand X with a certain group of physicians in a particular geographic market interfacing with specific plan formularies, then having as much information as possible along these parameters will prove to be very useful.

Armed with this kind of targeting definition, your next steps are to determine the most suitable channel(s), develop effective creative and deliver the message through the preferred channels of the individual physician. With this approach, it will be very easy to answer those tough performance questions everyone is asking in a tough economy.

Here are some of the comments on the kind of ROI you can expect when you have a marketing campaign based on segmentation:

Patrick Servino: “The campaign in itself allowed us to target audiences based on profiles that we thought were the most profitable and we developed messaging according to those profiles and custom offers…We hit about a 38 to 1 return on marketing investment ratio.”

Cynthia Ivan, Health Net: “We provided the data, AIR worked their magic spinning it… We got much better responses and we were able to pull in more lead traffic by being more focused on each of the markets while it was the same campaign. It was successful; we pulled in two to three times the number of average leads.”

As I mentioned earlier, we’re preparing a case study video specifically focused on ROI delivered from marketing segmentation. The video will be posted on August 27. Be sure to mark your calendars.

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Posted in Marketing, Return on Investment, Segmentation | No Comments »