Make sure your eDetailing programs help you uncover valuable insights to properly engage physicians.

1. Get the gold.
Make sure your eDetailing programs help you uncover valuable
insights to properly engage physicians.
Everything about being a good, sophisticated • Recruitment (e-mail, direct mail, web,
marketer within pharma for the next decade SEM, rep- delivered invites)
or more will be about better understanding • Content engagement (website, eDetail
physicians—at the physician level, not in viewing, Q&A, surveys)
aggregate—and what they need to practice
• Fulfillment (rep follow-up, honoraria delivery,
medicine, as well as determining how you,
sample delivery)
your products and your company can help
them. eDetailing, for all its perceived faults, has • Re-recruitment/retention (e-mail, direct mail)
provided great initial opportunities for pharma
That’s several opportunities to make a brand
to better understand its physicians, provided it is
impression, and several opportunities to learn
enlisted as the true relationship marketing force
a lot more about the physician you’re targeting.
it can be. And, eDetailing may provide a solid
The amount of behavioral visibility you have into
step toward generating critical and continuous
ALL of those touch points is a key indicator of
physician insight that can be used to create new
how strategically valuable the program can be.
opportunities of competitive advantage.
Good programs provide a lot of visibility, with
clean physician-level data, and bad programs
I know all about eDetailing, provide little or no visibility at the physician
level. Visibility is important in order to assess
but why should I believe it is the relative efficacy of all of the sub-components
that make up the program. Ultimately it can lead
better than any other tactic? to physician-level profiles that indicate channel
The truth is, it may not be—it really depends on preference, promotional sensitivity, message
how you’ve implemented it and what success preference and overall level of engagement.
measures you’ve put in place. The interesting
thing about eDetailing is that in any given
program, there exist several touch points with
a physician across a set period of time and
through a variety of channels:
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2. Get the gold. Make sure your eDetailing programs help you uncover valuable insights to properly engage physicians.
There are a lot of data from a single tactic, much Transactional/relationship data
more than are generally obtained from any
• Clicks
stand-alone tactic, and data are critical in making
• Open rates
informed marketing decisions. Unfortunately,
most programs are rarely established with full data • Promotional response
transparency being a key success measure, relying • Time on site
instead on the binary pass/fail nature of ROI, • Channel preference
so most product managers never end up pressing • Number of solicitations to cause a return visit
for this level of insight.
• Opt-ins, opt-outs
• Follow-up requests
Ok, so now I get that All of this amounts to extremely valuable insight
eDetailing can provide a lot into what it takes to enroll and keep physicians
in your program. It’s also, incidentally, what most
of data, but seriously, what third-party tactic providers charge you hand-
do you expect me to do somely for, because they use all of this information
to maintain their relationships with physicians,
with them? I’ve only got which they in turn rent to you. It’s a strategic deci-
sion to determine whether your company wants
so much time in my day. this insight for itself, but until you do have it, you
Unfortunately, this is what we hear more will always have to pay for it and it’s only going to
frequently than we’d like, and it’s a view (you get more costly as access becomes a tougher issue.
should know) that is shared by many eDetailing Beyond cost alone, this information can be used to
companies (“…they’ll never do anything with that more selectively work with list vendors and chan-
information anyway…”). nel partners to maximize your reach and frequency,
in ways that find your target physicians with
The question you need to ask yourself is, “Do I
greater efficiency.
think I have enough information to know that I’m
making the best use of my marketing investment?”
Most likely your answer will be “no” because most
of us are operating on the “go with what you’ve
got principle.” But let’s examine what you might
be able to learn by conducting a good eDetailing
program, what the data might tell you and what you
might be able to do with them:
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3. Get the gold. Make sure your eDetailing programs help you uncover valuable insights to properly engage physicians.
Behavioral/observational data
Fine, I get all this, but it all
• Content preference
(charts, illustrations, text, audio, video) seems like a lot of work.
• Click paths Why should I care?
• Engagement
Well, the simple truth is everything in pharma
• Prescribing behavior marketing is changing at some level, and no one
Why put a lot of time and investment into video really knows how it’s all going to shake out. We feel
when your physicians would rather download and this every day and it’s making it increasingly harder
read a study? Or perhaps some of your primary care to know what to do next. For several years there
physicians enjoy podcasts, and some specialists existed fairly tried and true marketing approaches
would like to see a video presentation by a national to pre-launch, launch, new indications and late life-
key opinion leader? Beyond listening to what cycle conditions. But now, with smaller markets,
physicians tell us they like, watching them to see tighter budgets, decreased access and legislative
what they do tells us a lot about where we should and regulatory pressures, it’s not as easy to know
invest, and what types of media we may want to what will necessarily work. We really don’t have
merchandise to a specific physician upon his or her much choice but to raise the level of intimacy with
return to the website. People like to learn and be physicians so we know how to serve them better,
informed in different ways, and physicians are no and ultimately, how we can help them serve their
different. The bottom line is, getting a physician’s patients better.
attention is pretty difficult these days—getting the
next part right with the content is pretty important Done, I’m sold, what do
to keep them coming back.
Attitudinal data
I do next?
• Survey response If you’re currently conducting eDetailing programs,
do an assessment of the level of data you’re getting
• Q&A
from your partner. The e-mail address of your
Much like your qualitative and quantitative studies, participants is important and should be mandatory
but without the rigor of a formal market research for any program, as is the physician’s individual
effort, this information rounds out the data you’ve identity. Be wary of any partner that refuses to
already collected on participating physicians to share this information. Audit what additional
help explain what is apparently important to them. transactional/relationship data are available to you
This mitigates the need to project responses to a so that you can better assess how each participant
larger population of physicians—these folks have interacts with your program. Match this
told you directly what they care about, giving you a information up against your learning objectives for
wonderful opportunity to respond and enrich the the program, and test the value of that information
experience for them. by assessing how it provides value to and informs
other tactics.
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4. Get the gold. Make sure your eDetailing programs help you uncover valuable insights to properly engage physicians.
If you’re new to eDetailing, resist the urge to do Jon Sawyer, Principal
a pilot. There’s really nothing new to learn here
Jon Sawyer is the Practice Lead
structurally, and most eDetailing pilots are really
for closerlook’s pharmaceutical
code for underfunded budgets and loose objectives.
practices and oversees the
Experience has demonstrated that these programs
delivery of all marketing
work if the objectives are sufficiently thought
programs at closerlook. A
out ahead of time and the programs themselves
marketing strategist by trade, he
are well executed. If you have concerns about
is instrumental in creating and delivering innovative
primary care physician vs. specialist response rates,
marketing solutions for healthcare clients.
recruitment or honoraria options, or media to
enlist, speak to a seasoned eDetailing provider who Jon has extensive experience with integrated
will be able to fill you in. marketing-strategy development, communications,
data-segmentation analysis and digital strategy.
Finally, be clear about what you want to learn about
He has over 14 years of experience in business
your physicians, in addition to your required ROI
planning and marketing-communications
thresholds. Make a list, and hold the program to
development within the healthcare industry.
it. Be honest with yourself about the company’s
His clients include Astellas Pharma US, Inc.,
ability to react to the information you obtain, and
TAP Pharmaceuticals, Takeda Pharmaceuticals,
push as hard as you can for a highly personalized
Ortho-Biotech, Novo Nordisk, Santarus, Inc.,
experience. Your physicians will appreciate it and
Ther-Rx, Abbott Laboratories, Eli Lilly and others.
will reward you with their participation.
Jon holds an M.S. in Integrated Marketing from
Northwestern University.
Want to continue this discussion? Get in touch
with jon sawyer at jsawyer@closerlook.com.
©2010 closerlook, inc. closerlook.com page 4