In today’s world of pharmaceutical direct marketing, it hasbecome clear that the emergence of the Internet has changed the way directcampaigns are executed. But, has the web zapped offline response rates ormerely forced brand managers to come up with even more creative ways to reachtarget audiences?
According to Jay Bolling, president of Roska HealthcareAdvertising, the idea that offline direct marketing is being squeezed is verymuch a misnomer. Sure the online space is growing, he says, but direct mailremains king among doctors. And Bolling says he has the numbers to prove it.
When it comes to consumers, “there are just times whenpeople like to sit and have something tangible,” Bolling says. “In the past,the whole thing was about patients raising their hand. It was about howmarketers were going to segment them. But now there has been an evolution ofdirect techniques. The whole paradigm is shifting forward in the consumermarketing cycle.”
Bolling says pharmaceutical direct marketing should never besimply thought of as “direct mail.” “With direct mail, in isolation, you arenot going to get tremendous response rates,” Bolling says. “Instead direct mailshould complement other media. You really have to look at a ‘surround sound’approach.”
As the Lunestas and Rozerems of the space continue to spendlarge amounts of money on DTC advertising, there are a number of brands thatwant and need to reach consumers but cannot afford the budget required bybuilding an awareness approach. What marketers find is that using directtechniques up front as a core consumer marketing strategy can be a successfulalternative.
“Let’s face it, we are not only asking patients to be awareof a potential disease state,” he says. “We are asking them to do a tremendousamount, and the idea that we are going to use 60-second spots to take someoneall the way through that filter is a bit naïve.”
Case study: Tracleer
Pablo Przygoda, product manager, patient initiatives atActelion Pharmaceuticals, had five goals in mind 15 months ago when his firmand Roska Healthcare Advertising jointly embarked on the “Sure Steps” programbehind Tracleer, an oral therapy for the treatment of pulmonary arterialhypertension (PAH).
Przygoda needed to increase patient persistency, setrealistic expectations for success, help patients manage their disease,maximize success with therapy and build trust.
Tracleer is an effective medication for PAH but it posescertain challenges, according to Przygoda. Tracleer use requires monthlytesting and can cause side effects, and the drug’s positive effect on thepatient can be slow and gradual. High drop-off rates occur as a result of thesechallenges, Przygoda notes.
Bolling adds, “We needed to develop the messages to engagethe users. We couldn’t just throw out messages and educational material. Weidentified the barriers and addressed those barriers so that patients wereready and interested in being educated.”
The Tracleer campaign started as an integrated effort ofin-office material, multi-wave direct mail, phone calls from nurse counselorsand some Internet and computer resources. A team of registered nurses trainedby Actelion on PAH and therapy were made available to patients on weekdays from8 am to 11 pm EST.
The English and Spanish-speaking RNs offered one-on-onephone support to patients. RNs handled day-to-day issues and basic questionssuch as frequently asked questions, treatment questions, expectations abouttherapy, insurance and financial issues, monthly shipments andmonitoring/testing questions.
Actelion and Roska’s use of the “surround sound” approachhelped the marketers of Tracleer increase persistency among 16% of allpatients, increasing Actelion’s revenue by 23%.
According to Przygoda, patient adherence must be addressedto maximize the full potential of your brand.
There are several factors that make the Tracleer unique andsuccessful, Bolling adds. “This campaign is fully integrated with the salesforce and the in-office element is also a very big part of it. Especially withthis type of therapy, where there is high-involvement from both the patient andphysician,” he says.
Bolling notes that the Tracleer campaign also integratesnurses and the physcians into it by surrounding patients on the phone, in theoffice and at home.
“All those things work hand in hand. We have been able tocollect a database and when someone is enrolled we immediately reach out tothem and start to set expectations. We have a nurse counselor who will callthem and we even have the ability where a nurse counselor can work with anoffice to establish continuity of care.”
Direct marketing firm Harte-Hanks was recently tasked byTeva to build a non-branded hypermarketing program to build a database of potentialpatients and caregivers during the pre-launch stage for Azilect, a new therapyfor Parkinson’s disease.
Patients and caregivers were engaged via surveys and aspecially designed newsletter Life in Balance to communicate importantinformation about the disease state and how to live with the disease.
The newsletter was made available both online and offline.
“The database continued to build during the pre-launch stagethrough self-reported survey information,” David Zaritsky, managing director,pharmaceutical markets, explains.
At launch the campaign morphed into an Azilect-brandedprogram, letting patients and caregivers know that Azilect was availablethrough physician specialists.
Combining acquisition, conversion and retention tactics, theresults saw a significant database of potential patients and caregivers builtover time during the pre-launch stage and at launch.
“The product messaging went out to all those who opted intothe program,” Zaritsky said. “The database continues to build to ensure thatnew caregivers and patients become aware of Teva’s new therapy for Parkinsons.”
According to Harte-Hanks’ Zaritsky, “The whole essence ofdirect marketing is to find out what information is important to consumers orpatients.”
Marketers have to ask how their audience prefers to receiveinformation and how often? It is for this reason that integrated marketing isthe most effective way to maximize desired results, namely, driving TRx’s andmaximizing patients’/consumers’ lifetime value.
‘Persona’ marketing
Offline pushes such as direct mail pieces allow pharmamarketers to provide an audience with a feeling of control and motivationsimilar to which they experience online. And, of course, there does remain asegment of patients and healthcare providers who continue to prefer the offlinechannel and have made that choice known to the marketer. “For example, it makesno sense to communicate with elderly patients using e-mail if they are notcomfortable with the Internet,” says Zaritsky. One true innovation in theoffline direct marketing space lies around what Zaritsky has termed “personas.”
“The tech markets and retailers have had this right foryears,” he says. “Essentially these personas are built around individuals—depending on who they are—and several of their characteristics.
In this way we can formulate ‘buckets’ of varying ways tocommunicate offline, as well as different deliverables to the differentpersonas, based on who they are. This gives the patient and healthcare providerthe opportunity to receive the materials they want with the information theyneed…not just a shotgun blast of information coming from a facelessmanufacturer. Today when you walk into Best Buy they know that you fall intoone of seven buckets or ‘personas’ and they interact with you accordingly. The trendin pharma is that to become more ‘client-centric,’ we need to speak to thesesame rules.”
Zaritsky says offline direct marketing can be used as arelationship builder in pharma as effectively, or even better, than onlinemethods. “Again, if the consumer indicates their preference for offlinematerials and information, this is the way marketers need to provide it.…Someconsumers might opt to receive information both online and offline, whichensures that this segment gets the information via two different channels,” hesays. “For example, product information can be provided offline and persistencyreminders can be sent via the digital channel. Recipients of medical information still prefer somethingthey can hold and interact with, and the value behind a physical piece is stillclear.”
Don’t expect new media to replace old media any time soon orvice versa says Nick Moore, chief creative officer, Wunderman.
“The fact that you’ve got something new means that consumersare using it to enhance their experiences, their expectations and their contactwith brands but not necessarily replace them,” Moore says. “Just in the sameway television did not replace radio, the relationship between different mediacertainly alters media but those media don’t go away.”
In with the old and in with the new
According to Moore, the Internet is not the only place wheretechnology is changing. Computerization has also revolutionized the digitalprint arena in the past five years.
“We can do things now which are well beyond what we could dojust a few years ago,” he says. “Just as importantly, you can do them at highvolume and you can do them at a reasonable cost, which was not necessarily truea few years ago.”
“Another thing that is extraordinary,” Moore adds, “we alsowork with (electronics firm) HP and they will tell you that the advent of theInternet means that people are using more paper than they ever have in thehistory of the world. People like paper. When things are important and theylike to keep them, they print them out. When we send people things on paperthat they find useful and relevant, they keep them. I think irrelevantmaterial, whatever medium it comes in, is going to be ditched.”
Moore notes that most people say they don’t respond toso-called junk mail but points out that when you listen to the language peopleuse, whether they are physicians or airline pilots, the language changes from‘I never read that stuff’ to ‘I got sent some information.’ The materials areessentially the same stuff, Moore says. “It’s direct marketing material butthere are times people find it useful and informative and they do respond andthey are very willing to engage in some sort of dialogue or exchange.”
And when it come to physicians who get a lot of e-mail everyday, it can be a very cluttered environment to work within.
“They spend an enormous amount of time on the web, visitingparticular places. So, there’s not a huge opportunity to reach them withrelevant online messaging. That’s why mail still has an important role in thephysician space,” he says.
Moore adds that the trends he seesgrowing in the pharmaceuticalspace are about blending media together. “That’s when you get your optimalresults,” he says. “It’s about being able to follow where the consumer leads.This has been going on for quite some time. It’s a mix of media that is givingyou your best results and your maximum adherence.”
From the February 01, 2008 Issue of MM+M - Medical Marketing and Media
