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Tag Archive for 'personalization'

mark.stinson

Could “recommendation algorithms” have a greater role in pharma marketing?

Published by Mark Stinson on November 23, 2011.

Recommendation algorithms are best known for their use on e-commerce Web sites, where they generate a list of recommended items based on input about a customer’s interests.

One of the best known examples is Amazon.com, which uses recommendation algorithms to personalize the online store for each customer. The online store radically changed based on customer interests, searches, wish lists, and purchases. It shows programming books to a software engineer, and baby toys to a new mother.

No wonder that when you compare two important measures of Web-based and email advertising effectiveness – click-through and conversion rates – these personalized suggestions perform vastly better compared to untargeted content (such as banner ads and top-seller lists).

Now the framework is so commonplace that even new fall TV shows are being publicized based on “what you like.”

  • Like The Big Bang Theory? Try New Girl.
  • People like you who watch The Mentalist have also watched Unforgettable.
  • You have Modern Family on your DVR, so why not try Man Up!
  • You ordered every season of Mad Men on iTunes, so you should watch Pan Am.

We have seen the retail industry more broadly apply recommendation algorithms for targeted marketing, both online and offline. While e-commerce businesses may have the easiest vehicles for personalization, the technology is also compelling to offline marketers for use in postal mailings, coupons, and other forms of customer communication.

In healthcare, one example similar to Amazon’s is the Web site for Edward Hospital & Health Services in Naperville, Illinois.  Last year, Edwards started using real-time behavioral targeting to tailor its Web content to current and prospective patients based on individual health needs.  It uses consumer and patient data stored in the hospital’s CRM database to interactively and incrementally customize the content presented to individuals to enhance and personalize the consumer “conversation.”

From our pharma marketing viewpoint, I’ve been pondering the health, medical, and wellness applications of such recommendations:

  • If you have this condition, you should pay attention to these associated risk factors.
  • If you’re taking this prescription, you might consider this companion product/food to make it more tolerable.
  • If you are seeing this kind of doctor, you could also benefit from these supportive healthcare services.

These CRM-enabled Web messages could be displayed as dynamically created, real-time content that contains customized copy, imagery and offers for individual visitors.

Most of all, these relevant health messages would create a more personalized experience that could improve patient engagement.

Categories: New ideas and approaches
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dcaiazza

Customer Segmentation: It should be about what they are thinking, not who they are

Published by Damon Caiazza on September 30, 2010.

Recently, I’ve been rethinking my approach to segmentation and it’s time you did, too.

The Old School Model

The emergence of technology and the concept of personalization forced us to rethink how we interacted with customers in the late 90s.  This journey led to a variety of segmentation and personalization models being developed that  focused almost exclusively on demographics (age, gender, income, location, etc.), which served us well for the time.  In the pharmaceutical industry this translated to a few basic trends for physicians:

  1. Functional/Professional Grouping – Nurse, Doctor, Pharmacist, Physical Therapist, etc.
  2. Specialty Grouping – Cardiologist, Oncologist, Pediatrician, etc.
  3. Disease State Breakdown – Juvenile Diabetes, Adult Diabetes, etc.

The same held true for patients with:

  1. Disease State Breakdown – Juvenile Diabetes, Adult Diabetes, etc.
  2. Specialty Grouping – Patient, Caregiver, etc.
  3. Age – Young patient, elderly patient, etc.

The Challenge

While I’m the first to say there are some good qualities and appropriate uses in the demographic-based segmentation models mentioned above, I can’t help but wonder if there is a better (or at least different) way to approach segmentation.

Customer Mindset:  Is it Psychographic or Behavioral Segmentation?

I’ve recently started to explore an approach to segmentation that feels like a hybrid of Psychographic (attributes such as Attitudes, Interests, and Opinions) and Behavioral (attributes such as Benefit Sought and User Status).  This approach abandons the traditional segmentation approach in lieu for one that focuses on the customer mindset.  This strategy focuses less on who the person is and more on what they are trying to accomplish.  The basic construct that I use is:

Mindset -> Action -> Outcome

Here is how it might play out in your next Website project when setting up a segmentation model for what you may normally call your patient segment under the demographic-based model.

Change Isn’t Easy

You may find that taking such an approach complicates your messaging or the tactical implementation, however, I’d argue that not taking this approach (or one similar) put you at risk of never creating the proper connection with your customer.  After all, their needs have evolved – shouldn’t we as marketers do the same?

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kearly

Hey, do I know you?

Published by Kristan Early on June 9, 2010.

As a creative person, letting others experience me through my creative expressions is a turn-on.  I mean that in the most Rated G way imaginable.  But it’s true. With every idea, ad, direct mail piece, or television commercial there’s a little bit of me right there, consciously trying to connect to you.

Are you doing the same with your brand?

It’s funny, but how many times during the course of your day do you spend thinking about how you will handle a certain situation, a conversation, an encounter?

What if he says this? What if they do that? What if med legal says no?

We really do think about it and even rehearse how we’ll present ourselves to get what we ultimately want.

What if you put the same amount of thought towards how your company and your products behave with your customers – who happen to be human?  Well, I think you might  get lucky.

I know he likes this…

They really respond when I do this…

I know what she likes, so….

Yes, it is a seduction. And if you don’t realize it, then let’s face it, you’ll be sitting alone Saturday night.

So my advice to all of you is to give of yourself. Learn what your customers like, want, or respond to. And then let them get to know you. Like you.  Even look forward to your every visit. Until just the mere glimpse of you brings a smile, an understanding, the feeling of a secret bond.

Because when you know and give someone what they really want, they often reciprocate.

Categories: New ideas and approaches
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areinbolz

How can the pharmaceuticals industry learn from the butcher’s round the corner?

Published by Andreas Reinbolz on June 7, 2010.

My local butcher’s is my favourite shop: the owner not only knows my name, but also knows exactly what I like to eat. She often recommends the French pâté (which I have a weakness for), but is well aware that there is no point in suggesting the uncooked ham (which I dislike with a passion). Her assistants also know me and my palate, and when I arrive at the till I always seem to have more in my basket than I had planned – plus a few expert tips and tasty-sounding recipes.

Wouldn’t it be great if pharmaceuticals marketing was like that? Just imagine it: On the one hand, the sales rep would provide the doctor with tailored information which enables him to not only provide his patients with even better treatment, but also ease the burden of his daily practice routine. On the other, the call centre would only invite the doctor to events which are of real relevance to them, and any e-newsletters sent out to them would focus in on their specific interests.

All my butcher needs is a few attentive assistants and an incredible memory. If she were to open up a second branch in the town centre, the smart assistants there only need my loyalty card to give me the same service by seeing what recommendations I have been getting in my favourite shop around the corner.

There is a term for this approach in the pharmaceuticals marketing sector: closed loop marketing. This term is generally used as a byword for customer orientation, high-quality service and the provision of consistently relevant recommendations to the doctor. The basis is supposed to be continuous feedback and constant improvement of interaction with him. Despite their good intentions, practical implementation of these theoretical goals tends to simply involve arming sales representatives with tablet PCs crammed with product marketing material. The actual paradigm shift – i.e. a move towards the consideration of the customer and their specific requirements – often gets lost in a tangle of technology and ill-delegated responsibilities.

It’s a shame really. Look at it this way: If my butcher can have as much success as she does simply by applying the approach described above, how much additional success can be achieved if we turn doctors into happy customers?

(Written with Arno Bock)

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