DTC 360

THE ROLE OF MARKET RESEARCH IN DTC MARKETING
By Richard Meyer

According to a recent McKinsey survey, only 30% of executives in the U.S. healthcare industry say their companies are ready for reform and changing economic conditions. Nowhere is this truer than with DTC marketers, who are under a lot of pressure to justify budgets and show clear ROI for every dollar spent. The days of spending huge sums of money to generate awareness and communicate brand messages are quickly being replaced by a “show me the money” attitude.

Justifying the Spend
DTC marketers work closely with and rely heavily on market research to provide insights and test messages and advertising. However, a lot of time, and I mean a lot of time, is also spent justifying dollars and trying to explain to company executives where the money went and what they got in return. Since most company executives do not have a marketing background, terms like reach and frequency, BASES test, and message recall trends seemed to justify the dollars used, but more and more executives are looking at the sales trend to determine if in fact DTC marketing is necessary.

In the prelaunch phase of drug development, market research can provide valuable insights into how consumers view current medical conditions and healthcare treatments. Marketers then developed targeted messages for the largest segments and the messages were tested against each segment. Of course, the problem with this model is that segmentation has been replaced with micro-segmentation. Because of the wealth of information available and the fragmentation of media, it’s harder now to use traditional segmentation models for new products.

Market research however can still fill a void and reduce the risk of marketing program failures. Marketers have to get into the mind of the consumer, but more importantly they also need to understand the decision process consumers go through when choosing a healthcare treatment. Marketing then needs to address the barriers through a decision tree analysis and determining which media channel can help overcome those barriers.

Converting Prospects to Customers
Once the product is launched, market research is asked to justify the messages and spend but rather than wasting time doing that it should be focusing on why our message worked with people who have asked for our product and why it did not on people who did not. Marketing then needs to evolve messaging to ensure that prospects are converted to customers. Market research also plays a critical role in compliance and persistence. A lot of drug marketing people have given up on retaining current customers, but that attitude can result in a lot of money being left on the table at a time when DTC marketers need every dollar to go to the bottom line.

It’s important that DTC marketing people forge an excellent working relationship with their market research people. By understanding why marketers are asking questions, market research people can better determine how to ask the right questions to gain better insights. Let your market research people spend time opening eyes and minds rather than justifying your spend and you’ll get better results.

Richard Meyer is President of Online Strategic Solutions (www.onlinestrategicsolutions.com), an Internet consulting company. He has worked in healthcare marketing for more than 12 years, and writes at www.worldofdtcmarketing.com and www.richsblog.com. He welcomes comments at richardameyer@me.com.