PM360 March 2010

eMARKETING THINK TANK

Exclusive online content with expanded commentary from contributors to our March eMarketing Think Tank, BUILDING ROI IN A CHANGING MARKET

ROI is the bottom line, so we asked 11 industry experts to share their techniques for boosting eMarketing results. We asked them: What are the hottest channels? What’s the best mix? What’s next? Here’s their best advice.

Wendy White
Founder and President Siren Interactive
wwhite@sireninteractive.com
Twitter: @SirenWendy
www.sireninteractive.com

Search (both paid and organic) is a very effective way to achieve ROI. This is especially true when dealing with a small, targeted audience for rare disorders. Search allows the audience you most want to connect with to find your content when they are looking for information about a disease or are about to make a treatment decision. By researching social media conversations we can determine the exact words and ads that lead to the greatest conversions in paid search (PPC), and when combined with search optimization (SEO), yield get even bigger payoffs.

Universal search, which offers results for images and videos, is becoming increasingly important. Videos, properly submitted, are 53 times more likely to generate a first page Google ranking than traditional SEO techniques, according to a study by Forrester Research. We advise clients to appropriately tag and leverage all their photo and video assets online. Videos should also be placed on popular sharing sites, such as YouTube. If they mention a drug, then the prescribing information must be embedded.

More ROI
True customer relationship marketing programs – that provide custom, personalized messages based on the target’s behavior and preferences – can also show significant ROI. These valuable messages should be served to the patient, caregiver, or HCP via the method they prefer, whether by phone, email or SMS. This approach builds trust and a direct, positive relationship with the brand.

Measurement Beyond Clicks
One way to evaluate success for hard-to-measure marketing campaigns is how much the content and tools are shared. Pharma should be creating shareworthy content — content that patients find valuable enough to share. With social sites such as Facebook and Twitter it’s easier than ever for people to share health information with a wide network of friends and family. Be sure to not only enable this sharing but to measure the viral nature of your marketing. Measuring how often a message is shared is a better measure of engagement than open rates, click-throughs or page views.

R.J. Lewis
Founder, President, and CEO
e-Healthcare Solutions
rlewis@e-healthcaresolutions.com

Focus on Physicians
On a dollar for dollar basis, efforts focused on the physician are much more impactful than efforts focused on the consumer. Influencing the prescribing pattern of one physician can impact hundreds of future prescriptions. Even when DTC works and a patient asks for your brand by name, the physician still has to write the prescription. An isolated online DTC campaign greatly underperforms the combined synergistic effect of dual focused online messaging reaching both the physician and consumer. ROI is driven more by the target audience than the channel or medium.

What's the Best Channel Mix?
This is a simple question, with a complex answer. Media is often complementary and synergistic, yet we try to isolate the many elements that drive “branding”. Logic dictates: Increase the media spend on what is working and decrease the spend on what is not working. The flaw in this logic is our ability to measure and our desire to isolate effects when one plus one is greater than two. Search advertising historically received the “credit” for much of the effect that online display advertising was generating. Many studies have since come out to better quantify the synergistic effect that display has on improving both organic and paid search results. For a full overview of this, see my blog posting at: http://e-healthcaresolutions.com/blog/?p=474

There are many fantastic companies such as Dynamic Logic, Knowledge Networks and Comscore who specialize in measuring the lift in brand awareness, aided and unaided recall, and other metrics using test and control groups both pre and post campaign. Paul Ivans at Evolution Road Consulting together with Comscore performed a longitudinal study measuring RX lift due to both online display ad exposure and brand.com site visitation over the course of several years (results presented at the recent ePharma Summit). While site visitation shows the greatest RX lift, ad exposure also shows positive ROI, even without a site visit. One challenge the online media industry faces is that the cost of measuring accurately is relatively large in comparison to the relatively small online media spend.

The Next Big Thing
In the short term, mobile marketing and “app” creation is very exciting. Longer term, marketer’s ability to harness the data collected from electronic medical records and potentially use that data to better measure and improve patient outcomes is quite exciting. Changes in technology will continue to create opportunity for marketers who are willing to embrace change. Those who are resistant to change will not be able to call themselves marketers for very long. Invest in the skills necessary to be able to adapt and change often. Become a change agent.

Sergey Krayev
Interactive Manager for Global Healthcare
Kimberly-Clark Health Care
sergey.krayev@kcc.com

So much has changed in the marketing world in the past ten years, where marketers now have an endless list of tools to engage their audiences. Something else has changed--the necessity to make continuous marketing tactic enhancements with great precision and perfectly executed timing.

Web Analytics
At Kimberly-Clark Health Care, we continuously test new strategies to maximize customer engagement where Web analytics play a major role. In our recent homepage re-design (www.kchealthcare.com), we adopted a user-centric approach driven by customer interview feedback and online user behavior analysis, yielding a 60% traffic increase and increased time on site and pages per visit.

eNewsletters and Social Media
The communication strategy for our recent Not On My Watch campaign (www.haiwatch.com) produced tremendous results. Response rates from our quarterly HAIWatch eNewsletters generated open rate and CTR of four times the industry average. Social media is another big part of our strategy. A recent social media outreach program increased online traffic by over 300% in ninety days, positioning the HAIWatch program on the first page of Google search results. Such tactics can generate ROI that compares favorably to other tactics like paid search and display media. A particularly important element in such a program is the ability to quickly respond to customers’ needs.

These are just some of the marketing initiatives we employ at Kimberly-Clark Health Care. We believe that testing various tactics and having an appropriate mix of engagement techniques is critical to a successful marketing campaign. Marketers should be more open-minded about trying new strategies and adopting outside-the-box thinking to promote their brands.

Julie Batten
Vice President, Media Strategy
Klick Pharma
jbatten@klick.com
www.klickpharma.com

Return on Investment (ROI) is a hot topic – everyone talks about its importance, but marketers are continually challenged to credibly measure and demonstrate it in a rapidly changing economic and regulatory environment. While the online channel is exponentially more measurable than traditional channels, certain eStrategies are easier to track and measure than others.

Measurable eStrategies
Typically, paid sources of online media are inherently more measurable due to advertiser control over execution, tagging, and performance measurement. However, tagging an online PR or social media campaign in a way that enables your analytics tools to attribute conversions or ROI can be difficult. With banner ads, you can track conversions from clicks, but attributing impression-based or latent conversions is more challenging. Let’s say someone visits the site via a banner ad, doesn’t convert, but later returns via a paid search ad to take action. Which tactic gets attributed to this conversion? Search? Banner? Both? Advertisers still grapple with either assigning partial credit to both or choosing to focus on first- or last-click data only to facilitate performance evaluation.

Campaign Tactics
In today’s changing market, paid search continues to drive ROI for most advertisers, due in part to the motivated nature of the audience and the pay-for-performance model. Search Engine Marketing (SEM) also enables you to track and optimize to a level of granularity that facilitates focus on the elements that are driving ROI.

That said, what actually drives people to search in the first place? Only when patients are aware of a condition, treatment, or brand, will they actively search for it. That speaks to the need for an integrated approach. Display advertising, while not likely exhibiting as strong a direct ROI as your search campaign, can actually help enhance its success. Similarly, your mobile and social media efforts, while harder to measure in terms of ROI, work to ensure your brand is top of mind when patients search online.

Your ultimate media mix will always depend on your objectives (e.g., awareness versus action), but maxing out investment in tried-and-true tactics and supplementing them with others has proven to be a successful approach.

Wendy Blackburn
Executive Vice President
Intouch Solutions
wendy.blackburn@intouchsol.com

First, I love that the conversation has shifted from comparing offline to online, towards looking deeper into the many different eMarketing channels available. eMarketing itself is infinitely measurable, and I believe some eMarketers may be missing important opportunities to tie efforts back to ROI.
 
eMarketing Fundamentals
As a pharma marketing agency, we see that some “traditional” eMarketing tools still aren’t being used – or measured – to their full potential. Much can be learned and leveraged using search engine marketing, eCRM, and Web data. Engagement scoring can help sort out which user interactions are the most meaningful and help marketers optimize their online presence. We’re also trying to help our clients go beyond the traditional “all I need is a product.com site” approach to do more to reach customers where they are.
 
Maximizing ROI
We like to use tools like Crossix to maximize ROI. Crossix helps us impartially compare how our eMarketing programs are performing. Where did the best leads come from? What information were they seeking? Was a branded or unbranded approach more effective? Did customers engage in meaningful ways? And, at the end of the day, which effort or combination of efforts lead to actual prescriptions filled?
 
The Next Frontier
What’s the next big thing? It’s been interesting to see pharma’s curiosity leapfrog into social media over the past year. I believe in the possibilities of social media marketing for pharma, but I believe marketers face a very real challenge in proving ROI here. Pharma is looking at mobile now the way they were looking at social several years ago. It’s still kind of “wait and see,” but as more customers obtain smartphones and access the Web on-the-go, I believe mobile is the next digital frontier, and the possibilities are endless.

Steve Gransden
VP Technical Marketing
J Knipper and Co., Inc.
steve.gransden@knipper.com

The Science of Measurement
There is a science to Multi Channel Marketing. And you should expect some of that “science” when it’s your marketing budget! With today’s economic conditions and budgetary constraints, marketing is often one of the first targets of spending cuts due to the misperception of elusiveness in the measurement of its ROI. In many cases, if not most, these misperceptions could never be further from the truth. To find the best mix when utilizing multiple marketing channels, the key is the “science” of measurement. Everyone may understand that measurement is necessary, but the best science is knowing what, when, and how to measure. And then recognizing the required adjustments based on the analysis of those measurements.

Sound strategic planning, iterative tactical execution, and most importantly quantifiable and qualitative measurements are not only achievable, but are absolutely essential to every Multichannel Marketing initiative in order to ensure anticipated ROI. It is not enough to see an objective in the distance and simply walk in a straight line assuming you will reach it. You must continuously measure your progress, re-evaluate your terrain, check to see if the objective has moved, and then adjust your heading based on the proper analysis of such variables.

As a provider of direct marketing services in the pharmaceutical industry, I have experienced, first hand, the overwhelmingly positive results of campaigns which provide specific measurement of tactical implementations at strategic intervals during the activities. A successful program utilizes a flexible and efficient response data structure that provides for ongoing iterative analysis of these measurements and allows for proper adjustment of strategy and tactics such that each successive wave of activities can provide even more effective results. The key to successful marketing is never a predetermined static formula, but rather a dynamic science of continuous measurement and analytics that “leads you” to your objective … That objective being the “best mix” of marketing channels to maximize your ROI.

Evaluating Success
Every marketing campaign is unique in its creativity and its combination of strategy, tactics, and measurements. In business, however, as unique as every marketing campaign may be, the ultimate goal of every single one is the same : “Revenue”!

Evaluation of success mirrors this pattern in that each marketing campaign presents its own unique opportunities for quality measurements. However, every one of these unique measurements MUST lead you to the same fundamental understanding of the campaign's effect on, again … “Revenue”!

I work for a company that specializes in the direct marketing of pharmaceuticals where we design and implement multichannel marketing campaigns to drive pharmaceutical sample ordering by healthcare providers. It is a fiercely competitive world where marketing is often the primary differentiator between products with highly similar attributes. Revenue is most often determined by the volume of prescriptions that are written for the product.

One of the primary keys to evaluating success in these types of campaigns is to first understand the habits, general practices, and various preferences of the target audience. This longitudinal, or panel, data can be the source for marketing strategy. Oftentimes this data may exist within your organization as a natural byproduct of previous campaigns. Unfortunately it is rare that the data is managed and collated in such a fashion to be understandable or useful in a comprehensive manner. As this is often the case, the best first step is to identify a source or a service provider who can make available not only such data, but more importantly, a flexible and efficient response data structure, which can provide for ongoing iterative analysis of “key activities to response measurements”. These measurements provide the critical insight which allows for the best possible adjustments to strategy and tactics ongoing throughout the marketing campaign.

With a thorough knowledge of these variables in hand, appropriate activities can be assigned and various vehicles created to facilitate the marketing activities. Finally a set of “key metrics” are developed to govern the ongoing activities and vehicles, which are continuously monitored at regular intervals throughout the campaign. The resultant data must be managed in a well organized relational database such that very deliberate analysis can be performed to identify strengths, weaknesses, and general trends in marketing effectiveness. This data can then be compiled with other data that has been collected from other campaigns, allowing each iteration to be an improvement over the last.

It has been my experience that only through the use of such flexible and efficient response data structures can one truly evaluate, and more importantly achieve, success in these “hard-to-measure goals” of a marketing campaign.

Jamie Peck
Managing Partner
Rosetta
jamie.peck@rosetta.com

Finding the Best Mix Across Multiple Channels
In order to maximize ROI, you must know what makes your targets tick and listen to them closely. This information determines the most effective way to reach them across multiple channels.

Targets Dictate Delivery
This core knowledge comes from a strategic approach to segmentation, the outcome of which is understanding what drives a target’s decision-making process by tapping into their needs, attitudes and behaviors. We then deploy the appropriate digital channels to reach them. Here’s how the process works, for example, if a company needs a digital or emerging media campaign to support a diabetes product. Based on our understanding of diabetes patients, we know that some will seek information about their disease aggressively. To reach them, we enlist search engine optimization and search marketing. Other patients educate themselves more passively. We connect with them through email, mobile or even digitally-enabled campaigns seen in the physician’s office.

Off to a Strong Start
Knowing what our customer looks like helps determine the right mix from the start. Then, digital channels and the internet facilitate program optimization. If we don’t get it completely right at first, a continuous improvement process allows us to rework messages or redeploy dollars, focusing on what is working. .

The Next Big Thing
Our position is that the next big thing will be a new role for websites, long considered the foundation of interactive marketing. Today emerging media is being utilized sequentially: you build a website (60 to 70 percent of an organization’s digital allocation), launch a media campaign and engage in social media. In coming years we’ll see a more balanced allocation with, eventually, the website becoming simply an entry point to a Facebook page or a video on YouTube. Why the shift? Studies of consumer behavior increasingly recognize the fragmentation of media: people are using multiple channels for information, not just one source.

John Cunningham
Vice-President of Sales
TrialCard
jcunningham@trialcard.com

eMarketing as a Sales Tool
In an increasingly virtual retail atmosphere, the pharmaceutical industry
must resist the idea that eMarketing challenges the professional sales
model.  Its value, of course, must not be understated, but eMarketing is a
tactic, not a paradigm shift.  The human condition still deems necessary the
interaction of drug representative and physician to increase
prescribing habits; it still requires an in-office drug trial or pharmacy
sample voucher to drive patient starts; and, it still requires a recurring
economic incentive to breed compliance and persistency and combat patient
switches.  eMarketing does not invalidate this model. It further bridges the
gap between the brand team/sales force and its stakeholders: physicians,
pharmacists and patients.

eMarketing Leverages Marketing
Of roughly $35 billion spent on marketing by the pharmaceutical industry
in 2009, manufacturers allotted just $477 million (1.4%) to fund eMarketing
initiatives.  Brand teams realize the greatest return on their eMarketing
investments when they use near real-time information gathered through
eChannels to direct resource allocation of the remaining 99.6% of the
marketing budget.

Communication and Feedback
Having historically leaned on post-mortem data to find and target physicians
and patients, brand managers now find themselves beneficiaries of
instantaneous, self-directed information available via live portals on their
computers and smart phones. Web, email, and text-based couponing and refill
reminder programs, smart phone applications for physicians and patients, and
Twitter and Facebook feeds, help connect brands to stakeholders through
today’s social networking media.  The evolved communication lines
help complete an increasingly complex marketing strategy and provide
powerful, timely feedback, a must for actionable ROI measurability.

Michael J. Konowicz
EVP/Integrated Strategy & Account Management
Communications Media Inc.
mkonowicz@cmimedia.com

Digital channels have provided marketers with robust tools and data to measure campaign effectiveness; they’ve also breathed new life into older channels to produce exciting results. To generate the best ROI, a channel-neutral plan should be crafted with customer insights at its core. Once customers’ media consumption habits are understood, a plan can be wrapped around them to immerse and engage them in the desired experiences and content.

Understanding Customer Response
Understanding that level of engagement is the most critical metric of success, and is accomplished by a variety of awareness and engagement measurement tools. While it’s important to deploy the right reach and frequency in the right channel, the most critical measure is exploring how messages are consumed within each channel. It’s also important to understand how different channels can work together to create synergistic results. For example, media on a smartphone at point-of-care may yield significant results. But when that same customer sees similar messages in offline and online journals, that mobile marketing becomes that much more effective.

Channel Integration
While synergies of new and old channels are exciting, new methods of integrating channels are also exciting. In the offline space, two-dimensional barcodes allow customers to have targeted interactive experiences with paper through their mobile phones. Augmented reality applications are also growing, in which customers can interact in a 3D experience by simply holding up an ad (on a phone or piece of paper) to their computer’s webcam. As emarketing matures and the technologies improve, more innovation and greater business results are sure to come.

Ross Fetterolf
SVP, Brand Strategy and Channel Innovation
Ignite Health
www.ignitehealth.com
rfetterolf@ignitehealth.com
Twitter: @DigitalBulldog

What’s the next big “thing” in digital marketing? The simple answer to this question is the “thing” that’s probably within a few feet of you as you read this article – your mobile device. But as I suspect that many share this prediction, I’ll provide two specific opportunities for the mobile platform that reveal its true potential as a powerful game-changer, the first of which is mobile applications.

Mobile Applications
With iPhone’s over 3 billion applications (or apps) downloaded in only 18 months, it’s no secret that there are significant opportunities for healthcare to tap into this new platform. Pharma has dabbled in apps, creating iPhone empowered sales forces that use apps to connect reps to medical experts, launching “black bag” apps for doctors, and even mobile calorie counters for patients with diabetes to use on the go. The next breakthrough opportunity will be to use the mobile device to provide a point-of-care experience that unites HCPs and patients, offering assistance in demystifying disease states, training patients on complex administration procedures, or even sharing stories from real patients of a particular product.

Mobile Websites
Another opportunity is the creation of mobile versions of a traditional website. A widely adopted policy outside of Pharma, mobile sites offer the potential to create an entirely new experience that is optimized for viewing on the device. Think of it as the quintessential version of your website, featuring only the top content and resources for visitors (start with your top five pages). If you want to go beyond the basics, create an expanded resources section that includes rich media assets like videos, and podcasts. I predict that by the end of the year we’ll see mobile used as an innovative customer service platform that enables two way dialogue through push to chat features, and facilitates coupons that can be applied at the point of purchase.

Jeremy Schneider
Vice President
WebMD
jschneider@webmd.net

Consumers and physicians turn to the Internet more than ever to seek credible health information. In fact, today consumers turn to the Internet for health information more often than they turn to their own physician, according to research from MRxHealth. Similarly, when physicians have a clinical question, the Internet is where they turn most.

While physician and consumer use of the Internet has skyrocketed to 100%, some marketers have been slow to adopt the Internet as a marketing strategy. Marketers have misperceptions, such as the Internet is not personal or measurable, it cannot scale, and it competes with the existing sales force.

On the contrary, many sites today offer marketers the ability to serve segmented messaging down to the individual consumer or physician. With such sophisticated targeting, a marketer can provide a personalized experience to its key audiences. This makes it more relevant for the audience, and relevance leads to greater engagement with the brand. And, given the widespread reliance on the Internet, a marketer can scale their program to levels unseen before, driving significant ROI through the online channel. The Internet also complements the sales force by providing additional opportunities for a physician to engage with your brand between sales calls.  And the Internet may be the only way to reach physicians at no-see institutions.

Now, nearly all consumers and physicians use the Internet as their first choice when seeking out health information—typically at the expense of more traditional marketing tactics. The marketing mix needs to evolve so marketers can maximize ROI in today’s changing environment.

The opinions expressed by the authors in the Think Tank section are their own and do not necessarily reflect those of their affiliated companies or organizations.