Three Myths of
Multichannel Marketing
Identifying and overcoming the barriers to a truly effective
multichannel marketing model
By Sarah Rickwood, Vice President, European Thought Leadership, IMS Health
Contents
01Introduction
02 Multichannel Marketing in an Increasingly
Specialty Driven World
04 Multichannel Myth # 1:
You Can Only Do It In Certain Countries
09Multichannel Myth #2:
Multi Channel Marketing Can Never Be Enterprise Wide
1 1 Multichannel myth #3:
You Can’t Measure It. It’s Too Complex.
And You Can’t See the Wood for the Trees
14Conclusions
15 Case Studies
IMS Health. Three Myths of Multichannel Marketing.
Multichannel marketing is still far from mature. Almost all companies
need to move from sporadic, disconnected initiatives to a coherent
strategy. This move entails fundamental changes in commercial
functions, from organisational structure and budgeting priorities
to cultural change, altering deeply ingrained assumptions about
commercial activity, impact and measurement.
This white paper discusses three myths that are frequently
associated with multichannel marketing, myths that prevent
organisations from committing to multichannel marketing fully
and effectively. In addressing them, we discuss what a mature
multichannel marketing model looks like, and the implications
for the structure, strategy, and performance measurement of the
commercial operation.
Blank page for
printed version only
IMS Health believes that the key to achieving a truly mature
multichannel marketing model will be striking the right balance
between aspiration (belief that a balanced multichannel model truly
is the future of pharmaceutical marketing) and a realistic path to that
aspiration – acknowledging that key countries are at very different
stages of development in terms of digital maturity and broader
multichannel readiness.
IMS Health. Three Myths of Multichannel Marketing.
Page 1
Multichannel Marketing in an Increasingly
Specialty Driven World
True success with multichannel marketing for many, if not the majority, of major companies will also
mean success as a specialty pharmaceutical commercial model. One of the key macro themes of the
last decade has been the rise of specialty products to become the primary driver of protected
innovative value growth in the pharmaceutical market. Specialty products, in line and new launches,
will drive the majority of pharmaceutical value growth in all developed market areas over the next five
years. This is particularly apparent in Europe, where due to cost pressures on primary care, more than
90% of all value growth will be driven by specialty pharmaceutical products. The majority of new
chemical entity launches are now specialty launches, and those launches typically garner an increased
share per new chemical entity (NCE) of country market value – in direct contrast to NCEs launching
into more traditional primary care classes. There will be new challenges in the future, as products of a
specialty nature, injectable biologics, launch into traditionally primary care small molecule areas.
Examples include Sanofi’s Praluent into dyslipidaemia and GSK’s Nucala into asthma.
This shift means that specialist physicians move into main focus for many companies’ commercial
models. As competition rises, access to a group of doctors already limited in number comes under
pressure, at a time when the new products, and the information which doctors need to know about
them, become more complex, as increasingly new agents are for rare diseases or complex patients
failing on existing medications.
The specialty shift must be mirrored by a shift in companies’ commercial models, as illustrated in
graphic 1. Successful companies are moving from scale and reach models, where a key element of
competitive advantage is the effective targeting and segmentation of prescribers, to one characterised by
promotional precision within the context of a broad spectrum of channel options and geographic focus.
Graphic 1: Transition to specialty will see a paradigm shift in companies’ commercial models
We see a transition from scale, reach and prescriber focus, to precision, selective geographies
and patient-centricity joining prescriber segmentation
Past Paradigm
Future Paradigm
Competitive advantage driven by
Competitive advantage driven by
Promotional Scale,
narrow channel bandwidth
Promotional
Precision, broad channel bandwidth
Geographic Reach
Geographic Focus Selective approach
Effective prescriber segmentation targeting of prescribers
That, plus effective patient segmentation
- supporting healthcare systems
in identification of patients
IMS Health. Three Myths of Multichannel Marketing.
Page 2
Multichannel Marketing in an Increasingly Specialty Driven World
The future commercial model will need multichannel at its heart. Effective targeting and
segmentation of prescribers retains and enhances its importance, because prescribers can now also be
effectively segmented by channel preference. In addition, best practice in future commercial models
also means effective patient segmentation: defining, whether by biomarkers or other approaches, the
patients who will benefit from the drug, and if necessary, supporting patients, doctors and healthcare
systems in their identification. Why will this be necessary? Because the patients for the new
generation of specialty products will increasingly be those that are for very rare, often difficult to
diagnose diseases, or for patients who are treated but failing to manage their condition effectively
with existing medications and require a new approach.
Graphic 2: What will specialty companies need to survive in this increasingly competitive environment?
Multi-channel
marketing
maturity across
multiple
stakeholders
Full spectrum
multichannel
marketing approach
Highly effective
patient
segmentation,
identification,
targeting
Best in class
specialty
commercial
model
Multi-functional
teams of
multi-skilled
individuals
Intense
patient focus
Outcomes:
RWE defence
and opportunity
A full spectrum approach to
multichannel marketing
essential when:
• Specialists become
harder to reach in an
increasingly competitive
environment
• Digital contact becomes
mainstream
Intense patient focus will be
necessary when:
• Payers expect a defined
benefit (outcome) for a
defined patient population
• Successful uptake means
supporting healthcare
systems to identify
patients
IMS believes multichannel marketing is at the heart of navigating the new landscape for protected
innovative products, because only a multichannel approach is capable of delivering on the need to:
•• Address reduced access to doctors through conventional channels
•• Ensure information about sophisticated treatments for complex patient groups is communicated
even as doctors become increasingly time-poor and seek information across a wider set of channels
•• Be flexible enough to adjust to the different preferences of diverse specialists in their information
acquisition and communication
•• Respond to the increasingly international sources of much disease and product information in an
online world
•• Efficiently exploit the rich streams of customer information collected from interactions across
multiple touch points, with the aim of improving customer access to the most relevant, up to date
information and services.
IMS Health. Three Myths of Multichannel Marketing.
Page 3
Multichannel Marketing in an Increasingly Specialty Driven World
However, despite the clear drivers to multichannel, it’s surprising how often it is still seen as
experimental, a collection of pilots, and an approach that is confined to certain countries, chiefly the
US. IMS Health believes that in fact a mature multichannel marketing approach is required across all
of the major developed markets and indeed, in the more distant future in some of the key
pharmerging markets, because success in all of these markets will be necessary to maximise
innovative value.
In this white paper, we will examine the myths that prevent Multichannel from being adopted as
rapidly as it should be, and how they should be challenged, addressed, and overcome.
Multichannel Myth # 1:
You Can Only Do It In Certain Countries
To be sure not every country is ready for multichannel. But it is a myth that this is only truly possible
in the US. Using IMS digital impact data, we have been able to assess the digital maturity and therefore
multichannel marketing readiness of major European countries versus the US, with some emerging
market comparators.
Multichannel marketing readiness is in our view a composite measure driven by a number of factors,
which provide both push and pull for multichannel demand.
Push factors
As we are focusing on multichannel as a way of engaging with prescribers, it follows that for it to be
effective prescribers must hold a measure of decision making or decision influencing power over
pharmacotherapy choice. In certain cases, this can be wholly removed, permanently or temporarily.
For small molecule generics in most mature markets prescribing choice has been for many years
removed from doctors and accordingly little or no promotional investment goes into these products of
any type. Prescribing choice can also be removed for branded agents in some cases, for example, when
a national level tender chooses one product over another.
Across Europe and more patchily in the US, individual doctor’s prescribing decision choice has been
progressively eroded by payers, with decisions on access by health technology assessment,
formularies, delisting, prescription monitoring. These constraints however, do not in themselves
inhibit the need for communication with doctors, as awareness and usage still needs to be built within
the limitations set by payers. In this sense limitation of prescribing choice by payers is multichannel
neutral.
IMS Health. Three Myths of Multichannel Marketing.
Page 4
Multichannel Myth # 1: You Can Only Do It In Certain Countries
A push factor that drives the need for digital engagement is the reduction in the availability of doctors
for face to face and other real world interactions, as a result of these factors:
•• Codes of practice and regulation that restrict the number of visits that reps can make to doctors,
and the ways in which pharmaceutical companies can engage with doctors. Over the years,
industry’s engagement with doctors has been increasingly codified and restricted in many countries,
sometimes at a national, sometimes at an individual healthcare provider, level. Such agreements are
in some cases voluntarily entered into or created by the pharmaceutical industry to ensure an ethical
code of practice for their sales reps; in other cases they have been imposed on the pharmaceutical
industry by politicians or healthcare providers. Restrictions range from banning pharmaceutical reps
from hospitals or practice outright to controlling the number of face to face visits in any year, or the
doctors and other healthcare professionals within a provider that reps may visit.
•• Increasing workloads simply mean doctors have less time to spare for meeting pharmaceutical
representatives face to face.
•• The mass movement of doctors (as with the rest of the world) to the internet, and growth of
preference for digital communications (after all, the oldest “digital natives” are now embarking on
their careers as doctors).
Consequently, contact time with doctors from traditional approaches generally falls across all
countries, and as it falls, digital interaction is rising, a combination of necessity (where doctors
cannot be engaged using traditional promotional means) and choice (doctors prefer to engage
digitally). Whereas in the EU5 traditional contact time falls and the proportion of digital contacts is
relatively low, in the US whilst in the period since 2011 overall contact time has fallen, in fact since
2013 there has been a recovery in traditional contact time, coincident with digital contacts passing the
20% of all contacts mark in the US. This rise is a consequence of increased major launch activity,
increasing contacts overall.
Graphic 3: Traditional contact time with doctors falls. Meanwhile, the proportion of digital contacts has
been steadily increasing
30
Proportion Digital Contacts - EU5
Traditional Contact Time - EU5
Proportion Digital Contacts - US
Traditional Contact Time - US
1,000
900
25
800
700
20
600
15
500
400
10
300
200
5
35%
0
2011
2012
2013
2014
100
Traditional Contact Time (Mn minutes)
Proportion Digital Contacts by Volume (%)
EU5 and US: Physician Contact Time vs Proportion of Digital Contacts
0
2015
Source: IMS Health Channel Dynamics MAT Q2 2011-2015
IMS Health. Three Myths of Multichannel Marketing.
Page 5
Multichannel Myth # 1: You Can Only Do It In Certain Countries
Nevertheless, the share of total activity and spend that is currently taken by digital engagement varies
widely between countries, as does the make-up of that digital activity. According to IMS Health Strategic
Data promotional audit metrics, the proportion of contacts that are digital in volume terms varies from as
little as 1% in pharmerging markets such as China (but is also low in mature markets such as Italy- just
3.1%) to highs of 41.3% of all contact volume in Japan and 26.2% of all contact volume in the US.
Graphic 4: The degree to which there is an established digital culture is highly variable. Digital
contacts in 2015 account for over 25% of total contacts in US and Japan but this proportion is
significantly lower in Europe
Proportion of Contacts by Volume - 2015
% Digital Contacts
100%
% Traditional Contacts
3.6%
26.2%
41.3%
3.1%
16.3%
15.8%
0.9%
9.0%
80%
60%
99.1%
40%
73.8%
58.7%
96.4%
83.7%
84.2%
91.0%
96.9%
99.1%
US
Japan
Germany
UK
France
Spain
Italy
China
20%
0%
Source: IMS Health Channel Dynamics MAT Q2 2015
The nature of digital contacts is also quite variable by country. IMS Health’s promotional audit tracks
five types of digital contact: automated detailing and emails, live detailing via the web, webcast
meetings and webinar meetings. As expected, automated digital channels are the highest volume of
interactions, but there is variance. Email, the electronic equivalent of mailouts, is more than half of
all digital contacts except in Japan, where volume is disproportionately automated detailing. In Japan
as elsewhere automated details may be delivered via pharmaceutical company/brand web sites or via
dedicated doctor portals. One such portal is M3, founded in 2000 in Japan and expanding rapidly via
acquisition and offering expansion since, and sees high doctor usage in Japan, so many companies will
route their automated details via this platform. Automated details are also a non trivial share of
volume in the US, Spain and Italy, but in Spain and Italy, in contrast to the US, the more expensive,
labour intensive live detailing channel is also significant, albeit that digital is a smaller absolute
percentage of all activity. Preference for digital channels, at this stage in the development of the
environment, could be a function of a number of things, including the technologies of the founder
companies in the country, establishing doctor culture /preferences, and relative channel costs.
The next, and extremely important, variability between countries is the degree to which digital
channels impact intention to prescribe, relative to the traditional channels. IMS Health’s promotional
audits collect participating physician’s statements of their intent to prescribe post any promotional
contact collected, and whilst this is not actual prescribing impact, it is a reasonable proxy collected
from the same physicians contacted promotionally, and therefore we believe a valid reference point.
IMS Health. Three Myths of Multichannel Marketing.
Page 6
Multichannel Myth # 1: You Can Only Do It In Certain Countries
This data shows quite wide variability between the relative impacts of digital to traditional contacts.
Starting at the lower end of the spectrum, there is only one major country for which relative impact of
digital is below half that of traditional contacts, France. At the upper end of the spectrum, three major
countries see the impact of digital contacts at 75% or greater relative to traditional contacts, and the
pharmerging example China, sees digital impact higher than traditional contacts (it should be noted
that China is not alone among pharmerging markets in this- Mexico, and Russia also do (Brazil and
Poland, in contrast, do not). However, this standout result should be carefully interpreted in the light
of the extremely low percentage of prescriber contacts (1%) in China that are in fact digital.
Graphic 5: Impact of digital contacts on intent to prescribe relative to traditional contacts. Digital
contacts proved to be over 60% as effective as traditional contacts (except in France)
Effectiveness of Digital Contacts Relative to Traditional Contacts - 2015
120%
100%
80%
75
60%
40%
99.1%
70%
61%
82%
64%
49%
67%
75%
115%
US
Japan
Germany
UK
France
Spain
Italy
China
50
20%
0%
Source: IMS Health Channel Dynamics MAT Q2 2015
Putting the percentage of contacts that are digital together with their impact gives a better balanced
view of how mature different countries are with respect to digital- and therefore how mature they are as
a multichannel marketing environment. Graphic 6 below shows that many major countries still follow
the “novelty line” for digital contacts. What we believe happens here is that very high impact of digital
on intent to prescribe happens where digital contacts are very rare- prescribers are either responding to
the novelty of the interaction, or are highly selected and primed to be very responsive, or both. As the
volume of digital contacts rises on the novelty line their impact falls, as seen for France. As of 2015, just
three countries break out of this diminishing returns situation: the US, Japan, and just possibly, the UK.
Is there a pattern behind these “breakout countries?” One factor is likely to be the early introduction of
digital technologies for communication to prescribers, coupled to a mature internet and social media
environment, but it is clearly not about the penetration of digital alone, as the percentage of prescriber
contacts that are digital in the UK is in fact very similar to that of France – for the US and Japan, penetration
is higher. It is not, either, obviously driven by the nature of the digital channels used – email predominates
in the US and UK, but automated detailing plays a substantive role in the US and dominates the Japanese
digital interaction. Whilst the story behind the “breakout countries” may be individual, we believe that
these countries score highest on key aspects of multichannel marketing maturity, and are therefore the
countries where effective implementation of a mature model is both effective and necessary.
IMS Health. Three Myths of Multichannel Marketing.
Page 7
Multichannel Myth # 1: You Can Only Do It In Certain Countries
Another crucial pointer for future impact is the direction of travel for countries– what have been the
changes in the percentage of prescriber contacts that are digital, and has there been change, in what
direction, on the relative impact of digital contacts. We can see in Graphic 6, below, that only the US and
Japan have shown past signs of moving away from the “Novelty line”. Europe shows diversity in current
situations, but much work remains to be done to effect a true step towards a mature multi-channel model.
Returning to myth #1, that you can only do multichannel in certain countries, we would respond that
this is only half of the truth, and in this case a half truth is misleading. Multichannel marketing is a
journey, and progression is dependent on the existence of creation of an environment which enables
Percentage Digital Contacts by Volume, MAT Q2 2015
Graphic 6: Only the US has really broken out of the inverse relationship between activity and impact
50%
• IMS Health
Japan’s activity,
unusually, is almost 100%
automated detailing
(email leads for all others)
ChannelDynamics information
for MAT Q2 2015 shows high
variability in both penetration
and impact of digital contacts
US is most mature
digital marketing
environment, with both
volume and impact
25%
• Arrows show direction of travel
The “novelty” line?
Very low percentages of
digital contact show
extremely high digital
impact on intention to
prescribe, intent to
prescribe falls as volume
rises for many countries
from MAT Q2 2011
• Most countries remain in the
“novelty line” where digital
contact’s impact drops sharply
as frequency rises, but it is
possible to break out (US, Japan)
Neutral
0%
25%
50%
75%
100%
125%
Effectiveness Relative to Traditional Contacts (Impact on Reported “Intent to Prescribe”) – MAT Q2 2015
Negative
Positive
Source: IMS Health ChannelDynamics
multichannel. At base, decreases in the time that doctors have for traditional contacts, and the
movement of doctor time and attention to digital channels is a trend across all countries. What differs
is the maturity of the pharmaceutical industry’s digital response to that universal trend. Therefore, it
is not a question of multichannel only being possible in certain countries, but instead a question of
how fast each country is moving to multichannel maturity. What companies must do in response to
this insight is adjust their effort and expectations according to country multichannel maturity:
•• It is unrealistic to expect the same impact from equivalent activity across countries; measurements
of performance must be adjusted to account for the existing country environment
•• For those countries on the right hand end of the digital impact “novelty curve”, that is, with low
current levels of digital contacts but a high relative impact the key question is how to keep high
levels of digital impact as digital volume rises- this could apply to China and Italy
•• For those countries on the left hand (in this case, France) there is a clear case for review of current
effort, which is relatively high, to ask why digital contacts apparently fare poorly relative to
traditional ones, and how this could change
•• For those countries in the middle (Germany and Spain, and possibly even the UK) the challenge is
twofold – grow digital contact volume but seek to maintain or increase digital impact.
IMS Health. Three Myths of Multichannel Marketing.
Multichannel Myth #2:
Multi Channel Marketing Can Never Be Enterprise Wide
Moving from viewing multichannel as an approach that works in some countries but not in others
to an end goal which will be achieved at different paces (and by different routes) in different
countries is the key to moving away from multichannel being a set of isolated initiatives for special
circumstances, or at worst an over-ambitious waste of time, attempting to create something which
will never be practical.
It is true (as we can appreciate from addressing myth #1) that multichannel marketing will not work
as a top-down initiative proceeding at the same pace across all geographies and therapy areas. An
international ambition can (and should) be set for multichannel, but the journey to the destination
has to be via a network of local initiatives, not least to gain the internal buy-in and confidence that
the approach will work for your organisation.
Companies must recognise that by moving to multichannel marketing they are not investing in a
technology add-on, but in an organisational and cultural change. To achieve this:
1. Overcome organisational barriers. The case for multichannel marketing utility must be made.
2. Change culture to build acceptance of digital across all levels and functions of the organisation.
3. Collaborate- across business units, functions and geographies
Overcoming organisation barriers
As with any organisational change, multichannel leadership has to come from the top to be
implemented effectively. Senior executives, heading the company as a whole and the leaders of the
commercial function must sponsor multichannel pilots and adoption. Ensuring this happens may
mean education by less senior multichannel champions – senior leaders almost certainly grew up in
a different commercial world. One company’s multichannel champions we spoke to express a typical
frustration: that senior executives seek to measure the value and impact of all new initiatives purely
in monetary terms. The only solutions here are education and persistence: continual messaging on
the ways in which multichannel should be assessed, and continual communication on the benefits
programs bring.
Once leadership has established, follow-though requires buy-in across affected functions – sales,
marketing, commercial analytics, country management and regional therapy area/commercial
functions. Develop multichannel strategies hand in hand with these functions, not in isolation.
Consider breaking down the change process into digestable steps- for example, better integration of
existing digital activity with traditional activity, better tracking of all doctor contact points, insight
into the doctor journey from lack of awareness to committed prescriber.
Integrating digital as the necessary step to multichannel
Before multichannel approaches can be accepted as “standard operating procedure”, digital’s role
must be. In countries such as Italy where the percentage of doctor contacts that are digital is very
low, this remains, for most affiliates, the next step. Countries where digital is a high percentage of
contacts are at the next stage, but digital activity must be integrated with traditional promotional
activities to ensure the right environment for multichannel.
IMS Health. Three Myths of Multichannel Marketing.
Page 9
Multichannel Myth #2: Multi Channel Marketing Can Never Be Enterprise Wide
One company addressed the adoption of multichannel with a combination of top-down leadership
and country specific support:
•• Expertise on multichannel marketing was fragmented across the organisation, because it
consisted of experience from multiple pilots across different countries and brands. In order to
ensure that experience and expertise were capitalised upon rather than remaining fragmented, a
single multichannel marketing operating model was created. Potential benefits of such a model
include demonstrating the senior commitment that the organisation has to a global multichannel
marketing future, as well as a centralised resource for all learning on multichannel across the
organisation.
•• Using this model, global capabilities were developed on key channels, and these, alongside
supporting multichannel services, were delivered to priority country markets. Focusing on the
countries that are multichannel ready first makes sense, because it enhances the likelihood of
success, builds data and experience and confirms multichannel’s value
•• After introducing the channels that act as the launchpad to convert traditional marketing to
multichannel, refine, measure and adapt the model within each country, collecting learnings
centrally and disseminating them across countries, both establishing and established multichannel
environments.
There are some important cultural changes in the development of a multichannel, rather than a
traditional marketing and sales model:
•• International cooperation and learning sharing is fundamental. This will not only be during the
establishment phase but also in the ongoing running of a multichannel – because technology and
doctors use of it will evolve rapidly
•• Continuous testing and improvement of channel investment, as tools and activities evolve over
months rather than years
•• A completely different view of what effective measurement of multichannel activity looks like
•• A focus on customers, and their stage in a journey from lack of awareness of a brand to prescribing
the brand, rather than the brand itself.
These cultural change and their impacts are crucial to address the final myth:
IMS Health. Three Myths of Multichannel Marketing.
Page 10
Multichannel Myth #3:
You Can’t Measure It. It’s Too Complex.
And You Can’t See the Wood for the Trees
A legitimate worry for organisations is that after time and effort spent on driving through the
capabilities for multichannel marketing, they find multichannel impossible to run effectively,
generating a barrage of un-interpretable data absorbing all organisational energy, but leaving them
no better informed or effective than before. Even if multichannel marketing is implemented only the
traditional sales metrics can actually be measured which means you’re spending money on things you
can’t measure.
In a way, this is a way of re-stating the first myth - saying that even though multichannel might have
a point, in practice, the barrage of data it unleashes will simply be too much for the organisation to
cope with, and the practical effect will be that no useful impact is achieved.
In fact, the interactions, activities and impacts that you can measure are increasing rapidly and
powerfully. What’s needed is an open mind and an innovative approach to what is measurable.
For example, engagement on social media, share of voice on social media, and primary research
to understand behavioural changes and also public level data and patient data eg using patient
longitudinal data sets are all areas where new measurement possibilities are opening up. Crucially,
it’s not just measurement of individual activity, but measurement of holistic impact.
Contacts on the doctor’s journey: a model to structure multichannel
thinking and achieve effective measurement and strategic clarity
Conversations about multichannel marketing implementation often start with the question, “how
can I measure the impact of email/e-detailing?”, with the implication that the impact we are seeking
to measure is on sales. Unfortunately, this is the wrong question, and trying to answer it reduces the
likelihood that multichannel marketing will be adopted as a mature enterprise wide concept.
This is not to say that questions about multichannel marketing impact cannot be asked- they can,
and should. But first the nature of what channels are impacting needs to be defined correctly. It starts
with a doctor journey.
Whatever the complexity of the means, the purpose of sales and marketing activity to doctors is quite
simple – to take as many appropriate doctors as possible along the journey from being unaware about
a product to being a committed user, or even an advocate for the product. Doctors, of course, will
drop out at stages along that journey, may not make it to the final stages, and may move backwards
as well as forwards, but a successful sales and marketing campaign is always the one which moves as
many appropriate doctors as possible as far forward as possible. Within this journey, traditional and
digital channels for communication can been seen as a toolset, with tools on both sides appropriate
at different stages of the doctor’s journey to move them to the next stage. In this context it becomes
pretty clear why asking the question “how can I measure the impact of email (or indeed any other
channel) on sales?” is meaningless as phrased.
IMS Health. Three Myths of Multichannel Marketing.
Page 11
Multichannel Myth #3: You Can’t Measure It. It’s Too Complex. And You Can’t See the Wood for the Trees
Email is an enabler, introducing doctors to the product for the first time, inviting them to a webinar
or reminding them to attend. Its impact needs to be measured in the context of its role in moving
doctors along the journey.
Graphic 7: Both traditional and digital channels are tools on the doctor journey
DEFINITION
POSSIBLE
TOOLS TO MOVE
TO NEXT STEP
/TRADITIONAL
INTEREST
PASSIVE
ENGAGEMENT
TRIAL
REGULAR
USER
COMMITTED
USER
ADVOCATE
INTERACTIVE
INFORMATION
SESSION/
FEEDBACK
TRIAL PRODUCT
PRESCRIPTION
REGULAR
PRODUCT
PRESCRIPTION
PRESCRIBES AS
PRODUCT OF
CHOICE FOR
TARGET PATIENTS
ADVOCATES
PRODUCT TO
OTHER DOCTORS
Journal ads,
direct mail,
meeting,
conference
Face to face
or teledetail,
meeting,
conference
Face to face
or teledetail,
meeting,
conference
Face to face or
teledetail,
KOL
engagement,
meeting,
conference
Face to face
or teledetail,
KOL
engagement,
meeting
(Maintenance
as advocate)
KOL
engagement,
meeting
Email,
Automated
detailing,
webcasts
Email,
Webinar, live
remote
detailing
Webinar,
live remote
detailing
Webinar,
live remote
detailing
Webinar,
live remote
detailing
(Maintenance
as advocate)
Webinar, live
remote
detailing
UNAWARE
AWARE
DOCTOR
UNAWARE OF
BRAND/
COMPANY
DOCTOR AWARE
OF BRAND/
COMPANY
INFO/ MEETING
REQUEST
UNI-DIRECTIONAL
INFORMATION
SESSION
Journal ads,
direct mail
Journal ads,
direct mail,
meeting,
conference
Journal ads,
direct mail,
meeting,
conference
Website ads,
email
Email,
automated
detailing
Email,
Automated
detailing
ACTIVE
ENGAGEMENT
SAMPLE DOCTOR
JOURNEY
POSSIBLE
TOOLS TO MOVE
TO NEXT STEP
/DIGITAL
Steps to practical measurement of this view on doctor impact are possible. Adaptation by country is
inevitable; strict European privacy rules mean that it is not possible to directly identify individual
doctors, as it is in the US. However, the specialised nature of many new therapies and their
consequently highly defined prescriber audience is an advantage here, because it means that it is
more likely to be possible to build detailed knowledge of each doctor’s attitudes and viewpoints from
both direct rep interactions and all other touchpoints across traditional and digital channels.
•• Create criteria to identify where a given prescriber is on the journey, and define the tools that best
move them on to the next stage.
•• Analyse data from multiple multichannel marketing campaigns to create rules of thumb and
benchmarks of patterns of touchpoints and interactions work at each stage to move doctors on
(for example, reminder emails will take seven out of ten doctors who have expressed interest to
a webinar; half will then accept a face to face detail, whereas emails alone will only elicit a face to
face detail from one in 20 doctors)
•• Measure the flow of doctors along each stage, combining data from multiple sources – classic
awareness and usage primary research, data on digital interaction, and prescription activity
•• Evaluate tools within the context of a total campaign impact assessment: how many doctors moved
to what stage in what time, with what Rx impact, investment by channel and key stage impacted by
channel
Changing to a “doctor journey” perspective should go hand in hand with three broader changes in
perspective for the commercial organisation, as detailed in graphic 8.
IMS Health. Three Myths of Multichannel Marketing.
Page 12
Multichannel Myth #3: You Can’t Measure It. It’s Too Complex. And You Can’t See the Wood for the Trees
Graphic 8: Three key changes in perspective for a multichannel world
Traditional Marketing
Multichannel Marketing
Static view of marketing:
this is our plan for the year,
we won’t take any more inputs,
now our job is implementation
Dynamic view of marketing:
we evaluate inputs and impacts
constantly and adapt within
weeks or months
Product centric view of marketing:
at the core is the product, and
communicating its features and benefits
Customer centric view of marketing:
at the core is the customer, whether
doctor, patient or payer, and their
position on a journey to being a
committed user of the product
Channel focused evaluation of impact:
we need to analyse the return on
investment for individual channels, in
sales impact terms
Holistic evaluation of impact:
we will measure the effectiveness of
channels in moving customers to the
next stage, and overall impact the full set
of channels on sales
•• Changing from a “plan, then implement” model where decisions are made across the
channel spectrum at infrequent, perhaps once a year intervals, with focus in the interim on
implementation is a key new discipline of multichannel marketing. Marketeers need to get
faster feedback on channel impacts, and use them, adapting investment levels and campaigns
accordingly. This means greater autonomy of decision making must be given to individuals and
teams, more frequent feedback and communication, and a movement from senior management
approving plans to setting guidelines.
•• Move from a product centric view of marketing to a customer centric one: while the focus of this
multichannel marketing discussion is the doctor, in fact this perspective extends to the patient,
the payer and other stakeholders and is a powerful tool to make marketing more responsive to the
multi-stakeholder environment.
•• Move from single channel evaluation to a multichannel evaluation. Pharmaceutical marketing
traditionally was about the evaluation of a “star soloist”, the rep interaction with doctors,
accompanied by a range of secondary, supportive players. To extend the analogy further, digital
marketing channels may not even have been in the same band. Today, direct rep interaction has to
be viewed as one player in an orchestra, and it’s the orchestra’s performance that is the primary
success measure.
IMS Health. Three Myths of Multichannel Marketing.
Page 13
Conclusions
Multichannel marketing is neither a fad, an activity isolated from traditional marketing, nor a
phenomenon which is limited to certain countries. A fully mature multichannel marketing model, for
the major developed pharmaceutical markets, is a necessary goal driven by the changes in doctor’s
behaviours and technological changes, but also desirable because of the increasingly specialised and
complex nature of the innovative products that drive pharmaceutical market value growth.
However, it is not easy. The three myths of multichannel marketing, that it is only possible in certain
countries, that it cannot be enterprise-wide, and that it is difficult to impossible to measure and
manage, are deeply ingrained in many companies and act as a self-sabotage for some – ensuring that
multichannel marketing remains local, experimental and un-integrated. The most effective companies
are the ones that agree, across functions and countries, that myths must be recognised as such, and
addressed, pragmatically and systematically for a true transformation of the commercial model.
Author
Sarah Richwood
Vice-President, Thought Leadership, IMS Health
Sarah Rickwood has 20 years’ experience as a consultant to the pharmaceutical
industry, having worked in Accenture’s pharmaceutical strategy practice prior to
joining IMS Management Consulting.
In her time in IMS, Sarah has played a key role in launching Readiness offerings
which provide IMS pharmaceutical clients with comprehensive and critical
guidance during the crucial pre-launch and launch periods for their key brands.
As the Director of Thought Leadership for the European Business Units, she
has managed a highly productive team developing new Thought Leadership on
launch, biosimilars, commercial analytics, healthcare system changes, uptake
and access of innovative medicines, Social media and pharmaceutical companies,
and mobile apps in patient healthcare.
IMS Health. Three Myths of Multichannel Marketing.
Page 14
Case Study 1
The launch of a new product can act as the trigger
for implementing MCM
Pharmaceutical companies typically struggle to introduce coherent and integrated MCM strategies
for in-line products, as these are usually marketed using ingrained and well established traditional
strategies. The upcoming launch of a new product can therefore act as an effective trigger for
implementing MCM. IMS Health’s experience in supporting one such pharmaceutical and medical
device company is that this is a good catalyst for driving through a multichannel strategy.
The problem faced by this particular company was that one of their pipeline products, a
potential blockbuster innovation, would come to market in approximately two years, but
the company recognized its challenge to market this new product effectively. While the
company already had several different communication initiatives in place, they lacked an
overarching strategy for alignment.
The solution, developed by IMS Health, addressed the problem using key strategies centered
on a multichannel approach. Firstly, a European Direct-to-Patient (DtP) program was
designed based on three pillars supported with MCM – content; communication and channels;
service. Secondly, MCM patient profiling and segmentation was implemented ahead of the
new launch, thus defining the target population group and allowing the company to tailor the
DtP program to its specific needs and preferences. Thirdly, an IT support system was put in
place to ensure effective and efficient running of MCM initiatives.
As a result, the company achieved a defined MCM strategy for the launch of a new product
as well as a roadmap for the creation and technical implementation of a DtP program. The
company was also provided with country-specific guidelines allowing the strategy to be
adapted to different markets. The work carried out by IMS Health thereby ensured this
company was able to adopt MCM as a novel and effective method for marketing a new
product as well as establishing a framework that could be applied to future launches.
IMS Health. Three Myths of Multichannel Marketing.
Page 15
Case Study 2
Working with an External Partner is an Effective Way
to Build an MCM Strategy
The future of effective MCM strategies lies in the integration of multiple communication
channels with target profiling and segmentation, using both quantitative and qualitative
feedback to support a potential prescriber throughout the product journey.
Often, it is more effective to create these strategies in partnership with an external
provider. In recent examples, two companies have aimed to improve their engagement
with defined healthcare provider (HCP) groups by replacing or adding frequency
to planned sales force calls using MCM initiatives, supported by proprietary IMS
technology. Focusing on selected key brands, enterprise solutions for the management of
multichannel communications were developed for both companies. These solutions were
centered on one key feature: the implementation and configuration of Nexxus Marketing,
an IMS solution. This tool provides a comprehensive set of customer relationship
management (CRM) capabilities to support HCP communications.
By working with an external partner to develop an MCM strategy, these companies
benefited in four key ways:
●Established
highly effective MCM initiatives by generating integrated customer
profiles, and benefited from automated management of their respective multichannel
campaigns. Overall, the multichannel initiatives implemented were based on personal
and digital channel interactions including email, sales calls, call centers, direct
mailings, and websites. Customer-centric communication was based on advanced
segmentation as a result of integrated customer preferences, and lead to increased
share of voice among targeted HCPs. For one company, this translated into a 20% sales
increase over carryover. Overall, both companies optimized their ROI as compared to a
traditional sales model.
●Qualitative
information allowed for real-time monitoring of campaign progress.
Through the reporting of summary metrics relating to each even and channel, the
companies gained detailed insights into the effectiveness of the campaigns.
●Using
a powerful CRM tool, behavioural, attitudinal, and demographic data were
integrated from multiple sources, such as syndicated data sources (including third
parties), sales force information and marketing activity. This enabled the clients to run
individualized customer journey based on interests and channel preferences.
●The
option to personalise and tailor the system means clients need not compromise on
their desired inputs and outputs. For example, one of the companies discussed here was
able to integrate a proprietary scoring system while the other enabled data exchange
with the field sales force.
IMS Health. Three Myths of Multichannel Marketing.
Page 16
Case Study 3
Reaching Out to Patients as Part of a
Holistic MCM Initiative
Current trends see patients becoming more important as their decision-making power
increases, but rarely being understood, and engaged with, in a truly effective fashion.
Nevertheless, within the regulatory, legal and ethical constraints that are vital, it is
increasingly important to have a patient insight and engagement programme, and this can
be an extension of the disciplines involved in the creation of a multichannel marketing
programme for physicians. In an interview with IMS Health, a leading company described
their current MCM activities as centered on creating new services and products directed at
patients and other stakeholders.
Using MCM initiatives, this company gains access to answers to simple questions relating
to how disease affects various aspects of patients’ lives, such as whether their illness
has caused issues when buying travel insurance while planning a holiday, or whether it
has affected their relationship with a partner. This type of information is then used to
create new apps and other services closely related to patient welfare, as well as providing
valuable insights to company officials involved in direct patient liaison leading to more
helpful interactions.
Effectiveness of these types of initiative is not necessarily measured directly in monetary
terms. Instead, effectiveness may translate into more subjective measures such as a
patient recommending a certain product or service to friends and family, or a patient
acknowledging the improvements to their quality of life. These indicators may be
measured through digital methods such as social media activity tracking.
By capturing patient experiences, these efforts provide data that can be used to improve
efficiency of clinical trials and adherence among patients, while providing patients with
services and tools to aid in their journey of disease management.
IMS Health. Three Myths of Multichannel Marketing.
Page 17
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