Setting the Strategic Lens for Segmentation

January 16, 2011

Are You Knowingly Practicing Drive-By Adherence?

Filed under: Patient Marketing,What We Think — Tags: acquisition, adherence, co-pay cards, CRM, non-adherence — dreinhardt @ 9:02 pm

The acquisition versus adherence patient pendulum has swung back to adherence. But, is the equation for adherence marketing as simple as many believe? Adherence = CRM + co-pay card. We call this ‘drive-by adherence marketing.’

The concept is that you speed by your most promising customers – the newly initiated – and you spray them with the set formula believing that you’ve then got patient adherence covered. It can’t be that easy. Can it? It may be for some categories, but most teams lack the level of evidence required to address the most gentle of inquires by senior management.

Start by understanding whether your patient non-adherence is intentional or unintentional. Why you ask? The entire approach and framework for your program changes dramatically.

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June 5, 2010

Don’t set it and forget it with CRM

Filed under: Marketing Effectiveness,Patient Marketing,Professional Marketing,What We Think — Tags: acquisition, competitive set, content, conversion, CRM, framework, independently evaluated, market, retention — dreinhardt @ 8:33 am

While ‘set it and forget it’ works for the Ronco Showtime Rotisserie BBQ, it shouldn’t be the mantra for your CRM program.

Regardless of the objective – acquisition, conversion, or retention – all too often expensive, quickly assembled CRM programs are developed during the prelaunch phase never to be independently evaluated after launch. These initiatives are costly even when done well, but even more expensive when done poorly. Periodically examining the framework for your CRM is plain prudent.

Do you have the right content? Do the communication touch points coincide with known hurdles related to use of your brand? Not asking these types of questions means that you believe nothing about the condition, market, competitive set, or your brand has changed since it was gestated. We’re not too sure how many markets like that are left.

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May 10, 2010

Setting the Strategic Lens for Segmentation

Filed under: Patient Marketing,Professional Marketing,What We Think — Tags: acquisition, adherence, segmentation, strategic objectives — dreinhardt @ 4:55 pm

There is an epidemic in our industry of unusable segmentation models. While it’s easy to point fingers, we’ve found it more productive to first ask, ‘What is the business objective you’re trying to achieve with segmentation?’ The underlying business objective should drive the selection of methodology and type of analysis employed.

We recently sat down with a client who had been struggling for some time to apply a market segmentation to their brand. A little insightful digging revealed the problem—the brand’s strategic objectives were completely focused on driving adherence, while the segmentation model was focused on garnering acquisition. A little more digging—turns out there were a fair number of retention-related variables collected in the original study. So with some additional cross-tabs, re-profiling of the existing segments, and a presentation in a digestible format the brand team now had a segmentation solution their vendor partners could put into action.

Does your segmentation story have such a happy ending?

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