Too many of the DTC ROI models that I review, start with 100% of the population with the disease prevalence being the potential target. It ignores the evidence that’s been established across a number of disease states.
The fact is, roughly 30% of patients do not want to play a role in their treatment.
I’ll use evidence from research with metastatic breast cancer patients because surely this is the disease state with patients most apt to have a collaborative treatment approach with their physician. Grunfeld, in 2006, demonstrated that even as patients fail lines of chemotherapy in metastatic breast cancer a significant minority remain passive in their treatment even as their condition progresses.
In developing a realistic ROI model for patient marketing investments in metastatic breast cancer, I would automatically discount the targeted population by at least 30% based on the evidence provided by Grunfeld. It’s difficult to make the case that marketing efforts would change a patient’s innate behavior when blowing through a line of chemotherapy does not.
Yet another illustration of how you can leverage our Evidence-Based Marketing approach to easily and efficiently to get more mileage out of your marketing and market research efforts.
