What percentage of the early adopters, opinion and thought leaders in your chosen therapeutic area is your sales force calling on?
An instant response from the marketing department is usually somewhere north of 80-85%. Most teams are confident that their sales teams are regularly meeting with, and targeting, the people who influence the behaviors of their peers. Quite often the reality is different.
Nine different companies around the globe asked Medical Marketing Research Group (MMRG) to independently examine the answer to this question for their franchise or brand. Amazingly, when all the research had been completed the number ended up being 42%. Only an average of 42% of the known, recognized and most highly regarded clinicians in a therapeutic area were being actively targeted by these nine different companies. In other words, more than half of the key people were not on the company’s radar screen.
Why? Does it matter? How can it change? In this short article, we’ll share some ideas and show you how you can move north of the 42% threshold.
Why does it happen?
KOLs are not a static population. They move on. Sometimes they change their views and opinions. They retire. New people rise up. New technologies bring with them new thinkers and experts. Critically, for marketers it is not enough to conduct a single KOL mapping exercise prior to product launch and expect it to last forever.
We have found that we’re often asked to audit the KOL target list held by our clients when one of the following drivers arises:
1. A change of marketing management, and a refusal to accept inherited views on the market.
2. A product has failed to achieve its targets, and the company has decided to conduct a root-and-branches review.
3. The product is about to experience severe competition in the marketplace and management wants to be sure that the competition cannot grab a foothold.
4. Someone has conducted analyses of business activity and concluded that the pool of KOLs working with the company is too small (“why do we always go to the same people?”).
One way to avoid waking up one morning to discover that you’re engaging with less than 50% of the key people in your marketplace is to timetable an objective and independent KOL audit.
Why is it important?
Although it is a Marketing 101 issue, it is so often overlooked. Physicians don’t adopt a new innovation just because they’re aware of it. It does not matter how many times a sales representative tells them, or an advertisement catches their attention, or a Tweet hits their phone. Awareness is just the first stage of a move towards adoption.
Research shows that prescribers talk, listen to, and take advice from their peers (typically people they highly regard) before they take the plunge and try any new healthcare innovation. KOLs remain a pivotal link in the journey from awareness to adoption. If your brand is targeting its communications and efforts on less than 50% of the people that other physicians consult when thinking about trying your new innovation, you’re missing the target! That’s why it’s important.
How can it change?
Actually, you’ve changed already. By reading through to the end of this short article, you will be thinking differently – now. As Oliver Wendell Holmes once said, “Man’s mind, once stretched by a new idea, never regains its original dimensions.” Now that you realize that a KOL audit is necessary from time to time, you won’t be able to get away from the idea.
