One Step Closer to Personalized Marketing Kent Groves of Merkle | November 18, 2014 Don’t blink! Over the last at Scale (AAS) – defined as the opportunity to create 12-24 months, another competitive advantage through the delivery of targeted, major shift has occurred personalized customer experiences – is the driving force in digital healthcare that enables this type of customized communication. By marketing. Alongside the leveraging this approach, we can cost effectively figure tectonic shifts caused out to whom and how we should offer personalized, by the Affordable Care digital experiences. Act (ACA) and the launch of exciting wearables Digital is being weaved within brand plans with like Google Glass, Apple increased spend year over year. While pharma’s digital Watch, and Fitbits, the investment is predicted to grow to $1.47 billion in 2017 ability to execute individualized programs at scale is from a projected $1.18 billion in 2013, it is currently now a reality. The discipline of data-driven, customer- projected to grow at a slower pace (5.9%) when centric marketing, now powered by audience buying, compared to other industries. The automotive and programmatic search, and experience personalization, consumer packaged goods industries’ digital spends, signals a growing performance gap between traditional for example, are projected to increase annually by 13.1% mass marketers and the new breed of addressable and 12.6%, respectively. Pharma investments vary in experience architects focused on overcoming personal comparison to other industries due to privacy concerns, barriers to the unresolved health challenges facing regulatory issues and prescription medicine and patent America, and the world today. expirations. These elements are the differentiators for the adaption of digital within pharma, but shouldn’t hold Now, as consumers are increasingly demanding marketers back. personalized health solutions that contain immediately- relevant, socially-mobile, locally-connected content, Understanding the Shift they are setting the terms of engagement for the next generation of health marketers. These individuals Historically, marketers have either focused on will be expected to deliver speed, scale, control, and performance (ROI, data driven, predictive and transparency, while harnessing the innovative ad measurable) or customer experience (Persona, Big Idea platforms pioneered by the likes of Facebook, Google, and the customer journey). The two are now converging Twitter, WebMD, and other first and third party targeting to deliver addressable customer experiences through the platforms. 3 C’s of addressability: Context, Content and Connectivity (see Figure 1). Why Focus on Personalization? With the rapid expansion of digital consumption, one of the fastest-growing foundations is the access to and creation of a wealth of consumer data across multiple devices. This proliferation has given pharma companies the ability to get more sophisticated in how and when they address patients and physicians. Addressability dtcperspectives.com | Nov 2014 • Context leverages everything we know about the and anonymous patient segmentation, puts us on the audience and ultimately refers to our applied knowledge verge of a pendulum shift. This could lead to patient- of the patient and the physician. Context is the directed change in health communication strategy. The knowledge of who the patient/physician is as well as result would be a world where demand is likely to drive their behaviors, motivations and location. We are able legislation; patient-tracked and monitored social activity to have a complete view of them in their environment may become the gold standard in health outcome and gain insights into how the content should be prediction; and patient care delivered with optimal delivered. Context is driving a need for a massive financial and health impact (and patient-reported, not variety of content. The way in which contextual data physician-defined, results) will be the end metric. The can be delivered about consumers varies. There are great news – many pharmaceutical marketers are platforms like Facebook (cross-sell device identity, well on their way with live, highly scalable pilots and signal strength etc.), Google bid-by distance, and the campaigns to not only reach the right people with the Twitter platform that enables us to have context on our right message at the right time, but are also beginning to target audiences. connect their channels. • Content is comprised of the stories, advice and offers About the Author: we make to patients/physicians that are rich and differentiating, delivered in relative context. Content Currently serving as Vice President of Life Sciences with leverages everything we know about the audience, and Merkle, Kent Groves has been consulting in healthcare includes every asset that we have to put in front of for more than 15 years in the areas of healthcare them. We are now able to know the device on which the provider segmentation, brand channel integration, content will be delivered, which drives individual design, CRM, marketing analytics and direct-to-consumer. He is messaging and offers. published extensively in a variety of journals including, Research in Social and Administrative Pharmacy, • Connectivity is HOW we integrate the targeting and Formulary, the Journal of Clinical Pharmacy and tracking capabilities of the addressable platforms to Therapeutics, and the Journal of Database Marketing. bring context and content together through media and He is recognized as an expert in the area of factors channels (see Figure 2). influencing physician prescribing, and was the author of the chapter on Prescribing Behavior in Social and Behavioral Aspects of Pharmaceutical Care, 2nd Edition, released in March 2009. Kent has worked with a number of clients in healthcare including Sanofi, Novartis, Pfizer, AstraZeneca, Genetech, Gilead, Merck, Abbvie and GSK. He can be contacted by email at kegroves@merkleinc. com or telephone at 443-542-4248. Pharma marketers can leapfrog the competition if they evolve to understanding the customer and have a customer-centric business model. Within the scope of existing legislation, pharmaceutical organizations can drive personalized customer experiences anonymously. The combination of virtual data, linked with therapeutic condition, patient-tracked personal health metrics, dtcperspectives.com | Nov 2014.