Many organisations have put in place or are considering ‘marketing excellence’ programs to help drive performance. The key challenge for companies is to prepare marketers for the future rather than just focusing on their current needs or god forbid the past. So what will ‘excellence’ demand going forward?
I am going to be a little controversial given our experience in recent years in developing, executing and seeing the end product of marketing excellence programmes.
Many organisations are still using a series of templates, generally PowerPoint as no one seems to have time to read written documents these days, as the way to ensure marketing is excellent across brands, business units and countries. However, as the smart marketing managers are recognising, their marketing teams are getting very adept at completing templates but they are not actually achieving the ‘excellence’ in marketing that is required. The necessary quality of thinking is just not there, and too often the end plan is no different from the way marketing within the organisation has always been done.
The more insightful companies that have recognised that templates are NOT the way forward, have assembled sets of tools and a logic structure to try to get true ‘insight’ by putting the customer at the centre of everything. From this base the hope is that excellent marketing strategies and plans can then be developed. However, this suffers from the inherent problem that if marketers and their bosses do not actually know what ‘excellent’ is, then the end product can still be lacking.
So what is going to drive success in the future healthcare environments and as a consequence what does ‘excellence’ look like?
Getting off to a strong start
There is now evidence to suggest that sales at the end of Q3 after product launch predict sales at Q20 (5 years post launch) and consequently peak sales Source: INSEAD. Plus the quicker you get to market the greater period you have to maximise peak sales. Interestingly, what the analysis also shows is that the post launch trajectory is not about being first to market or being the best molecule.
An important element in achieving ‘excellence’ comes from the R&D and commercial divisions working together effectively, a key element of which is to manage thought leader segments to shape the future for the molecule, generating insight for market development, the evidence base for the product and its future positioning. This is a critical area in creating ‘value’ (see later) and developing competitive advantage.
Then there is effective management of market access and market entry, including ensuring timely and acceptable pricing along with formulary approval post-launch.
Above all product launch is about developing and sustaining a momentum for the product. This means ensuring the customer’s initial use of the product is positive and provides a foundation on which to build. How you do this is by helping the clinician identify the right patient for the product and by managing their and the patient’s expectations appropriately.
Developing true customer insight
‘Insight’ is a buzz word at the moment, but what does it mean. The Oxford English Dictionary defines insight as “the capacity to gain an accurate and deep understanding of something”; whilst the Collins English Dictionary definiton states “the ability to perceive clearly or deeply; a penetrating and often sudden understanding, as of a complex situation or problem”.
From a marketing ‘excellence’ perspective this is about discovering or recognising some previously unknown, overlooked or unappreciated reasons behind why customers behave in a particular way, their motivations; that we can then utilise to drive change.
This requires real tenacity in getting under the skin of what we see and hear. It is about assimilating and interrogating data, facts and observations to tease out and really understand the underlying drivers. It is an iterative process that looks for and then tests new patterns and explanations that have not been previously recognised.
You know when you have generated true ‘insight’ because it is so obvious, with the benefit of hindsight, once you have reached the end of the process! Getting there is all about perspiration with a little inspiration. It is about having the eyes to see and the ability to really listen.
Delivering ‘value’
The terms ‘value’ and ‘value proposition’ are being used more and more in healthcare marketing these days. The problem is that many people see the ‘value proposition’ as purely part of market access and specifically the pricing and reimbursement package pre-launch.
The challenge for marketers and what is excellence moving forward is to demonstrate value to a number of different and diverse stakeholders over the whole life cycle of the brand, not least as value means very different things to different people.
To payers it is all about the economic benefits of treating whole populations, and hence drug cost. In the UK the intent to move to Value-Based Pricing is all about improving NHS patients’ access to effective and innovative drugs. Value for the UK Government includes impact on ‘burden of illness’ (the seriousness of the condition – including severity, and threat to life – after treatment with current best practice) and ‘therapeutic innovation and improvement’ (the scale of clinical benefit provided by the medicine, beyond current best practice). Also important are non-health benefits, such as impacts on time spent with carers. The value-based pricing assessment is intended to yield a price range that represents the value of a new medicine to the NHS.
To healthcare professionals it is more about treating the individual patient, but within the local operating environment. It is all about the medical or therapeutic benefits of the treatment. However, even then ‘value’ will differ across the healthcare professional spectrum. For specialists there will be a strong bias to evidence-based decision making with a dose of personal experience and practice, the extent depending on the specialty. So ‘value’ for the specialist is going to be driven by the strength and depth of the clinical evidence. For the generalist it is more about patient recognition and the ‘value’ comes from the medical benefits plus the practicalities of managing the patient over the course of treatment.
For the patient ‘value’ is different again. Here it is about outcomes, focused around the patient / caregiver benefits (pain, anxiety, social /emotional well-being, functioning, ability to work, etc).
The challenge for the marketer is that the relative or perceived ‘value’ of a product will change over the life cycle, given changes in the competitive set e.g. brand leaders going off patent and new entrants that offer greater benefit. Hence life cycle management takes on a different dimension. Rather then just managing label or indication extension, the marketer needs to continue to develop perceptions and the evidence of acceptable ‘value’.
Focus
In project meetings with senior managers we regularly hear the same thing: “we try to do too much”. With the necessary change in business models, away from pure sales force numbers and share of voice, there is a natural tendency to try to cover all the bases in case we miss something important. But then marketers end up with little focus and no clear direction; like headless chickens rushing round doing lots of things and achieving little.
Resource – time, people and money – is increasingly stretched as our businesses become more efficient and more effective in order to operate effectively and profitably in the new healthcare environment.
Consequently there is an increasing need to reduce the number of ‘things’ we do without compromising achievement of ever more challenging objectives. That means we have to be confident of what really drives success for our brands.
‘Excellence’ is about identifying what we ‘have to do’ and what we ‘want to do’. Anything else is a just a waste of resource.
The challenge is having the clarity to recognise what is important and what is not, and the courage to let go of what we might be comfortable and familiar with and not just repeatedly do the things we have always done.
Conclusion
If you want to define marketing ‘excellence’ in the immediate future according to different elements of bringing the product to market and maximising success, then it is all about:
- Maximising speed of market entry
- Effectively managing the thought leader base across the life cycle of the product
- Ensuring timely and acceptable pricing along with formulary approval post-launch
- Generating true customer ‘insight’ that allows you to understand underlying motivations and drive change
- Helping the clinician identify the right patient for the product and managing their and the patient’s expectations appropriately
- Delivering value, based on that insight to a wide range of stakeholders across the life cycle of the brand – customer ‘value’ management
But you know what, marketing ‘excellence’ is really all about identifying and then executing what we ‘have to do’ and what we ‘want to do’ and ignoring the rest.
About The Author
Dr Paul Stuart-Kregor is Director at The MSI Consultancy.
Originally published in PM Europe, June 2011
What exactly does excellence look like?
Many organisations have put in place or are considering ‘marketing excellence’ programs to help drive performance. The key challenge for companies is to prepare marketers for the future rather than just focusing on their current needs or god forbid the past. So what will ‘excellence’ demand going forward?
I am going to be a little controversial given our experience in recent years in developing, executing and seeing the end product of marketing excellence programmes.
Many organisations are still using a series of templates, generally PowerPoint as no one seems to have time to read written documents these days, as the way to ensure marketing is excellent across brands, business units and countries. However, as the smart marketing managers are recognising, their marketing teams are getting very adept at completing templates but they are not actually achieving the ‘excellence’ in marketing that is required. The necessary quality of thinking is just not there, and too often the end plan is no different from the way marketing within the organisation has always been done.
The more insightful companies that have recognised that templates are NOT the way forward, have assembled sets of tools and a logic structure to try to get true ‘insight’ by putting the customer at the centre of everything. From this base the hope is that excellent marketing strategies and plans can then be developed. However, this suffers from the inherent problem that if marketers and their bosses do not actually know what ‘excellent’ is, then the end product can still be lacking.
So what is going to drive success in the future healthcare environments and as a consequence what does ‘excellence’ look like?
Getting off to a strong start
There is now evidence to suggest that sales at the end of Q3 after product launch predict sales at Q20 (5 years post launch) and consequently peak sales Source: INSEAD. Plus the quicker you get to market the greater period you have to maximise peak sales. Interestingly, what the analysis also shows is that the post launch trajectory is not about being first to market or being the best molecule.
An important element in achieving ‘excellence’ comes from the R&D and commercial divisions working together effectively, a key element of which is to manage thought leader segments to shape the future for the molecule, generating insight for market development, the evidence base for the product and its future positioning. This is a critical area in creating ‘value’ (see later) and developing competitive advantage.
Then there is effective management of market access and market entry, including ensuring timely and acceptable pricing along with formulary approval post-launch.
Above all product launch is about developing and sustaining a momentum for the product. This means ensuring the customer’s initial use of the product is positive and provides a foundation on which to build. How you do this is by helping the clinician identify the right patient for the product and by managing their and the patient’s expectations appropriately.
Developing true customer insight
‘Insight’ is a buzz word at the moment, but what does it mean. The Oxford English Dictionary defines insight as “the capacity to gain an accurate and deep understanding of something”; whilst the Collins English Dictionary definiton states “the ability to perceive clearly or deeply; a penetrating and often sudden understanding, as of a complex situation or problem”.
From a marketing ‘excellence’ perspective this is about discovering or recognising some previously unknown, overlooked or unappreciated reasons behind why customers behave in a particular way, their motivations; that we can then utilise to drive change.
This requires real tenacity in getting under the skin of what we see and hear. It is about assimilating and interrogating data, facts and observations to tease out and really understand the underlying drivers. It is an iterative process that looks for and then tests new patterns and explanations that have not been previously recognised.
You know when you have generated true ‘insight’ because it is so obvious, with the benefit of hindsight, once you have reached the end of the process! Getting there is all about perspiration with a little inspiration. It is about having the eyes to see and the ability to really listen.
Delivering ‘value’
The terms ‘value’ and ‘value proposition’ are being used more and more in healthcare marketing these days. The problem is that many people see the ‘value proposition’ as purely part of market access and specifically the pricing and reimbursement package pre-launch.
The challenge for marketers and what is excellence moving forward is to demonstrate value to a number of different and diverse stakeholders over the whole life cycle of the brand, not least as value means very different things to different people.
To payers it is all about the economic benefits of treating whole populations, and hence drug cost. In the UK the intent to move to Value-Based Pricing is all about improving NHS patients’ access to effective and innovative drugs. Value for the UK Government includes impact on ‘burden of illness’ (the seriousness of the condition – including severity, and threat to life – after treatment with current best practice) and ‘therapeutic innovation and improvement’ (the scale of clinical benefit provided by the medicine, beyond current best practice). Also important are non-health benefits, such as impacts on time spent with carers. The value-based pricing assessment is intended to yield a price range that represents the value of a new medicine to the NHS.
To healthcare professionals it is more about treating the individual patient, but within the local operating environment. It is all about the medical or therapeutic benefits of the treatment. However, even then ‘value’ will differ across the healthcare professional spectrum. For specialists there will be a strong bias to evidence-based decision making with a dose of personal experience and practice, the extent depending on the specialty. So ‘value’ for the specialist is going to be driven by the strength and depth of the clinical evidence. For the generalist it is more about patient recognition and the ‘value’ comes from the medical benefits plus the practicalities of managing the patient over the course of treatment.
For the patient ‘value’ is different again. Here it is about outcomes, focused around the patient / caregiver benefits (pain, anxiety, social /emotional well-being, functioning, ability to work, etc).
The challenge for the marketer is that the relative or perceived ‘value’ of a product will change over the life cycle, given changes in the competitive set e.g. brand leaders going off patent and new entrants that offer greater benefit. Hence life cycle management takes on a different dimension. Rather then just managing label or indication extension, the marketer needs to continue to develop perceptions and the evidence of acceptable ‘value’.
Focus
In project meetings with senior managers we regularly hear the same thing: “we try to do too much”. With the necessary change in business models, away from pure sales force numbers and share of voice, there is a natural tendency to try to cover all the bases in case we miss something important. But then marketers end up with little focus and no clear direction; like headless chickens rushing round doing lots of things and achieving little.
Resource – time, people and money – is increasingly stretched as our businesses become more efficient and more effective in order to operate effectively and profitably in the new healthcare environment.
Consequently there is an increasing need to reduce the number of ‘things’ we do without compromising achievement of ever more challenging objectives. That means we have to be confident of what really drives success for our brands.
‘Excellence’ is about identifying what we ‘have to do’ and what we ‘want to do’. Anything else is a just a waste of resource.
The challenge is having the clarity to recognise what is important and what is not, and the courage to let go of what we might be comfortable and familiar with and not just repeatedly do the things we have always done.
Conclusion
If you want to define marketing ‘excellence’ in the immediate future according to different elements of bringing the product to market and maximising success, then it is all about:
But you know what, marketing ‘excellence’ is really all about identifying and then executing what we ‘have to do’ and what we ‘want to do’ and ignoring the rest.
About The Author
Dr Paul Stuart-Kregor is Director at The MSI Consultancy.
Originally published in PM Europe, June 2011