Southwest Airlines and Pharma Content Creation: Whats the Connection?
I spend a fair amount of time on airplanes for business and some for pleasure and always try to take the nonstop flight to my destination.
By on Jul 8, 2010I spend a fair amount of time on airplanes for business and some for pleasure and always try to take the nonstop flight to my destination. I find the direct route to be the most efficient, yet, my choice is often determined by carrier and their choice of hub. On a recent trip, I spent several minutes staring at the departure board and had an epiphanyhow can pharmaceutical organizations learn from Southwests model?
Southwest Airlines, as many of you know, does not operate in the traditional method of its competition with hubs spread across the country. These hubs are great if you live there, but if you dont and are travelling to a non-hub city, expect to have at least one connection. To determine their flight offerings, the Southwest model uses a basic supply and demand equation to connect cities people want to travel to. Sure, there may be a connection on occasion, but in many cases, you can fly nonstop where a connection would be required with a traditional carrier. (I wont be discussing their customer service approach, but will consider that for a follow-on blog entry.)
Ok, so Ive just detailed the hub and spoke model vs a more customer-driven, supply and demand one, but heres the key--think of pharmaceutical organizations as the hub and spoketo stay relevant, they need to shift to the customer-driven engagement approach. The industrial approach to disseminating relevant information is inefficient, and forces patients and HCPs alike to sift through a variety of fluff to find what suits their interests; meanwhile becoming frustrated along the way. Now is the time to be more customer driven, organic, and focused based on the end users interest.
The good news is that through a strategic, multi-channel approach which surveys customer interests, encourages engagement, and captures feedback; organizations can implement programs their customers want at a fraction of their current budgets. Beyond simple cost savings, they can actually be more effective and impactful yielding true ROI and greater awareness, engagement, and eventually Rx volume. A little listening goes a long way; pharma organizations have the unique ability to utilize social monitoring and detailed site analytics to peek into the minds of their customers. They can analyze how customers feel about their products, their sentiments, and more importantly what specific content interests them and conversely what does not hold their attention.
Theres no shortage of data, but true insights are rare. The closed loop can improve each channel-agnostic interaction by delivering the desired content, and sourcing whats not immediately available based on a basic supply and demand equation. Imagine the ability to focus on understanding the digital customer and building only the content they want rather than creating a voluminous content library of less than engaging content that only a portion of customers are interested in. Its time to take this step, to be truly more customer centric and let our patients and HCPs tell us what they want; we just have to deliver it nonstop.