Can the Web replace the rep?
Kate Wagstaff, product manager for Ferring Pharmaceuticals, on how to create an effective online campaign aimed at physicians.
By on Jul 13, 2010Kate Wagstaff, product manager for Ferring Pharmaceuticals, on how to create an effective online campaign aimed at physicians.
About 18 months ago, Ferring Pharmaceuticals moved a significant amount of its promotional budget from sales representatives to the online environment, according to product manager Kate Wagstaff.
She illustrates how this has worked with a case study.
The product concerned was DesmoMelt for nocturnal enuresis in children.
Although some half a million British children wet the bed to some extent, only 2.6% of seven-year-olds do this more than twice a week.
Those who exceed this level tend to continue to do so.
These are the children who are eligible for treatment, by paediatricians and in enuresis clinics, but mainly by GPs.
Indeed, the latter will only refer about half of these patients to specialist clinics.
DesmoMelt was previously promoted using traditional methods, Wagstaff explains, with GP and hospital specialist sales teams.
The product was typically in third detail position, allowing very little time for the interview. In 2009 we changed to having no GP team at all, Wagstaff says.
At this point, part of the budget was moved into an online campaign, which was associated with a fall in overall costs.
In addition, the hospital sales team was cut by almost half.
The decisions was triggered by the product reaching an early sales plateau, so it was clear that radical action was needed.
The growth was completely restored, Wagstaff reports.
Effective sales contacts
What really matters, of course, is return on investment.
While sales increased by 900,000 in both 200708 and 200809, costs decreased.
How was this achieved?
The key is effective sales contacts.
A contract sales organization had previously delivered some 28,000 GP contacts per annum.
Equivalent website contacts are defined as campaign views; 44,800 of these interactive contacts were recorded.
The cost per campaign contact was 4.80.
The brand campaign had several components, principally the DesmoMelt microsite.
This included the expected promotional messages but, just as importantly, a substantial amount of completely non-promotional material on nocturnal enuresis, such as patient videos.
It encouraged people to come back, to build stickability, says Wagstaff.
She was pleasantly surprised to find that many GPs read right through the clinical summaries on the site; they didn't just scan the first few lines.
There was also good interaction with other online components, such as a DesmoMelt one-pager, an e-detail, several clinical summaries, and patient case studies.
A KOL panel webcast and an eCME module were also popular.
Keeping campaigns fresh
A market research exercise, involving 72 GPs who had used the website and 100 who had not, found that 85% of the former group said they would manage paediatric nocturnal enuresis (PNE) differently.
Of these, 49% said they would begin prescribing DesmoMelt.
Seventy-nine percent of those interacting with the campaign said they would increase their prescribing of DesmoMelt, compared with only 28% of those who did not interact.
The key message analysis also showed significant superiority for the Web campaign.
Wagstaff is a believer in keeping campaigns fresh, whatever the medium, and the 2010 plan includes several new components.
Examples include KOL webcasts, patient case studies, a revised e-detail, and updated e-learning modules.
All this is designed to tie in with revised NICE guidance expected during the year.
There are no plans yet to migrate the Web campaign into secondary care, despite how successful it has been in general practice
Ferring simply does not have enough information on the specialist audience, Wagstaff explains.
Of course, all this will only work if people are directed to the site, so doctors.net was engaged to run the campaign.
This achieved the same number of unique users as a 50-strong GP sales team.
This article was adapted from a talk given at eyeforpharmas March 2010 eMarketing conference in Berlin. Kate Wagstaff will also be speaking at the eMarketing Canada event in November.
For more on Web sales and marketing campaigns, see Marketing and social media: A success story.
For more on sales reps, see Sales force effectiveness: are reps still relevant?.