Mobile Micromarketing: Driving performance from strategy through execution

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Executive Summary Sweeping challenges in the healthcare business landscape have been well-documented and exhaustively discussed. Many marketers have reacted by investing across multiple channels, shifting focus and innovation away from the sales force. While the use of non-personal channels is on the rise, the sales channel remains a significant lever for influencing customer behavior. Ultimately, both personal and non-personal approaches are critical to improving brand performance. In fact, all marketing and sales efforts should be customer-focused and aligned from strategy through execution.

This raises questions about today’s sales strategies, sales force capabilities and the required integration of sales and marketing:

• Does the sales channel have the skills, tools, information and support necessary for aligned, customer-focused execution?

• Is the sales channel leveraging the latest in advanced analytics and mobile technologies?

Not enough has been done to equip the sales force with decision support around territory and customer insights so they can be successful in today’s shifting healthcare environment. Recent innovations in technology, applications and analytics bring new possibilities, and given continuing business pressures, issue a call to action for the industry:

• Localize national strategy, customer segmentation and managed markets access for every territory.

• Ingrain local strategy into territory management and customer engagement.

• Ensure that personal and non-personal channels complement each other.

All of the above are now possible. Commercial leaders who adopt this approach will tighten the connections between national/local and personal/non-personal strategies. Closing the loop on national-to-local and non-personal-to-personal strategy informs and elevates all strategy and channels, making enhanced execution possible. An organization’s ability to capture the branded growth opportunities that remain in each individual territory is improved. Without this alignment, execution cannot fulfill strategic intent and performance suffers. Execution is the key to unlocking performance. Technology, applications and analytics available right now make improved execution possible and practical, but it is up to commercial organizations to leverage them.

Key PointsA. National strategy should be consistently refined and prioritized for local execution based on current, unique territory dynamics, to drive strategic guidance and decision support beyond the call plan.

B. The localized strategy must be ingrained into the rep’s daily territory management with proactive just-in-time territory, customer and performance insights provided to increase both opportunity and likeliness that representatives will leverage analytics for improved business decisions.

C. Marketing strategy and sales execution need to complement each other to achieve enhanced brand performance.

D. Technology, applications, information and resources are in place today to achieve A, B, and C but are not being fully leveraged.

BY JOHN DALY AND CHRIS BAYLES

The healthcare industry needs to develop increasingly sophisticated strategies aimed at capturing today’s narrow opportunities. Commercial leaders can enhance analytically informed and customer-based integrated, multi-channel approaches for both personal and non-personal customer interaction by optimizing customer engagement and brand performance through alignment across and within channels. (Figure 1)

Mobile Micromarketing: Driving performance from strategy through execution

THE NEW CUSTOMER ENGAGEMENT MODEL – 360-DEGREE MULTI-CHANNEL APPROACH

Honed strategies chart the future of healthcare

Figure 1. Commercial organizations look to integrated, multi-channel approaches informed by advanced analytics to optimize the impact of personal and non-personal interactions.

Execution unlocks performance

Even a great strategy can be derailed by poor execution, and quite often strategy and execution are not aligned. This is not a new problem. In their seminal 2005 Harvard Business Review article entitled “Turning Great Strategy into Great Performance,” Michael C. Mankins and Richard Steele state: “Companies typically realize only about 60% of their strategies’ potential value because of defects and breakdowns in planning and execution.” (Figure 2) Their solution is as relevant today as it was then: “View strategic planning and execution as inextricably linked – then raise the bar for both simultaneously.”

The gap between strategy and execution represents a breakdown, and minimizing this gap is key to driving brand performance and growth. As the largest single channel investment and the strongest lever for influencing customer behavior, the sales force must be aligned, empowered and equipped to excel. Commercial organizations must leverage micromarketing to ensure a meaningful strategy that is locally actionable, works in concert across channels and empowers better execution and ultimately better brand performance.

Mankins, Michael C., and Richard Steele. “Turning Great Strategy into Great Performance.” Harvard Business Review, July/August 2005.

Figure 2. Across industries, organizations experience an average performance loss of 37% due to disparities between strategy and execution.

Inadequate or unavailable resources

Poorly communicated strategy

Actions required to execute not clearly defined

Unclear accountabilities for execution

Organizational silos and culture blocking execution

Inadequate performance monitoring

Inadequate consequences or rewards for failure or successPoor senior leadership

Uncommitted leadership

Unapproved strategy

Other obstacles (including inadequate skills and capabilities)

7.5%

5.2%

4.5%

4.1%

3.7%

3.0%

3.0%

2.6%1.9%

0.7%

0.7%

AveragePerformance Loss37%

Commercial organizations must leverage micromarketing to ensure a meaningful strategy that is locally actionable, works in concert across channels and empowers better execution and ultimately better brand performance.Market factors create headwinds for execution

Managed-care controls, the sluggish economy, increasing stakeholder integration and generic proliferation all are factors that have impacted the healthcare business landscape in recent years. To capture the opportunities that remain, many organizations within the industry are creating new commercial models built on account-based selling (aimed at incorporating stakeholder controls), customer-centric selling (aligning engagement to provider behaviors and beliefs) and multi-channel strategies (creating non-personal engagement). However innovative these strategies may be, most organizations have not fully prepared or equipped the sales force to execute them. Today’s challenges require reps to have sharp business acumen, honed and supported with information and expertise that drive excellence in customer interaction.

Much can be gained by examining and addressing the factors complicating the sales force’s ability to execute strategies today:

• Local complexity: In any given local market, physician treatment choices and prescription fulfillment are altered by payer controls, Integrated Delivery Network (IDN) treatment protocols, local price sensitivity, generic utilization and adherence. Segmentation and structure determined at headquarters do not consistently translate into tactics that can be prioritized and sustained for the dynamics of every territory. Reps need support to optimize local execution of the strategy.

• Change: The relationships and influences of stakeholders within a geographic region are dynamic; the segmentation and targeting that made sense from a national view at launch or last year may no longer be relevant or clearly translate locally. Reps need current, locally relevant information to guide their decision making.

• Sales force transition: Sales teams are now smaller and supported by fewer resources; sales reps have limited access to physicians, resulting in less face-to-face time to sell and a bias toward visiting the doctors they know will see them. At the same time, headquarters has recast the operational model from “reach and frequency” or “share of voice” to one of customer-centric business ownership based on local decision making. While this is a positive direction, very few commercial organizations have armed reps with the tools, training or analytical support they need to fulfill this new role.

• Channel alignment: As we engage across multiple channels, the need to complement personal and non-personal activities is critical if we want to move beyond multi-channel to a complete customer-centered and targeted strategy.

To mitigate the impact of these market headwinds, commercial leaders need to take action to align the strategy deep within the territories where customer contact occurs on a daily basis. Every rep in every territory must be empowered to execute the strategy in terms of the stakeholders, challenges and opportunities unique to that geography at that point in time. This can be accomplished today by delivering just-in-time, locally-relevant analytics and expert coaching to your reps using the data you already own and the tablets your reps already use.

Executing beyond the call planTo achieve true alignment, marketing teams must integrate their strategies at the point of sales execution to create a framework for successful execution. The industry norm of believing or perhaps hoping the strategy translates from national to territory level is not enough.

The successful sales model which incorporates micromarketing, or mobilized, localized marketing execution, is now customer-centric, account-based and requires reps to act as business owners. The analytics that informed the segmentation and targeting at the national level need to be refined and actionable to advance the business across all territories and evolving market dynamics.

Micromarketing: Mobilized, Localized Marketing Execution

For most commercial organizations today, sales segmentation is driven by customer insights and market dynamics derived months before field activation to align customer attributes at a national level across thousands of providers. Territory call plans or target lists include deciled and segmented local customers, informing the field force of the tactics, messages and resources aligned to each provider’s segment. Potential gaps exist in this guidance because:

a) The plan is not consistently adapted for local dynamics, non-personal interaction and market or customer change;

b) Execution is not enriched with a constant and appropriately granular review of territory dynamics; and

c) Customers are not consistently prioritized further and insights for actions do not routinely come during the business cycle.

MOBILE TOOLS ENABLE TRANSFORMATION TO DYNAMIC TARGETING – DRIVING BRAND STRATEGY BELOW THE CALL PLAN INTO DAILY LIFE

Daly and Bayles, IMS Health 2014

Figure 3 shows how to move “beyond the call plan” in a practical approach that ingrains a marketing-aligned, locale- and customer-relevant strategy into the representative’s critical business decisions. The same advanced analytics that informed strategic decisions are granulated so they are locally relevant and current and are made available to reps via mobile technology. This gives reps in every territory the actionable support they need to advance the business with every decision they make, focusing on high priority providers and empowered with up-to-date insights on local market dynamics.

Figure 3. Just-in-time, locally-meaningful insights delivered via mobile technology pull the strategy through for stronger local execution.

Principles that make this approach real:

• Consistency: Local strategy should be consistent with national strategy to remain aligned and structured, but also to capture the greatest local opportunities for branded growth.

• Local adaptation: National strategy needs to be translated into prioritized, dynamic actions that reflect the unique characteristics of each territory to minimize execution breakdown and enhance performance.

Why is it important to have a unique interpretation of the national strategy for each territory?

• Managed care’s impact on drug accessibility differs by region. A $50 co-pay may be prohibitive to patients in one region and not in another.

• In some major metropolitan areas, early adopters may emerge within six months of launch, where in rural territories it may take a year.

• In some regions, the highest brand-loyal prescribers may hold a 50% share while in others, they represent a 35% share.

These realities affect execution and ultimately performance and need to be taken into account. In essence, the national strategy needs constant recalibration locally.

How do segmentation models and analytics become more meaningful and actionable at the local level?

• Update relevant analytics frequently, automatically and proactively.

• Deliver prioritized guidance for customer actions.

• Provide opportunity/risk alerts.

• Shape decisions prospectively with analytically informed coaching.

• Integrate insights across channels and information across applications.

Building better business practices into the existing framework of the rep’s work keeps actions centered on opportunity and maximizes pull-through at the local level. The constant presence of the strategic guidelines and coaching on how to best stay within strategic guidelines leads to continuous improvement that compounds ownership and growth over time.

Leverage advanced analytics and mobile technology Sales reps make the majority of their customer, business and territory decisions during the day in-territory and while preparing to call on physicians. A recent Aberdeen Group study, “Decisions on the Move: Mobile BI 2013”, linked mobile business intelligence enablement to 200% better performance. Sales force automation and customer relationship management are good starts, but healthcare can do more with mobile technology. Let’s look at how tablets currently support better execution and improved performance:

• Reps receive automated updates on actionable customer, territory and performance trends.

• Alerts are triggered for risks and opportunities aligned to brand strategy and territory growth opportunities so reps can maximize both prospectively.

• Customers are prioritized for each territory for greatest growth potential decision support.

• The highest potential customers are identified on-the-go based on growth attributes, customer dynamics, just-in-time data and current location.

• All insights are available in a voice-activated hands-free, eyes-free format, optimizing drive-time so reps are more likely to use analytics to shape their decisions.

• Hands-free, eyes-free availability supports in-territory access to all insights and coaching, empowering improved decisions consistent with strategy.

• Ingraining strategy and best practices into the rep’s daily work life improves business acumen, business ownership and execution.

Tablets already in the hands of reps combined with the data you own can be activated for refined strategy and improved execution, and to synchronize personal and non-personal marketing to advance the business. The enhanced use of mobile technology can tighten the alignment of strategy and execution within the sales channel and across the entire multi-channel framework, helping the organization drive sales and commercial excellence.

“Decisions on the Move: Mobile BI 2013.” Aberdeen Group Jan (2014)

Conclusion Commercial leaders in healthcare today face unprecedented challenges to which they have responded with sophisticated, multi-channel strategies aimed at enhancing customer engagement. In doing so, many have rebalanced investments across promotional channels, requiring the remaining field force to execute at a greater level of proficiency than ever before.

The stakes are high. Commercial leaders need to challenge traditional approaches and ask whether the sales channel truly has the skills, tools, information and support required for aligned, customer-focused execution. The technology, applications and insights exist today for a more effective execution model, and brand leaders can improve performance by following a few guidelines:

• Adapt the strategy to the unique dynamics of every territory and keep pace with the frequent changes within it. Update strategy frequently and automatically to make a locally relevant framework accessible to every rep in every territory and maintain consistency while giving your national strategy room to breathe within the territory.

• Help reps perform as business owners. Translate the strategy into prioritized action plans that are ingrained into reps’ work lives and provide intelligent support to help them make better business decisions at every juncture in their day. The tablets your reps already have can be used to give them the data you already buy, delivered just-in-time in a way that highlights important customer insights, minimizes information overload, provides coaching, and elevates the rep’s performance.

• Sales is the most established and influential of the complementary channels used by marketing to engage customers, and the high quality insights gleaned through the field’s face-to-face interactions can and should be used to enrich both the strategy and its execution across channels.

Execution is the key to performance in today’s highly constrained markets, and empowered mobile technology is the key to better execution.

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ABOUT IMS HEALTH

IMS Health is a leading global information and technology services company providing clients in the healthcare industry with comprehensive solutions to measure and improve their performance. By applying sophisticated analytics and proprietary application suites hosted on the IMS One intelligent cloud, the company connects more than 10 petabytes of complex healthcare data on diseases, treatments, costs and outcomes to help its clients run their operations more efficiently. Drawing on information from 100,000 suppliers, and on insights from more than 45 billion healthcare transactions processed annually, IMS Health’s approximately 10,000 employees drive results for healthcare clients globally. Customers include pharmaceutical, consumer health and medical device manufacturers and distributors, providers, payers, government agencies, policymakers, researchers and the financial community. Additional information is available at www.imshealth.com.