In most Pharma companies, traditional market research has evolved. Now it encompasses business insights and business analytics too. Sadly, in many cases, marketing teams are not really taking advantage of the power of the data these teams can offer.
Because of their closeness to the brand and therapy area, we often see marketers acting as if they know all about the product challenges. They seem to view asking for information in specific areas as unnecessary – a waste of time.
However, this is foolish. Working more closely with these teams would give marketers the strategic insights they need to drive higher revenues and profits.
In many Pharma companies, the market research tends to be fairly standard stuff….which is part of the problem. Typically it includes things like:
• Brand awareness
• Brand and competitor perceptions
• Message recall
• Message evaluation
• Share of voice
• Prescription intention
• Prescription adoption
• Brand share
• Brand switching behavior
• Brand loyalty
• Detail follow ups
• Quality and quantity of calls
• Call satisfaction
• Rep quality perceptions
• Company image perceptions
Yes, all of these things are of interest. And yes, they have their place…but they are not going to solve marketers’ real problems, are they? Nor will they answer the real question at the heart of Pharma marketing:
“What do I have to do specifically to gain market share against my competitors, and by how much, to achieve a result of x?”
All is not lost, however. That same research can be done differently to provide much more value to the business. When you know the right questions to ask, you can get the information you really need. When you apply the right algorithms to that data, you can analyze it in depth.
Logarithmic analysis is much more powerful, and much more useful, than the typical research I see being done by most in the industry. Indeed, when we ran this for a recent client, they were so taken aback by the results that they called it, “Market research on steroids”.
Conclusion
For more on how you can see the benefits of this in your business, read our article ‘Can You Get More From Your Internal Market Research and Business Analytics Teams?’
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To learn more about how Eularis can help you find the best solutions to the challenges faced by healthcare teams, please drop us a note or email the author at abates@eularis.com.