Harte-Hanks Debuts 'Lifecycle Optimization: Non-Manpowered Selling,' A Professional Marketing Solution For The Pharma Industry

Data-driven offering enables pharma brands to extend reach to physicians using a variety of direct channels that provide detailing, sample fulfillment, ongoing dialogue

Langhorne, PA - Harte-Hanks, Inc. has launched a multi-faceted physician marketing solution called Lifecycle Optimization: Non-Manpowered Selling ("Non-Manpowered Selling") designed to extend the vitality of a mature pharmaceutical brand through a variety of data-driven direct communications. Acting as a "surrogate" sales force, Non-Manpowered Selling gives pharmaceutical companies a process to support key products and to dialogue with physicians who are difficult to reach with a field sales force. The solution is designed to increase the number of total prescriptions by communicating multichannel brand messages over time to prescribing-physician segments.

"When a drug becomes mature or has its marketing budget chopped away because of a new product in the stable, a sales force can go away overnight," said David Zaritsky, managing director, pharmaceutical markets, Harte-Hanks. "Our solution provides an effective method for keeping that drug relevant and top-of-mind among physicians – in effect, maximizing revenue across its patent-protected period."

According to Zaritsky, Non-Manpowered Selling optimizes physician relationships by adopting multichannel communications, guided by a custom database of physicians that profiles all high prescribers in target therapeutic areas. The database facilitates the collection of key physician self-reported data that can be leveraged to craft personalized/relevant messages which can be customized to specific prescribers based on behavior and expressed preferences.

Among other benefits of Lifecycle Optimization: Non-Manpowered Selling:

• Complement a Sales Force with Multichannel Messaging: The database component also can supplement the efforts of a sales force by reinforcing sales messages for added reach and frequency. Based on the information collected from and about physicians, a custom curriculum of e-mail and direct mail messages can be generated using the direct response agency team of Harte-Hanks.
  
• Reach "Hard-to-See" and "No-See" Physicians in Vacant Territories: Database segmentation enables Non-Manpowered Selling to facilitate key brand messages to high prescribers in areas that are otherwise difficult or impossible to contact.

The ability to fulfill physicians' requests for samples is another feature of the solution, utilizing Harte-Hanks operations that meet the requirements of the Prescription Drug Marketing Act.

"The personal sales channel is facing serious challenges," said Julian Parreño, senior vice president, pharmaceutical markets, Harte-Hanks. "There are more than 100,000 sales reps currently calling on top-decile prescribers, and many companies have multiple reps in 'pods' who try to call on the same physicians. Many reps don't even get past the reception desk and sometimes end up with only a 'sample drop.' There are hundreds of companies calling on a typical high prescriber, and the average cost per personal sales call is significant. It is for these reasons that a supplemental sales channel makes sense to increase total prescriptions over the brand's lifecycle."

According to a January 2006 Gartner report titled Creating a Single Customer View with Customer Data Integration, authored by John Radcliffe, the pharmaceutical industry is applying customer data integration to better understand physicians, and to improve targeting of sales and influencing.

In 2005, Harte-Hanks first developed Non-Manpowered Selling for King Pharmaceuticals on behalf of its 17-year-old asthma inhaler, Intal. Because the drug was so mature, there was no sales force attached to its promotion. Harte-Hanks generated a multi-wave mail campaign that both re-branded Intal and generated leads through sampling requests. In the end, the program was the recipient of two prestigious Direct Marketing Association International ECHO Awards largely on the strength of physicians' unprecedented response. The campaign achieved a 25% response rate from King Pharmaceuticals's most coveted physician segment for this particular treatment.

Lifecycle Optimization: Non-Manpowered Selling is among a new generation of "customer optimization" solutions for vertical markets from Harte-Hanks. Each solution is built around the concept of optimizing customer value by using data to improve every customer experience.

SOURCE: Harte-Hanks