Listen ! Your current customers are trying to tell you something !
Oct/09/06 17:18 | Market Research
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Market research is supposed to provide insights into the way people think.  The problem is that most market research does not provide these insights and as thus marketers get the wrong information they need to turn consumers into patients.

When I worked on the ED market for example I suggested that we interview current patients to determine what finally motivated them to ask their doctor for a prescription.  Of course my manager did not believe that this would provide valuable information and as thus only continue to do
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research with men who had ED and not sought treatment yet.

You can learn a lot from your current customers including their perceptions of the brand and the decision making process they went through to get treatment.  This could lead to a decision tree which could identify key intervention opportunities for the brand.  Marketers spend way too much time testing and retesting messages and DTC advertising and then when share doesn’t increase they look for reasons why and ask for more money to do more research and develop more spots.  It’s no wonder that the state of DTC today is in sad shape.

This week executives from both Wal*Mart and P&G acknowledged that marketers have to let go of the old marketing beliefs and that consumers now control messages.  This is even more true with pharmaceutical products.  Any DTC marketer who believes that someone is going to watch a TV commercial and go to their doctor to get an Rx is mistaken.  It requires an integrated campaign to reach consumers at every touchpoint with a consistent message that is relevant to them.

Listening is becoming a lost art; there are way too many marketers that hear what they want to hear and use market research to cover their asses rather than gain valuable insights into how to improve patients lives. 
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