ARE YOU READY FOR ANALYTICS IN THE AGE OF COVID-19?
We have learned many things in the months since COVID-19 overtook our discourse and reimagined our daily activities. Masks work, hydroxychloroquine does not, and the virus may be with us for many months or years to come. As life sciences companies prepare to reshape their commercial activities for the new reality, what are the areas of analytic focus that will provide the best possible data-driven answers to inform strategic marketing and sale decisions? Here are three...
1. ASSESS YOUR DATA AND GAPS
Consider this: Data will be our best asset to making decisions, but the data from the spring of 2020 may contain holes. Pharmaceutical sales reps were suddenly asked to not make in-person visits to the health care providers (HCPs) and the sales force had to scramble to use alternatives. eDetailing took over office visits and samples started to get sent to the patients directly. The tracking methods used to document rep details were not designed to be repurposed so suddenly. Awareness of data gaps like this will require that alternative touchpoints with HCPs have been accounted for. Therefore, identifying and reconciling data gaps will be the first step towards ensuring the health of your analytics.
2. MEASURE AND PREDICT THE IMPACT
You can’t manage what you can’t measure. Organizations need to be prepared to accurately assess what has changed. Are new-to-brand scripts dropping? How did my existing promotions contribute to overall sales since the spring? Which ones worked, which ones did not? Understanding where the organization is at this moment and making educated predictions as to where things are headed will be the starting point from which decisions are made. Those analytics need to be up-to-date, readily available, and be able to accommodate new questions as they arise.
3. TEST AND LEARN
New dynamics have arisen due to the business conditions imposed by COVID and many will remain going forward. The data and analytics to determine the best path forward will not exist in many cases. Are health care providers relying more on CRM? What messages resonate the most with HCPs? What about consumers? What is the optimal number of samples?
Natural experiments that resulted when marketing promotions were paused (i.e., rep details) or accelerated (i.e., teledetailing) will provide immediate opportunities to test and measure the value that promotions bring to the business in the new era. Benchmarking pre- and post-COVID promotions can provide an immediate way to determine what works and what doesn’t. But this will only cover a small portion of what will need to change.
Intentional experiments will be the key to fully understanding how to engage HCPs and patients. One of the biggest lessons we have learned to date is that digital marketing is an early winner, but absence makes the heart grow fonder and some HCPs genuinely missed their interactions with the sales reps. Organizations will need to be prepared to quickly set up test-and-learn capabilities where multiple approaches can be tried and the effectiveness of each can be measured in a short amount of time (2 months or less). The winners can be quickly determined and resources can be effectively focused. Is teledetailing working? Or is it being prepared with messaging when a sample is requested? Do changes in the web site alter responsiveness?
By addressing these areas of analytics focus, analytic groups within pharma and biotech companies can be ready to play a key role in determining the right mix of commercial promotions in a world where everything is changing.
