An Integrated Approach to Marketing
FOLLOWING THE HYPE AND QUICK UPTAKE THAT MARKED THE INTERNET EXPLOSION OF THE LATE 1990S, MANY COMPANIES STEPPED BACK FROM THE MEDIUM. AS THE INTERNET CONTINUES TO MATURE AS A COMMUNICATIONS VEHICLE, THE HEALTHCARE INDUSTRY IS RETURNING TO THE WEB AND INTEGRATING ONLINE INITIATIVES AS PART OF THE MARKETING PLAN.
Pharmaceutical companies are learning that the power of the Internet cannot be ignored. About 6 million Americans go online for medical advice on a typical day, more people than actually visit health professionals, according to figures provided by the American Medical Association and The Pew Internet & American Life Project.
And the trend is toward increased Internet usage. According to Manhattan Research LLC, the population of consumers seeking drug information online surged ahead in 2002, with 24.7 million consumers stating that they have searched for drug information online in the past three months. The dramatic increase is being driven in part by the growing number of online resources, and DTC advertising, such as television and print, which is driving consumers to the Web for more information.
“The Internet is meeting needs that are not being met by traditional resources, such as print, TV, friends, family, physicians, and pharmacists,” says Mark R. Bard, president of Manhattan Research. “The Internet fills a void that none of these other channels have been able to meet as far as providing fast access to very targeted information when and where it is convenient to the consumer.”
In addition to an increased tendency to search for additional information after seeing an offline advertisement for a prescription medication, e-health consumers are much more likely to take action offline, such as visit ing a physician, consulting with a pharmacist, or calling a toll-free telephone number. Data show that e-health consumers are 2.3 times more likely than offline consumers to request a prescription drug by name.
And, according to the Pew Internet report, about one-third of Internet health seekers discuss the information they found online with their doctor or other healthcare professional.
“People still rely on doctors, friends, and family, but they are increasingly relying on the Internet as a preferred resource for information,” Mr. Bard says. “This plays into DTC advertising. Consumers are more likely, when they see an ad, to go to the Internet to get more information. For information, the Internet is a much easier, more convenient channel.”
Integrate the Message
Despite the Internet’s rise in popularity, there has not been a corresponding increase in the amount spent by the pharmaceutical industry to address this medium. According to a DoubleClick/Nielsen study, Internet marketing accounts for 3% of ad expenditures for the prescription and over thecounter drug market. Television ranks the highest, accounting for 69% of the sector’s ad spend, with magazines, radio, and newspaper as the next preferred methods of advertising. According to this same study, which evaluat ed spending across all industries, the Internet claims an 8% share of the advertising spend.
*side profiles
Doug Knopper- OVER THE PAST 12 MONTHS TO 24 MONTHS THERE HAS BEEN A REBUILDING STAGE, AND THE GLARING SPOTLIGHT HAS BEEN TAKEN OFF THE INDUSTRY AND OFF MARKETERS WHO USE THE INTERNET.
John Racik- THE INTERNET IS AN EVOLVING CHANNEL AND TECHNOLOGY, AND WHILE THE INTERNET IS A VERY POWERFUL TOOL,LIKE ANY OF OUR COMMUNICATIONS TOOLS, IT IS NOT THE BE ALL END ALL SOLUTION.WE NEED TO BE SELECTIVE IN WHERE WE PUT OUR MONEY AND HOW WE SPEND OUR MONEY,AND HOW WE INTEGRATE ALL OF OUR MESSAGING.
Karen Warth- MARKETERS MUST LOOK AT THE IMPACT OF THE INTERNET AND INTERACTIVE STRATEGIES IN THE CONTEXT OF WHAT THEY ARE DOING OFFLINE.THE SAME PERSON WHO IS WATCHING TELEVISION IS VERY LIKELY TO BETHE SAME PERSON WHO GOES ONLINE — MARKETERS CAN’T AFFORD TO HAVE TWO DIFFERENT VOICES.
end Side profiles*
But, say experts, the focus should be less on selecting a medium that pharmaceutical companies are comfortable with and more on integrating all the available marketing channels to best serve their customers.
‘The idea of integration is one that has been largely overlooked so far in pharmaceutical marketing,” says David Reim, founder and CEO of SimStar Internet Solutions. “The Internet tends to be treated like a silo and it is not. It’s a direct link to all of a company’s marketing strategies. Offline and online marketing programs need to be very tightly integrated. One of the big frontiers for the industry in the next couple of years is understanding how to think integrated and measure integrated.”
Experts agree that it is essential for companies to determine how the consumer wants to be contacted and receive information. “Companies have to take a broad look at their consumer base and evaluate the demographics — age, race, culture, socioeconomic, and education levels — and determine what works best within those different segmentations,” says John Racik, president and CEO of Blue Diesel. “We have to understand, whether it be our patients, customers, or consumers, how they want to be contacted.”
He continues: “This is an evolving form of communication. We try to stress that while the Internet can provide solutions, companies shouldn’t looked at it as a silo or as a tactic. Marketers cannot go down a list and check off `I have a Website.’ It is about what else this tool can do today and what it can do for us tomorrow. It is one of the fastest, and will continue to be, ways to communicate.”
Because consumers use more than one medium for information, pharmaceutical marketers need to use all the possible venues to get their message out to stakeholders in a coordinated and complementary fashion.
*Side profiles
Mark Bard- THE PHARMA INDUSTRY IS STARTING TO STEP OUTSIDE THE BOX AND MOVE BEYOND THE ISSUE OF PRIMARY AWARENESS.WE ARE STARTING TO SEE A FEW AGENCIES AND A FEW COMPANIES REALLY PUSH THE ENVELOPE TO FIGURE OUT HOW TO TAKE ADVANTAGE OF MULTIPLE CHANNEL MARKETING PROGRAMS.
Jules Korzeniowski- WHAT IS THE ROI BEHIND SPENDING $100,000 ONABUNCH OF PENSWITHYOURBRAND NAMEVERSUSAREALLY EFFECTIVE DIRECT INTERNET COMMUNICATION PROGRAM? THERE IS NOROI FORTHE PENS, YETTHE INTERNET IS HELD UPTO REALLY HIGH ROI STANDARDS.
Jim Hathaway- THE WEB IS BEING USED MUCH MORE NOW AS A RELATIONSHIP BUILDER. A SITE CAN CREATE A COMMUNITY AROUND A SPECIFIC AILMENT OR DISEASE AND CREATE A RELATIONSHIP BETWEEN A DRUG MANUFACTURER AND A PATIENT.
John Read- BRANDS THAT HAVE REALLY SURROUNDED THEMSELVES WITH MEANINGFUL ONLINE PATIENT SERVICES HAVE DISTINGUISHED THEMSELVES, BECAUSE THEY NOT ONLY HAVE THE POWER OF THE BRAND,THEY PROVIDE ALLTHE SUPPORT THAT THE PATIENT NEEDS.
David Reim- BIG PHARMA IS ABOUT TO BE SURPASSED IN INTERNET MARKETING BY SMALL PHARMA AND BIOTECH BECAUSE SMALL PHARMA AND BIOTECH CANNOT AFFORD LARGE SCALE TRADITIONAL MARKETING PROGRAMS SUCH AS NATIONAL PRINT AND BROADCAST. WE SEE THE SMALLER COMPANIES BEING MUCH MORE INNOVATIVE WITH THE INTERNET AND HAVING A MUCH STRONGER BELIEF IN ITS POTENTIAL.
End side profiles*
“Interactive marketing programs cannot be operated in a vacuum,” says Karen Warth, cofounder and president of Insight Interactive Group. “Marketers must look at the impact of the Internet and interactive strategies in the context of what they are doing offline. Whether the communication is DTC or professional, direct marketing or mass marketing, or personal selling tactics, there is a surround sound effect that needs to be considered when communicating to the audience. The same person who is watching television is very likely to be the same person who goes online — marketers can’t afford to have two different voices.
” A controlled, consistent message across all channels is the goal of integrated marketing. Experts say each channel has its own strengths, so marketers have to learn what tactics to use and where to use them.
“A lot of people think about their marketing efforts in terms of channels — television, print, the Internet — but to reach customers effectively, they must think broader than just channels,” Mr. Racik says. “Physicians, nurses, and patients are touched by a broad spectrum of messages that come through a variety of media. Understanding how to integrate these communications and provide a consistent message, regardless of the channel, is key to connect with customers and build relationships with them.”
Television and radio are frequency building media that are good at promoting general awareness. Experts say the Internet’s strength on its own is less defined, but the main difference is its ability to create an interactive dialog with the stakeholder.
“Someone who is reading an ad or other information about a product can connect instantaneously with the company or product manager or technical support person, and easily enter into a dialog,” says Doug Knopper, VP and general manager for online advertising solutions at DoubleClick. “Marketers can reach a very targeted audience in a targeted time slot. A consumer who accesses a portal, such as webmd.com, is in an environment that is very targeted, so a targeted message can be delivered easily.”
Advertisers, however, need to be aware of the product and its appropriateness to the media. “Promotional activities cannot be divorced from the nature of the product,” says John Read, director of planning at The Conectics Group. “That is a mistake that marketers make. They don’t recognize that each space is distinct. If a company is marketing an antihistamine, its use of the Internet is going to be extremely different from the marketing it would use for an oncology product.”
Measuring Return On Internet
Some in the industry note that pharmaceutical companies are moving more steadily, if more cautiously, in the direction of embracing the Internet.
“The Internet is underused in the pharma world, but its use today is much more appropriate than in 1999 and 2000 when health information was just flying around and hundreds of millions of dollars were being poured into a segment that was not yet vetted and did not have a known business value,” says Rich Benci, president of RealAge Inc. “Today, the Internet’s use is very business focused. Companies can’t cater to all people all the time so they are finding specific niches and are developing very good tactics for that niche.” Another issue that impacts advertisers’ use of the Internet for marketing is the issue of metrics, or lack thereof, to measure return on investment (ROI) of a site, according to Mr. Read.
“Because the Internet is a relatively new medium, it can be difficult for companies to calculate what the effectiveness of a media property maybe until they spend their money in a buy,” he says. “Before a campaign, most healthcare site traffic is self reported and falls under the radar of auditing services.”
Mr. Read continues: “In the publishing business, I can look up the readership of a magazine in any number of places if I am going to advertise. The data on a publication is a matter of public record. But the same information about Websites can’t be found as readily in terms of distributed content and the other more subtle applications of the Internet. For that information, marketers have to do the research themselves in order to understand how to use the Internet. This can be expensive. Marketers have to have access to people who Data show that e-health consumers are 2.3 times more likely than offline consumers to request a prescription drug by name from their physician marketing really understand the medium. The rewards can be very high if the due diligence is done to understand this space.”
*chart* Data show that e-health consumers are 2.3 times more likely than offline consumers to request a prescription drug by name from their physician
The Internet exploded so rapidly that analysts and researchers didn’t have enough time to understand the medium and interpret the mass amounts of data it provided, giving the industry the impression that the Internet was not a good investment because its ROI could not be measured.
“Initially, the problem with the Internet was that there was too much data and too much information and people couldn’t really turn that into actual dollars,” says Lee Mikles, cofounder and chief innovation officer at Insight Interactive Group. “But it can be measured. There is a need to connect what is to be measured to the overall brand strategy. It is important to identify the key metrics so that critical information is captured. By designing content that allows a consumer to talk to the doctor through a `click here to find a doctor in your area,’ mechanism or a `download this sheet to take to your doctor’ action gets us a lot closer to measuring ROI.”
Internet companies disagree that ROI can be hard to measure, adding that the medium gives advertisers detailed information not available with any other medium.
“There are a number of different things that the Internet can be used for and there are ways to track the ROI of every single campaign, every single segment, and every single target segment, this is not true with most other media,” Mr. Knopper says. “Once the objectives have been determined, there are a variety of different metrics that can be used to measure ROI, ranging from click-through rates, to conversion rates, user rates, cost-per-action, and cost-per-lead.”
Tools now are available that give marketers the ability to measure particular aspects of a campaign providing an accurate picture of what tactics are working.
“A campaign can be targeted to particular consumers in a segment via surveys, requests for additional profile information, coupons, or other enticements,” says Fred King, CEO of SoftWatch Inc. “The actual responses to individual campaign elements can be measured much more accurately than any other medium, whether to deter mine their effectiveness and usability or to better understand user needs and preferences. For example, we can evaluate patient compliance to measure if a drug program is being followed. We can measure conversions between brands.”
Mr. Knopper says the initial frenzy surrounding the Internet-led marketers to expect too much, and eventually led to them pulling back from the medium. The pullback from the Internet, however, allowed companies to regroup and learn about the medium.
“Over the past 12 months to 24 months there has been a rebuilding stage, and the glaring spotlight has been taken off the industry and off marketers who use the Internet,” Mr. Knopper says. “This has allowed us to experiment, test, and work on new metrics and work on understanding the metrics so we can make sure that the medium is effective for us.”
Analysts are certain that the use of the Internet as a marketing tool can be justified by its cost relative to advertising through traditional media.
“The Internet may represent 30% to 40% of a company’s entire patient population for a particular segment,” Mr. Bard says. “Internet users tend to be younger, they tend to be more educated, and they tend to have more money. From a value standpoint, the Internet, even though it may account for 30% of a segment audience, may be equivalent to 50% to 60% of the value.”
Getting to KnowYou
Beyond the immediate market ing impact, some regard the true power of the Internet as being a medium for getting to know the consumer.
“The Web is being used much more now as a relationship-building tool,” says Jim Hathaway, VP of market development at Grafica Group. “A site can be developed for a community around a specific ailment or disease and create a relationship between a pharmaceutical manufacturer and a specific patient. Companies that use the Internet to create a relationship by giving customers content to help them manage their condition are building a relationship that could keep them loyal to the brand even when competitors enter the market.”
Compared with traditional advertising vehicles, the Internet lets marketers communicate on a personal level with customers that already have expressed an interest in their product.
“The Internet, as a medium, is more personal because of the opportunity to have people opt in to receive specific information,” Mr. Hathaway says. “Also, companies can setup `microsites’ where specific segments of a patient population can be can directed to receive specific information about a product or brand. Because people are using the Web to look for healthcare e information anyway, it makes a lot of sense to push this information to them, especially based on their preferences.”
*chart*
INTERNET HEALTHCARE STATISTICS:
-About 73 MILLION AMERICAN ADULTS, 62% of Internet users, RELY ON THE MEDIUM TO RESEARCH PRESCRIPTION DRUGS, explore new ways to control their weight,and prepare for doctor’s appointments,among other activities
-About 6 MILLION AMERICANS GO ONLINE FOR MEDICAL ADVICE DAILY, whereas the American Medical Association estimates that there are an average of 2.75 million ambulatory care visits to hospital outpatient and emergency departments per day, and an average of 2.27 million physician office visits per day
-About 72% OF WOMEN WHO ARE ONLINE USE THE INTERNET FOR HEALTH INFORMATION, compared with 51% of online men
-About 71% OF INTERNET USERS BETWEEN 50 YEARS OLD AND 64 YEARS OLD HAVE GONE ONLINE FOR HEALTH INFORMATION, compared with 53% of those between 18 years old and 29 years old
-93% of health seekers have gone online to look for information about A PARTICULAR ILLNESS OR CONDITION
-65% of health seekers have looked for information about NUTRITION,EXERCISE, ORWEIGHT CONTROL
-64% of health seekers have looked for information about PRESCRIPTION DRUGS
-55% of health seekers have gathered information BEFORE VISITING A DOCTOR
-48% of health seekers have looked for information about ALTERNATIVE OR EXPERIMENTAL TREATMENTS OR MEDICINES
-39% of health seekers have looked for information about A MENTAL HEALTH ISSUE SUCH AS DEPRESSION OR ANXIETY
-33% of health seekers have looked for information about AS ENSITIVE HEALTH TOPIC THAT IS DIFFICULT TO TALK ABOUT
-32% of health seekers have looked for information about A PARTICULAR DOCTOR OR HOSPITAL
-Those with MORE EDUCATION AND MORE INTERNET EXPERIENCE are more likely to search for medical advice online
-There are NO SIGNIFICANT DIFFERENCES between whites, AfricanAmericans,and Hispanics when it comes to online health research
*Source: Pew Internet & American Life Project, May 22, 2002 — Vital Decisions:How Internet users decide what information to trust when they or their loved ones are sick
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By providing marketers with the ability to interact directly with a consumer, marketers can target their message for niche segments of their audience, which is less easy to do through TV, radio, or print media.
“One of the opportunities of the Internet is a real ability to target your marketing,” Mr. Mikles says. “As a company’s target audience becomes more specific, the Internet can provide very personalized drug or treatment information to that audience. If people are responding to these messages, if they are opting in for additional messaging, if they are signing up for programs, if they are down loading content, companies can obtain very targeted information. The Internet is one of the few media that allows a company to reach those people with a very targeted message.”
To use the Internet effectively as a patient targeting tool, pharmaceutical companies have to know what their customers want to give them one-to-one service.
“Building a one-to-one relationship with a customer is really what the Internet enables a company to do,” Mr. Read says. “The price of that relationship is under standing the customer, understanding his or her needs, eliciting information from the patient as to his or her desires. If companies don’t attempt to capture this data, then the Internet is just another blind-push medium like broad-based television advertising.”
The People’s Choice
Experts agree that it is essential for pharmaceutical companies, when using the Internet, to identify the customer’s preferred method of communication.
Often, consumers opt in to receive email alerts or newsletters from a brand’s manufacturer. Experts say the information given by the consumer is extremely valuable and should not just sit in a database.
“Many companies are collecting email addresses that consumers submit when they visited a site,” Mr. Bard says. “Unfortunately, a lot of those same companies have never interacted with the folks who have provided their email information. Often they sit on the information, knowing that it is valuable, but unsure as to how to use it. ”
Companies are becoming more savvy about using the interactive elements of the Web to gather user information. “We hope that companies will continue to evolve the direction of, not only gathering the data that is available through the Web, but also responding to that data,” says Karen Kuller, head of marketing at SoftWatch.
“The really critical part is taking advantage of the Internet as a dynamic medium and leveraging the information it provides to more effectively profile customers in terms of demographics, attitudes, and actions,” she says. “This information can then be used to more effectively define market segments to refine messages and campaigns accordingly. The concept of the Web involves appreciating how much smarter it can make you as a marketer if it is incorporated into a truly integrated approach.”
The most successful campaigns from our experience are those that combine email with another communication, such as a newsletter that directs people to a microsite about a specific condition that offers lifestyle content and health management content,” Mr. Hath away says. “This interaction is based on the information the consumer has provided.”
Physician Focused
Important though the consumer is, the healthcare professional must not be overlooked . Physician Internet usage is a hotly debated topic, but most experts agree that doctors are using the Internet less frequently and in a different manner than consumers.
“There was quite a bit of talk, especially two or three years ago, on how effectively physicians were using the Internet and whether they were even online in significant numbers,” says Eric Hanson, VP and director of Strategic Solutions Group at Thomson Physicians World. “Physicians as a group have lagged behind other groups in terms of their uptake of Internet technologies. That picture has changed pretty dramatically during the past 24 months to 36 months.”
A report from the American Medical Association, the 2002 AMA Study on Physicians’ Use of the World Wide Web, found that 78% of physicians now make use of cyberspace, and almost half of physicians surveyed say the Internet has had a major effect on the way they practice medicine. Furthermore, two-thirds of physicians interviewed access the Web daily, an increase of 24% since 1997.
Physicians’ notoriously hectic schedules and the industry’s recently self-imposed regulatory codes for sales rep behavior will create an opportunity for Internet marketing to fill the space previously held by detail-related events.
“The Internet is going to begin to more seriously impact professional marketing as the number of details is minimized and the amount of time and opportunities for individual sales reps to spend with physicians are diminished in the marketplace,” Ms. Warth says.
Marketers will need to give careful thought to the way they use the Internet to communicate with physicians. “Physicians are not in a work environment that allows them to be online to the extent that many people are, so it has been a challenge for marketers to gain access to them,” says Carolyn Clark, senior analyst at Nielsen/Net Ratings.
“The Internet is a great resource for doctors in terms of the tools that are out there, however, efforts do have to be carefully designed,” she says. “Healthcare providers do not access the Web all day, and they may not have a high speed connection. This must be taken into consideration when making marketing plans.”
Mr. King agrees that marketers need to analyze what the physician is doing when online. “A consumer will probably go to the Internet to look up information on a specific disease state,” Mr. King says. “Physicians will look at a number of disease state sites because they need to be hyperefficient. Our customers need to tailor the information they want delivered to a physician — whether it’s around a CME program, e-detailing, or relationship management — so that it’s clearly unbiased, timely, and usable.”
Because physicians’ needs are different from consumers, marketers need to keep in mind the physicians’ goals when using the Internet.
“With physicians the real value of the Internet lies in facilitating the delivery of care and their interactions with patients,” Ms. Kuller says. “Physicians are interested in how the Internet can enhance the efficiency of their practice and how they can effectively and efficiently gain access to the information they need to stay up to date with clinical research and advancements in medicine.”
In addition to keeping the physicians’ Internet goals in mind, the learning preferences of doctors also need to be considered.
“Physician learning preferences have to be taken into account,” Mr. Hanson says. “When trying to reach a broad physician audience, many different strategies need to be employed to meet the needs and preferences of specific segments of that audience. Physicians’ increasing interest in e-detailing and other Web-based tools makes the Internet a good piece of an overall communications strategy.”
This Website Was Brought to You By …
Sponsorship of online portals and association Websites are other aspects of integrated marketing that pharmaceutical companies can use.
“People initially had concern about credibility if pharma tended to be too closely associated with a portal such as WebMD, and would ask if consumers believe the information,” Mr. Bard says. “Content companies are managing this relationship very effectively, much the same way a print magazine handles the relationship between advertising and editorial. There has to be clear distinction between sponsored content and promotion.”
According to Dynamic Logic, the pharmaceutical industry and its online advertising campaigns are most effective at connecting their brand with sponsored elements, including content, promotion, and events.
“An area where the pharmaceutical industry does very well is sponsorship association,” says Nick Nyhan, president of Dynamic Logic. “The sponsorship could be a Website for any medical condition, or even sponsorship of an area on espn.com or a site that has do with a sporting event. Just like they do with traditional media campaigns, pharma companies can do the same online with a very effective place ments on sites that reach the appropriate audience. The pharma industry, according to our research, performs the best in this category.”
Mr. Nyhan, however, believes the pharmaceutical industry can do more in this category by thinking beyond placing just a banner ad on a Website. Marketers should view ad placement on the Internet in the same terms as they place ads in other media.
“Marketers sometimes think a little narrowly when it comes to online promotion,” Mr. Nyhan says. “They think by purchasing the asthma section of a Website and the associated asthma keyword they’re done. While that’s a good start, they may be missing a huge portion of their audience that may never go to the asthma Website.”
Mr. Nyhan suggests thinking out of the box, and that marketers should consider putting ads in the football section of espn.com, just as they would put their ads on TV during football games.
Slow and Steady
Although the pharmaceutical industry as a whole has much work ahead of it to truly inte grate its Internet efforts with its traditional marketing cam paigns, some companies have come a long way.
“We are heading on the right track now,” Ms. Clark says. “It takes some time for marketers to figure out what works within their industry and pharmaceuticals is a great example of that, particularly with the sensitivity of some of the health topics that they have to address.” Although industry experts agree that marketers are beginning to make more of a commitment to the Internet, there is room for improvement.
“The industry has made a new commitment to the seriousness and the strategy behind Internet marketing,” Ms. Warth says. “The industry has a completely different level of challenges from the actual purchasing network for a pharma product. As regulations change, however, there will be opportunities to move toward consumer-type scenarios, such as nordstrom.com, with individual opportunity.”
Part of the industry’s slow uptake of Internet opportunities can be attributed to regulatory guidelines.
“The Internet is an effective tool, but there are limits because of the regulatory environment,” says Jules Korzeniowski, general manager of The Conectics Group. “The pharma industry operates under much stricter guide lines than other sectors, especially in terms of communications for a brand. Chat functions on pharmaceutical brand sites don’t exist and if they do they are highly managed. The more managed something is, the less spontaneous it is, and the less people want to participate.’
*textbox*
As the Internet and the technologies surrounding the medium continue to mature, the pharmaceutical industry will grow with it and learn how to incorporate the Internet in an integrated marketing plan.
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“There are large differences between companies — some companies do understand the concept of integrated marketing and they understand where the Internet fits into the overall marketing plan,” Mr. Bard says. “But then again there are still some companies, and surprisingly some of the top five and top 10 companies, that continue to struggle with how the Internet fits into their overall con sumer or physician marketing plan.”
Mr. Nyhan says the pharmaceutical industry is learning what it takes to become a better online marketer. “There is a new level of discipline and commitment to online market ing,” he says. “But at the end of the day it is all about results. Pharmaceutical companies historically are about research. Similarly, their marketing is based on using research to evaluate how effectively certain tactics are being received and adjusting their tactics based on what the research shows. The pharmaceutical industry is becoming a very smart online marketer.”
*Experts on this topic
MARK R.BARD.President,Manhattan Research LLC, NewYork; Manhattan Research is a marketing information and services firm that helps healthcare and life-sciences organizations adapt, prosper, and exploit opportunities in the networked economy. For more information, visit manhattanresearch.com.
RICH BENCI.President,RealAge Inc., San Diego; RealAge is a direct-to-consumer marketing company providing consumer healthcare information and personalized healthcare solutions. For more information, visit realage.com.
CAROLYN CLARK.Senior analyst, Nielsen/Net Ratings, NewYork;Nielsen/Net Ratings services are offered in partnership with Nielsen Media Research and ACNielsen and provide information about how people use the Internet. For more information, visit nielsennetratings.com.
ERIC HANSON. VP, director, Strategic Solutions Group,Thomson Physicians World,Secaucus,N.J.;Thomson Physicians World develops advanced medical education programs to help healthcare professionals understand and apply the latest medical advances.For more information, visit physiciansworld.com.
JIM HATHAWAY.VP,market development, Grafica Group,Chester,N.J.; Grafica is a fullservice eCRM (enterprise customer relationship management) advertising agency dedicated to helping clients realize the full revenue potential of their cus marketing strategy. For more information, visit insightinteractive.com.
NICK NYHAN.President,Dynamic Logic, NewYork,Dynamic Logic is an online research company specializing in marketing effectiveness. For more information, visit dynamiclogic.com.
JOHN RACIK.President and CEO,Blue Diesel,Westerville, Ohio; Blue Diesel, an inChord company, is an interactive agency dedicated to providing solutions that integrate form and function.For more information, visit bluediesel.com.
JOHN READ. Director of planning,The Conectics Group, Parsippany,N.J.;The Conectics Group,a CommonHealth company,provides healthcare research, planning,development,and media services. For more information, visit commonhealth.com.
DAVID REIM.Founder and CEO,SimStar Internet Solutions, Princeton, N.J.; SimStar is a provider of behavior-based Internet solutions that enhance the success of pharmaceutical companies and strengthen the relationships with their customers. For more information, visit simstar.com.
KAREN WARTH.Cofounder and chief innovation, Insight Interactive Group, Philadelphia; Insight Interactive is an end to end marketing company, integrating all of the elements needed to conceive, launch, promote, and maintain a successful interactive marketing strategy. For more information, visit insightinteractive.com. tomers throughout their lifecycle — acquisition, retention, cross sell/upsell, and winback. For more information, visit grafica.com.
FRED KING. CEO,SoftWatch Inc., NewYork; SoftWatch is a provider of enterprisewide Internet relationship management solutions and services for the global health and lifesciences industry. For more information, visit softwatch.com.
KAREN KULLER.Head of marketing, SoftWatch Inc., NewYork;SoftWatch is a provider of enterprise-wide Internet relationship management solutions and services for the global health and lifes-ciences industry. For more information, visit softwatch.com.
DOUG KNOPPER.VP,general manager, online advertising solutions, DoubleClick,New York; DoubleClick is a leading provider of tools for advertisers, director marketers,and Web publishers to plan, execute,and analyze their marketing programs.For more information, visit doubleclick.net.
JULES KORZENIOWSKI. General manager,The Conectics Group,Parsippany,N.J.; The Conectics Group,a CommonHealth company, provides healthcare research, planning, development, and media services. For more information, visit commonhealth.com.
LEE MIKLES.Cofounder and chief innovation officer, Insight Interactive Group,Philadelphia; Insight Interactive Group is an endtoend marketing company, integrating all of the elements needed to conceive, launch, promote,and maintain a successful interactive