Cancer doesn’t discriminate. Many of us know someone who has been touched by it — a family member, a friend, a colleague. In the U.S. this year alone, more than two million new cancer cases will be diagnosed, and behind every statistic is a person, a family, and a care team trying to navigate an overwhelming maze of treatment options.
We also know oncologists are stretched thin, keeping up with new patients, complex guidelines, fast-changing drug approvals, and a crushing schedule of up to twenty patients per day. As pharma marketers, we’re all working towards easing the burdens on HCPs and patients, getting patients on the right therapy faster.
At the recent Fierce Pharma Week conference, my colleague Jen Dwyer and I shared a real-life example of how one oncology brand tackled these challenges, and the exciting results they delivered.
Many brands will say they’re coordinating HCP and DTC marketing. But when you look closely, more often than not the two efforts are happening in silos. HCP campaigns focus on clinical decision-making. DTC campaigns raise awareness and nudge patients to ask questions. Rarely are they designed to work in concert.
So, the natural question arises: if very few brands are aligning their HCP and DTC marketing, does synchronization even matter?
In the ideal scenario, a patient sees an ad, walks into their next healthcare appointment, and sparks a productive conversation with their HCP, who also had been receiving brand marketing and envisioning a similar treatment path. But does this ever really happen? What would a brand have to do to achieve it? To answer that question, let’s look at the story of one oncology brand we supported in this very effort.
It’s easy to say the HCP and DTC marketing is coordinated, but what does it take to truly synchronize communication? In this example, let’s imaging that “Matt” is a cancer patient, and “Dr. Smith” is his oncologist.
As Matt goes through his treatment journey, there is a point in time where he becomes eligible for our client’s brand, due to his disease progression. If we predict when that milestone occurs, then the brand can take two related, synchronized actions in that window:
Together, these marketing actions means that when Matt arrives for his appointment, he’s already aware of the therapy and ready to have a meaningful conversation. Dr. Smith is also familiar with the brand benefits and more likely to agree it is the right treatment pathway—increasing the likelihood of brand conversion.
The approach described above is exactly what the client executed through our Dynamic Audience Activation Platform. And it paid off.
Prior to synchronization, the HCP and DTC programs were running independently, and the results were as follows:
Based on the percentages above, it would be reasonable to expect that the impact of a synchronized program would equal the sum of these two figures, or .434% script lift. But that’s not what happened.
The actual script lift from the synchronized HCP+DTC program was .448%, or 8% higher than the independent campaigns. What’s more, patients in the synchronized program were also:
It’s a true “1+1=3” scenario, where the whole is greater than the sum of its parts. It’s also strong evidence that the “ideal” scenario for a patient and oncologist conversation was occurring, and that marketing can drive those conversations that convert.
This case study is the rare instance in healthcare where what’s best for business is also best for the patient and provider:
More importantly, when we don’t coordinate our marketing this way, we risk delaying patients like Matt from starting treatment when it is most likely to be effective—increasing the risk of worse health outcomes. When the stakes are high for patients, a synchronized approach gives us the best chance to get them the care they need.