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It's not hard to gain marketing funds when your brand is growing rapidly, along with the rest of the company's portfolio. However, for many brands this is no longer the case. Today's marketing budgets are being scrutinized like never before. That is why all programs such as e-detailing blasts, trial prescriptions, coupons, speaker events, and other promotional campaigns must be critically evaluated.
New True-Match technology produces superior test-control matches, thereby improving the accuracy and precision of program measurement. More accurate measurement enables more selective programming. Therefore:
- Programs proven to be more profitable can be expanded
- Programs proven to be unprofitable can be eliminated, or modified
- All future programs can be directed to the physicians that have been shown to be most responsive
What's the Problem?
Accurately measuring marketing program impact is difficult, and approaches currently used are often flawed. Why?
- Programs are typically offered to the most attractive physicians who are unique in the opportunity they offer, and the level of overall sales and marketing attention they receive
- Consequently, it's difficult to find appropriate control physicians who are well matched
- A poorly-matched control group will lead to biased measurement of program impact
- Measured program results are very sensitive to control group definition. We have seen huge measurement error that can be directly traced to invalid controls, as illustrated below
Program Impact Variation for Different Control Groups
How to Address the Challenge?
Of course, the most statistically reliable way to measure program results is achieved by developing a prospective, randomized test/control experiment - not unlike clinical trials undertaken to gain drug approval. However, these tests are often not practical for many marketing programs because they can be complex, require broad organizational commitment and take many months to complete. (Click here to contact us to learn more about the benefits of these experiments to evaluate details and sampling).
We understand how difficult and critical it is to establish a well-matched control group. That's why we developed our proprietary "True-Match" process. It ensures selection of the best set of control physicians by matching across a collection of all important physician attributes, resulting in unbiased and precise program measurement. We encourage you to evaluate your current program measurement by taking the True-Match Test below:
The True-Match Marketing Program Measurement Test
Does your program measurement approach:
- Include each and every relevant test physician?
- Provide increased stability with redundant controls?
- Account for group practice dynamics?
- Consider trends, as well as levels, of all critical matching attributes?
- Account for managed care?
- Consider geographic factors?
- Avoid "false controls" that match test physicians only temporarily?
- Account for other promotional activity – isolating the impact of each individual program without unintentional double or triple counting?
If each of these points is not explicitly considered in the matching process, your evaluation may be biased, so program performance measurement should not be trusted!
True-Match Superiority
The Match process used to create control groups provides more accurate and more precise program measurement. Three of the most compelling reasons:
1. More Predictive Matching
We find that most techniques used to establish control groups explicitly consider several attributes including brand Rx volume, category Rx volume, specialty, geography and even previously developed attitude-based segments, if known.
While True-Match does this, it emphasizes consideration of additional attributes that are often more predictive of future Rx volume and drivers of change. This is accomplished by also considering:
- Managed Care: payer mix, managed care favorability scores, and physician managed care adherence
- Level of other promotional activity received (details, samples and other programs and events other than the one being measured for the test)
- Practice focus and growth measured using prescribing markers other than primary category(s) of interest
The impact of these predictive attributes can be substantial, so it's crucial to control for them. This step avoids crediting the program being measured for their impact, as illustrated below:
2. More Statistical Power
Some standard control groups exhibit the same average scores for each important matching attribute. However, many times the controls do not match up well to test physicians when evaluating individual test/control pairs. True-Match minimizes variation within individual paired test/control physicians.
The difference is illustrated below.
Individual Test and Control Physician Profile
This reduced variation leads directly to greater statistical power that shrinks the error range around program impact measures. This tighter interval increases confidence that the business decisions made based on program results will drive business growth.
3. Improved Program Targeting
Broader, more complete matching and superior statistical power enable more precise measurement of program results against identifiable physician segments. We often can identify statistically different results for varying physician specialties, managed care situations, and level of promotional activity, as shown below:
This leads to more effective execution in subsequent campaigns since they can be directed to the most responsive physicians.
The True-Match Scorecard
Once True-Match controls are selected, a scorecard is created to explicitly convey the quality of individual test-control pairing for all pre-defined attributes, and in an overall sense. We refer to this as True-Match Power. We include four sets of matching metrics:
- Rx writing behavior
- Level of sales and marketing effort applied other than the program being evaluated
- Physician practice demographics and managed care influence
- Overall matching process and statistical power
Contact us for an independent assessment of the set of controls used for your last program, and compare them with those selected using True-Match.
The Bottom Line: Superior Program Measurement Will Lead to Improved Marketing Performance
True-Match provides the unbiased assessment required to accurately assess program ROI in an overall sense, as well as the return realized against different physician sub-groups. So, scarce marketing funds can be allocated to proven programs and better targeted to the most responsive physicians.
Our approach to program measurement has evolved with our experience. We developed guiding principles and specific techniques using lessons learned from many projects. This makes us confident that organization-wide use of True-Match principles will deliver top and bottom line value for years to come.
Organizational Keys to Success
- Ensure objectivity – do not allow those who design or execute programs to also measure their results. They have a vested interest in their success.
- Use consistent control matching and measurement principals for each program across all executions. This enables direct comparison across programs, and provides ability to see when individual program return diminishes.
- To the extent possible, employ the same team of experienced analysts for all program measurement. This further ensures consistency, promotes institutional learning, and increases efficiency.
Contact the authors: Kevin Kirby & Steve Mermey