T he healthcare industry faces constant, esca-lating changes—including policy reform, ev-er-tightening budgets, and shrinking sales forces—prompting pharmaceutical marketers

to approach their businesses in new ways to maximize results.

One-size-fits-all marketing is no longer viable. Marketers must look deeper into data to understand the factors driving results regionally—from market to market. From there, they will need to deploy differ-ent tactics to address different market drivers. This leads to the question: what exactly is regional mar-keting? Regional marketing is a strategy for driving market share based on the needs of the targeted audi-ence. Regional marketing leads to a targeted alloca-tion of resources to the right markets for the greatest return on investment. It is an important part of the marketing mix and can help brands optimize their spending to achieve the best returns.

Two Markets... Same Product... Polar OppositesWhile data analysis and segmentation approaches are prevalent when preparing national marketing plans, the exer-cise is seldom performed at the regional or district level. Na-tional averages often mask the true variations that exist on a region-by-region, district-by-district basis—and the causes of the variation go undetected. By analyzing data from each market it becomes apparent that there are many drivers im-

pacting results beyond just the performance of the reps. To develop an effective plan, brand marketers must first un-

derstand market variations and the key drivers behind these variations. Even though formulary continues to be a key pre-dictor of market share in many geographies, other market drivers can have a significant impact on brand performance at the market level.

Not all territories are alike, okay? The faster companies develop regional approaches to sales, the quicker they’ll be able to react to changing conditionsBy Jeff Spanbauer

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Vol. 41 | No. 3 WWW.PHARMREP.COM

Key Drivers of Regional PerformanceWith many regional factors impacting return on investment (ROI), and the variations that can occur by market, region, and district, it’s easy to become overwhelmed by the data and revert back to a one-size-fits-all strategy. The companies that will succeed will find a way to leverage all of this data in a manageable way. Leadership should be focused on the unique market drivers within their region—with the right strategies and tactics. Sophisticated marketers will deploy a detailed data analysis to uncover the key district-level drives that cor-relate to brand performance.

In one example, a major brand conducted a market driver analysis.

More with 150 variables from the 6 Ps were analyzed across districts using both single and multivariate regression to look for posi-tive and negative correlations to brand per-formance. Once the statistical analyses were completed, qualitative interviews were con-ducted with field leadership to uncover po-tential drivers not accounted for in the quan-titative analysis. Next, districts were grouped by their common market drivers.

One key benefit of a market driver analysis is that it groups districts based on perfor-mance drivers rather than geographic prox-imity. For example, given the thousands of miles between Pittsburgh, PA and Hawaii, you typically do not think of them as similar markets. However, in this case, they were grouped together by the various factors driv-ing market performance for this brand. Here they shared common market factors of very high generic penetration combined with low favorable formulary status. They will likely

need the same tools and resources to succeed.

Making Regional Manageable In order to ensure scalability of the strategy and deployment tactics, markets with similar drivers should be grouped together. These scal-able driver groups are then used to develop regional strategies and tactics to improve brand performance. It is important to note that similar markets are not always in the same geographic area.

To ensure success, regional marketing should not be viewed as de-ploying a few local tactics and then waiting to see if they work. For example, if a brand employs a multicultural strategy, it probably goes beyond taking a key patient education brochure and translating it into Spanish.

If a marketer views regional marketing as just tactics deployed lo-cally, then the organization will miss substantial opportunities to gain even higher results. The regional marketing strategy needs to consider the insights from the specific region, including data from the 6 Ps to identify the key drivers in that region.

Brand marketers today, with the support of their regional counter-parts as well as a strong regional marketing partner, need to take on the challenge of assessing regional (and even local) customer needs, customizing materials, and developing integrated plans to meet those needs. This collaboration is critical to bring regional market-

ing innovation to the market in an effective and scalable way for today’s pharmaceutical mar-keters. PR

Jeff Spanbauer is senior vice president and co-founder of Healthcare Regional Marketing. He can be reached at jspanbauer@hrmexperts.com. To find out more about HRM please visit www.HRMexperts.com

The Six PsThe drivers that have been shown to impact product perfor-mance at the local levels are: Payer – dynamics of the entities financially responsible for healthcare and Rx (e.g., government, employer, cash) Provider – Dynamics of the entities administering the healthcare and Rx processes and facilities (e.g., health plans, integrated delivery systems, PBMs, hospitals, clinics)Population – Patient dynamics influencing healthcare choices and Rx use (e.g., age, gender, income, education, ethnicity, disease prevalence)Prescriber – Dynamics of the parties advising patients on healthcare and Rx (e.g., specialty, affiliations, MDs/1,000 patients)Product – Product’s market-level performance relative to the nation and competition (e.g., sales dollars, NRx, share and volume, compliance)Place – Additional dynamics for the market providing context for the other drivers (e.g., field force, political environment, legislation)

Posted with permission from Pharmaceutical Representative. Copyright ©2011, an Advanstar publication. All rights reserved.www.pharmrep.com

#1-28606356 Managed by The YGS Group, 717.505.9701. For more information visit www.theYGSgroup.com/reprints.