Notes from the Back of the Book

Pharma Marketers: Eight Things We Might Learn From Zappos.com

Here’s my take after reading Delivering Happiness:  A Path To Profits, Passion, and Purpose by Tony Hsieh CEO, Zappos.com, Inc. While it’s true that Zappos lives in a less regulated business environment than the pharmaceutical and healthcare industry, Tony’s standards for communicating with consumers are now part of the context of our work. Patients have come to expect Zappos- level experiences.  This blog accepts that challenge:  what might a pharma company or hospital might look like if Tony were CEO…

Eight marketing insights for Pharma (or any healthcare or consumer business for that matter):

1. Are you sitting at the right table? If not, it’s never too late to change!  It’s easy to get caught up and engrossed in what you’re currently doing, and forget that you even have the option to change tables. It’s also easy to overlook that the game starts even before you sit down in a seat… Don’t let inertia win, be sure you’re playing in the right game—one that you can both win at and fulfills your goals.

 While Tony learned this lesson during a phase of heavy poker play, he switched tables quite a few times during his life, and certainly for Zappos, they switched tables when they shifted the company strategy to focus on customer service and experience as a brand differentiator. It caused a shift in their business model from one of drop-shipping to one of carrying their own inventory so that they could be in control of their customers’ experiences…What’s the game your pharma co is playing?

2. Be patient and focus on what’s best for the long term.  Poker teaches that you may win or lose individual ‘hands or games’, but it’s what happens in the long term that matters…Zappos has a track record of making decisions based on the longer term. Tony provides numerous examples of this e.g. free shipping in both directions, shipping upgrades to high potential customers,  turning down skilled new hires because they didn’t fit into the Zappos culture…Focusing on the long term and making the necessary tradeoffs is not a new concept, but one that Pharma and all companies bump up against every day.  Unfortunately, all too often, most decisions are made with a short term view and little thought for the long-term impact or consequences on the brand and/or the patient's health …

3. Never outsource your core competency.  Zappos learned that if they were going to build their brand to be about the very best customer service, that they shouldn’t outsource that department.  This meant that core competencies that they had built as an e-business, like inventory management and warehousing and/or customer service, couldn’t be outsourced. 

What are healthcare and pharma companies' core competencies? What happens when a new drug is licensed-in, but the clinical trials have not been done with the insights to optimize claims and information for physicians and patients?

4. A Brand’s critical success factor (CSF) must be the responsibility of the entire company, not just a department.  For Zappos, when they decided that they wanted to build their brand to be about the very best customer service and the very best customer experience, they believed that customer service shouldn’t be just a department, it should be the entire company. For pharma, customer service is largely not considered a true success factor let alone the responsibility of each and every person in the company.  Further, how many pharma cos like to call themselves patient –centric, yet we see inconsistent decision making, demonstrating that patient-centricity  isn’t the responsibility of each and every person in a pharma company ….it's usually the responsibility for a few members of a brand team, but is this enough to ensure consistency and success?  (What does it take to truely be patient-centric? Read Pharma: Is Your Brand Patient-Centered? 5 Critical Success Factors)

5. Culture is the best way to build a brand for the long term.  At Zappos, they believe that if you get the culture right, most of the other stuff—like great customer service, or building a great long-term brand, or passionate employees and customers—will happen naturally on its own.  It’s Zappos belief that your company’s culture and your company’s band are really just two sides of the same coin.  The brand may lag the culture at first, but eventually it will catch up.  Your culture is your brand.  Zappos takes it a step further…core values are only core values if you can commit to them—and by commit, they mean that you’re willing to hire and first based on them…

If pharma cos had strong cultures of patient- centricity, and/or transparency, would we have situations where safety or clinical data was held back?  Is your company  guided by ‘committable’ core values?

6. Deliver WOW!  At Zappos, anything worth doing is worth doing with WOW.  "To WOW, you must differentiate yourself, which means do something a little unconventional and innovative.  You must do something that’s above and beyond what’s expected.  And whatever you do must have an emotional impact on the receiver. ..Whether internally with co-workers or externally with our customers and partners, delivering WOW results in word of mouth. “

When was the last time that a doctor or patient felt a WOW and personal connection from a Pharma company?  How could Pharma achieve more WOW from more customers and patients? Every brand wants to achieve consumer buzz or to have patients advocate on their behalf…but what is the brand’s responsibility to help instigate this? Word of Mouth or WOW doesn’t just happen, it can’t be bought— it has to be earned…  Ask yourself:  What are things you (your brand or your company) can improve upon in your work or attitude to WOW more people?  Have you WOWed at least one person today?

7. Build Open and Honest Relationships with Communication. Transparency is no longer a nice to have, but an imperative in today’s world. With the internet connecting everyone together, companies are becoming more and more transparent whether they like it or not. Both the good and the ugly can spread like wildfire by e-mail or with tools like Twitter and Facebook. Zappos lives in a world of transparency…Why can’t pharma and healthcare companies act with greater transparency and openess? Really?

8. It’s not just about the money, but about happiness. Cliché but oh so true!  Tony reviews different frameworks for happiness.  All roads lead to greater happiness based on an individual world filled with more passion and purpose—being part of something bigger than yourself.  Is there a greater purpose than helping people to live healthier and happier lives? Then why aren't pharma companies and the people in them happier?

Having had positive purchase experiences at Zappos.com in the past, I decided to revisit Zappos the other day when I realized I still needed hiking boots for two of my sons for camp.  When I hit the send button for free shipping I knew that I might not get the order in time, but I decided to put my faith in the Zappos culture and hope for a 'surprise' shipping upgrade…to my ‘joy’, I received a ‘fun’ email letting me know that my order had been upgraded!  Thank you Zappos! 

Here's the email I received:

5 Marketing and Social Networking Lessons from the Dead...

In honor of my "Deadhead" hubby and the millions of others out there, and the pending Grateful Dead Archive soon to open at the University of California at Santa Cruz, it's a great time to recognize the Grateful Dead for their marketing and social networking prowess.

But even if you're not a Deadhead, the Atlantic's Management Secrets of the Grateful Dead  is a must read article.

The Grateful Dead Archive, scheduled to open soon at the University of California at Santa Cruz, will be a mecca for academics of all stripes: from ethnomusicologists to philosophers, sociologists to historians.  But the biggest beneficiaries may prove to be business scholars and management theorists, who are discovering that the Dead were visionary geniuses in the way they created "customer" value", promoted social networking, and did strategic business planning. -by Joshua Green

Why Should corporate America or Pharma and Healthcare Marketers care?  The Dead pioneered ideas and practices that were subsequently embraced by business and 'Internet business models'.

Here are 5 Marketing and Social Networking Lessons that I took away from the Grateful Dead's incredible marketing success. They are masters at:

1. Creating and delivering superior value. This is evident by their great music (content), their sprawling repertoire and well-loved improvisation, long concerts, sophisticated sound system, radical at the time, and widely emulated today. They treated their fans well. Treating customers well may sound like common sense. But it represented a break from the top-down ethos of many organizations in the 1960s and '70s.
   
2. Promoting social networking--forming friendships and deep bonds across distance.  As early as the late 1980s, a sociologist at the University of North Carolina noticed deep bonds between Deadheads.The bonds seemed to belie the idea, then popular among leading social thinkers, that communities based on common interest, whose members do not live near each other, lack emotional and moral depth, and couldn't possibly form meaningful relationships.Today, everybody is intensely interested in understanding how communities form across distances, because that's what happens online.
3. Giving away stuff free. Giving something away and earning money on the periphery is the same idea outlined by Wired editor Chris Anderson in his recent best-selling book, Free: The Future of a Radical Price. Writing in Wired in 1994, Barlow, the band's lyricist, posited that in the information economy, "the best way to raise demand for your product is to give it away." What Barlow recently explained to the author:  "What people today are beginning to realize is what became obvious to us back then--the important correlation is the one between familiarity and value, not scarcity and value.  Adam Smith taught that the scarcer you make something, the more valuable it becomes.  In the physical world, that works beautifully.  But we couldn't regulate taping at our shows, and you can't online.  The Internet doesn't behave that way.  But here's the thing: if I give my song away to 20 people, and they give it to 20 people, pretty soon everybody knows me, and my value as a creator is dramatically enhanced.  That was the value proposition of the Dead." Interestingly, voluntarily or otherwise, it is becoming the blueprint for more and more companies doing business on the Internet.
4. Focusing intensely on loyal fans  The Dead established a telephone hotline to alert fans to its touring schedule ahead of any public announcement, reserved for them some of the best seats in the house, and capped the price of tickets, which the band distributed through its own mail-order system.
   
5. Being able to turn on a dime--strategic improvisation.  It is precisely this flexibility that many scholars believe holds the greatest lessons for business.The Dead's team of musicians were anything but naive about their business.  They incorporated early on, and established a board of directors (with a rotating CEO position).  They founded a profitable merchandising division and, peace and love notwithstanding, did not hesitate to sue those who violated their copyrights.  But they weren't greedy, and they adapted well.  They famously permitted fans to tape their shows, ceding a major revenue source in potential record sales, on the shrewd assessment that tape sharing would widen their audience, a ban would be unenforceable, and anyone inclined to tape a show would probably spend money elsewhere, such as on  merchandise or ticket sales. The Dead thrived for decades, in good times and bad times, and due to their strategic improvisation and flexibility became one of the most profitable bands of all time.

So it seems obvious as we continue to move in the direction of an Internet Economy, that the Management and Marketing secrets of the Grateful Dead may turn out to be almost as enjoyable and important  to us as  their music has been these last 40 or so years...Thoughts?

 

Image credit: hippieshop.com

 

 

 

My 13 Favorite Business Books of 2009

As 2009 comes to a close, I want to share my thirteen favorite biz books from this year that I found myself writing the most "Notes in the Back of the Book", and stimulating the greatest new thinking and ideas. The list of books covers social media, marketing and new marketing models, and innovation and leadership. For reference, here are also business book favorites by Fast Company, Mashable, Amazon and The Brand Bubble (John Gerzema).

If you're looking to better understand and excel in today's social media and web 2.0 worlds, here are four: Inbound Marketing is a must for anyone who wants to be found online, and is especially helpful for anyone who is actively considering how to get started with inbound marketing. Written by the leaders of Hubspot, they know what they're talking about. Trust Agents by Chris Brogan and Julian Smith shows how people use online social tools to build networks of influence and how you can tap into the power of these networks to positively impact your business. Because trust is essential to building online reputations, those who traffic trust are "trust agents" and key people for any business.  Putting the Public Back into Public Relations shows how to reinvent PR around two-way conversations with traditional and new influencers, bringing the "public" back into public relations. Both are consistent thought leaders in the area of PR. Web Analytics 2.0 by Avinash Kaushik begins to bring accountability to web 2.0 online programs with focus on customer- centered thinking and measurement, and builds upon his 2007 book.

Of course, to participate in our ever changing digital and social world, strategic marketing and a deep customer focus are still paramount.  How is marketing evolving? In Marketing with Meaning, Bob Gilbreath outlines the next evolutionary step in a progression following direct marketing and permission marketing. The book calls for the end of "push and sell" marketing in favor of adding value to customers' lives. Excelling in marketing also starts with listening...In Listen First. Sell Later, Bob Poole outlines the benefits of listening FIRST. And to remind us about customer- centered marketing, I Love You More Than My Dog by Jeanne Bliss is a great read. Who can argue that companies like Lands End didn't get it right early on?

Eating the Big Fish still feels as relevant today as it was when it was first published. The 2009 edition is packed with new examples and Morgan's eight credos still worthy of consideration-especially for small specialty and biotech Pharmaceutical brands. In FREE: The Future of a Radical Price, Chris Anderson (Long Tail) argues that in the digital marketplace, the most effective price is no price at all. He illustrates how savvy businesses are raking it in with indirect routes from product to revenue with such models as cross-subsidies and freemiums.  But when you stop to think about the real changes in expectations that the web has brought about, this is a book to think hard about.

Tim Brown's Change by Design suggests that innovation in today's world means taking a design thinking approach, and one that is human-centered. The CEO of global design consultancy IDEO offers a guide for thinking and organizing our everyday creative processes.  A great book and a nice break  from so much focus on social media...

The Presentation Secrets of Steve Jobs is a must read for anyone looking to improve their own presentation skills. Why not learn from a master, who is consistently voted the most important CEO of the decade?  Knowing how to present is critical today, but this book goes beyond just presentation tips...Power of Less is a very useful reminder to focus (and act) on what is most important and forget the rest. It's simple and direct without the fluff. Born to Run, while not a business book per say, provides lessons in mind and body, and shows the advantages of anthropological learning from others, in this case a special Indian tribe from Mexico.

Favorite Business Books of 2009

1. Inbound Marketing: Get Found Using Google, Social Media, and Blogs (The New Rules of Social Media) by Brian Halligan and Dharmesh Shah

2. Trust Agents: Using the Web to Build Influence, Improve Reputation and Earn Trust by Chris Brogan and Julien Smith

3. Putting the Public Back into Public Relations: How Social Media is Reinventing the Aging Business in PR by Brian Solis and Deidre Breakenridge

4. Web Analytics 2.0: The Art of Online Accountability and Science of Customer Centricity by Avinash Kaushik

5. The Next Evolution of Marketing: Connect With Your Customers by Marketing With Meaning by Bob Gilbreath Listen First Sell Later

6. Listen First Sell Later by Bob Poole

7. I Love you More than my Dog: Five Decisions That Drive Extreme Customer Loyalty in Good Times and Bad by Jeanne Bliss

8. Eating the Big Fish: How Challenger Brands can Compete Against Brand Leaders by Adam Morgan (2009 reprint)

9. FREE: The Future of Radical Price by Chris Anderson

10. Change by Design: How Design Thinking Transforms Organizations and Inspires Innovation by Tim Brown

11. The Presentation Secrets of Steve Jobs: How to be Insanely Great In Front of Any Audience by Carmine Gallo

12. Power of Less The: Fine Art of Limiting Yourself to the Essential...in Business and in Life by Leo Babauta

13. Born to Run: A Hidden Tribe, Superathletes and the Greatest Race The World Has Never Seen by Chris McDougall

Other books you think should be on this list?

 

Books I plan to read in the New Year:

1. Viral Loop: From Facebook to Twitter, How Today's Smartest Businesses Grow Themselves by A Penenberg

2. Googled: The End of the World As We Know It by Ken Auletta/What Would Google Do? By Jeff Jarvis

3. The Social Media Marketing Book by Dan Zarella

4. Chief Culture Officer: How to Create a Living, Breathing Corporation by Grant McCraken

5. Presentation Zen Design: Simple Design Principles and Techniques to Enhance Your Presentations by Garr Reynolds (due December 28, 2009)

6. Drive: The Surprising Truth About What Motivates Us by Daniel Pink (due out December 29, 2009)

7. Lynchpin: Are You Indispensible? by Seth Godin (due out January 26, 2010)

8. Rework by Jason Fried (due out March 9, 2010)

What about you? What's on your list to read?

 

Other blogs to read related to these favorite books of 2009:

If You Charged For Your Content, Would Anyone Pay? By Jonathan Richman Dose of Digital blog

Marketing With Meaning: Is there any other way? Advertising Age

Pharma: Are Current DTC Ads Meaningful? By Ellen Hoenig Notes From the Back of the Book blog

How Marketing With Meaning Can Save Pharma (3 Part Series) by Jonathan Richman

Book Review: I love You More Than My Dog - Small Business Trends

Pharma: Say NO To More Bullets! and Presentation Tips  by Ellen Hoenig

Pharma: Is Your Marketing Designed to Engage and Educate or Sell?  By Ellen Hoenig

For my list of top books of 2008 and 2007, click here.

Happy New Year to all! See you in 2010!

 

 

 

Some of the Best Healthcare Blogs and eBooks of 2009

As we move into 2010, I've been thinking a lot about what I've learned this year, much of it triggered by the tremendous number of thought leader blogs, eBooks and white papers that I've read this year.  While there is no way to capture all the great work happening 24/7, here's a smattering of a few (well maybe more than a ‘few') that you may want to read or re-read as we get ready to step into 2010...

Topics cover a range- from social media and technology, to ePatients and marketing, including implications for Pharma and Healthcare, in the US and Europe. Please feel free to share other posts that you found valuable. Happy reading...

Best Blogs

Social Media, Platforms and Technology

Ten ‘Thinks' You Should Know about Social Media by Shwen Gwee at Med 2.0 blog

Pharma Should Forget About Social Media Monitoring by Jonathan Richman at Dose of Digital

Pharma Don't Be Shy About Social Media by Wendy Blackburn at ePharma Rx, Intouch Solutions

10 Social Media Watch-outs for Pharma and Healthcare Marketers by Ellen Hoenig, Notes from the Back of the Book

7 Inputs to a Social Media Strategy by Adam Cohen, A Thousands Cuts blog

5 Social Media Myths by Digital Tonto blog

The 3 F's and 3 R's of Social Media Marketing by Chris Boyer, Hospital Online Marketing

Lee Aase, Mayo Clinic: The Future of Health Brands and Social Media and Greg Matthews, Humana: The Future of Health Brands and Social Media by Eric Brody at Healthy Conversations

A Clinical Infusion of Google Wave  and Healthcare's Google- Facebook -Twitter Platform by Phil Baumann

Is Google the New FDA? By John Mack at Pharma Marketing blog

Google Real Time Search and Crisis Communications and Google and Pharmacovigilance by Mark Senak at eyeonfda blog

Google Sidewiki and Implications for Pharma Brands by Adam Cohen, A Thousand Cuts blog, Rosetta

Why Pharma Needs to Pay Attention to Wikipedia, Guest post Eileen O'Brien at Notes from the Back of the Book

Readability of the Top 50 Prescribed Drugs in Wikipedia by Kevin Kruse, The Patient Will See You Now

Pharma and Twitter: Who's Got Hand by Mark Senak at eyeonfda blog

Follow the Engagement-visualizing #FollowPharma by Silja Chouquet at Whydotpharma blog

The Increasing Use of Social Media to Recruit Patients for Clinical Trials by Sally Church at Pharma Marketing Strategy blog

Video Games: Key to the Future of Pharma and Healthcare? By Ellen Hoenig, Notes From the Back Of the Book

Why the Pharma Industry Should Care About Augmented Reality Guest Post by  Sven Larsen of Pixels and Pills   at Fard Johnmar's Walking the Path blog

Pfizer and Social Media-- an Update by Steve Woodruff at Impactiviti blog and consultancy

Social Media ROI for Hospitals and Health Marketers by Kevin Kruse and Kru Research blog

Splitting ROI by Just So You Know blog (Meredith Gould and Daphne Leigh Swancutt)

Europe You need to Tackle Social Media Now by Silja Chouquet at Whydotpharma blog

The Pachyderm in the Parlour: resisting the legitimation of DTC social media activates in Europe by Andrew Spong STweM blog and consultancy

Pharma, Marketing and Paradigm Shift

What's Hot In Oncology: A Review of 2009 and Predictions for 2010 by Sally Church at Pharma Marketing Strategy blog

Pharma Still Uneasy About Getting Social, Pharma Blog Review by Chris Truelove

The Pitfalls of Doing Nothing by Steve Woodruff at Impactiviti blog and consultancy

Ten things Pharma Companies Will Never Try (But Should) by Jonathan Richman at Dose of Digital

Will Patients Find Value in Discussions with Pharma? By John Mack

Question For Healthcare Marketers: Do You See Patients as Consumers? By Eric Brody at Healthy Conversations

Save Boobs Blasts Attention Glut (guest post Fard Johnmar) Just So You Know blog (Meredith Gould and Daphne Leigh Swancutt)

Refining Patienthood Project Launches: Aims, Goals and Many Questions Ahead by Jen McCabe, Jen's Posterous Health Management Rx

Why Programming Microchoice and Microcontrol into the Healthcare system will lead to the Equivalent of the Microprocessing Revolution by Jen McCabe Jen's Posterous Health Management Rx

Splitting Trouble  and Talking Trash by Just So You Know blog (Meredith Gould and Daphne Leigh Swancutt)

Pharma and Social Media: What Roles Should Personas Play? by Ellen Hoenig at Notes from the Back of the Book blog

CMO 3.0: Why Marketing is the New Finance, Odom Lewis, Healthcare Marketing and Medical Executive Search  

ePatients, Patients and Consumers

Video "Tale of 2 ePatients": Pecha Kucha Limerick Dr Val Jones via The Patients Will See You Now, Kevin Kruse and Kru Research

Mayo Clinic Music Fun  and A Bite of Life at Sharing Mayo Clinic

Disease Guilt by Steve Woodruff at Impactiviti blog and consultancy

Abandon Hope All Ye Who Enter Here, Have Something Messed Up Happen? By Jen McCabe, Jen's Posterous

What Part of Give Us Our Damn Data Do You Not Understand by Dave deBronkart at e-patients.net

ePatient 2009: Voice of the Patient by  Kerri Morrone Sparling, at sixuntilme.com

A Patient's Perspective: Day Two of FDA Public Hearing (#FDASM) by DC Patient

Advice to a Cancer Patient Facing News He Didn't Want and Don't Let the Median Scare You To Death by Dave deBronkart, The New Life of ePatient Dave blog, Dave deBronkart

The Pew/Health Internet FAQ by Susannah Fox at e-patients.net (Leads Health Research and Internet Strategy for Pew Internet and American Life Project)

The Social Life of Health Information by Susannah Fox, Pew Internet and American Life Project

What Pharma Can learn from Communities' Opinions by Andrew Spong STweM

The Role of Physician Trust and Communication in Filling New Prescriptions by Kevin Kruse, Kru Research

Best eBooks and White Papers (free)

Best Learning Actions for Pharma and Healthcare Marketers in 2010? Reflections by 12 Sage Bloggers and Thought leaders, Editor Ellen Hoenig AdvanceMarketWoRx

Overcoming Our Social Challenges: Getting Started with Social Media in Biotech by Shwen Gwee

A Bright Future for Digital, a Dimmer One for Pharma by Len Starnes, Bayer Schering Pharma

Pharma and Healthcare Social Media Principles by Jonathan Richman Dose of Digital blog, Bridge Worldwide

Social Media: What's In It for Pharma? A Digitas Health Social Media POV by Sarah Larcker

Getting Started with Social Networking by Steve Woodruff of Impactiviti blog and consultancy

Pharma Twitterama: Exploring the Use of Twitter in Pharma and Healthcare by Shwen Gwee at Med 2.0 blog

WEGO Health Webinar: Twitter Power Tools for Health Activists by Shwen Gwee at Med 2.0 blog

140 Healthcare Uses for Twitter  by Phil Baumann

Social Media and Pharma: Is their value? By Richard Meyer

Monitoring Adverse Events in Social Media for Pharma's Biggest Brands: Hopeless Task or Simple Project? Mini-white paper, Jonathan Richman Dose of Digital

An Edelman Report: Insights and Recommendations in the Wake of the FDA Social Media Hearings, The Health Engagement blog

Considering Neuroscience to Improve Consumer Communications- FDA Advisory Committee Meeting by Ellen Hoenig, AdvanceMarketWorx Notes from the Back of the Book blog

ePatient White Paper by ePatient Scholars team, ePatient.net (2007- but still including this classic!)

Best Wikis

#FDASM by Fabio Gratton of Ignite Health

Pharma and Healthcare Social Media Wiki by Jonathan Richman at Dose of Digital

Hospital Social Networking List by Ed Bennett

 

 

Pharma Marketers: No Product Is An Island

Recently, I spent a productive day working with a smart group of consumer agency partners to integrate and finalize 2010 Marketing Plans for a Pharma brand we all support. 

Our conversation centered around the brand promise and the patient experience throughout the decision and treatment journey: from awareness and consideration, through conversion, adherence and advocacy or brand champion. We discussed the impact of different triggers and barriers, or where we might lose consumers (leaky buckets), which targets should be high priorities and why, and how the patient journey is no longer linear. (You may also want to read The New Marketing Funnel by Adam Cohen at A Thousand Cuts.) 

All the stuff you might expect a consumer team to collaborate and consider...Sounds good... EXCEPT... the work represented only the consumer team-- or one of the brand's customers.

No Product is an Island...

If a product is more than the product-- the cohesive, integrated set of experiences along the 'buying process' or 'treatment pathway', how do we make all of our core strategies and tactics work together seamlessly?

It takes some systems thinking.

Systems thinking was the first of the five key disciplines that Peter Senge outlined in The Fifth Discipline: The Art and Practice of the Learning Organization (1990), and often referred to as the 'Cornerstone' of the Learning Organization. Systems thinking is a framework that is based on the belief that the component parts of a system can best be understood in the context of relationships with each other and with other systems, rather than in isolation. The only way to fully understand why a problem or element occurs and persists is to understand the part in relation to the whole. Systems thinking includes the expected things like recognizing patterns, connections, leverage points, feedback loops, but also the human qualities of judgment, foresight, and kindness.

Net, a systems approach focuses on interactions and transactions within and between systems, and is especially concerned with the way the functioning of the ecosystem can be influenced by human interventions.
 

Systems thinking is a huge 'opportunity' for many Pharma brands.

Typical of most pharma planning, brand marketing plans are done largely in customer silos (i.e. physician vs consumer vs managed markets) with little 'real' integration and collaboration. Often agency partners (or dare I use the ugly word vendors) are handed objectives and strategies and asked to provide tactics. Largely in isolation. The different tacts are submitted to the customer brand lead who pulls them together into 'one' customer presentation, which is then fed to the overall brand lead who pulls everything into 'one' brand presentation.  Often, even partners within the same customer discipline don't have the opportunity to collaborate and integrate with each other from the bottom up. Agency partners may also not learn about other tactics or initiatives that could have an impact on their program until well after they've submitted their own plans.  They may hear about the different initiatives in a Marketing Plan Presentation, but this is usually 'not the place' to raise questions or concerns...

This means that the ecology and interdependencies of the patient treatment pathway are not really planned holistically, but independently. Intellectually, of course, everyone knows that the parts must be integrated, but due to time or workload, it's rarely a focus or accomplished...

What would it take for brands to be so well integrated--within and across each customer silo-- that everything works together seamlessly?

Marketers should pay more attention to the concept of Holism: the concept that the whole has a reality independent and greater than the sum of its parts. The holistic marketing concept is based on development, design, and implementation of marketing programs, processes, and activities that recognize their breadth and interdependencies.

Holistic Marketing is marketing strategy which is developed by thinking about the business as a whole. When using a holistic marketing strategy, every aspect of the business must be carefully considered. The company must think about how a consumer will interact with its product, its website, its advertising materials; a Pharma company must think about all of the above as well as how the consumer will interact with their doctor, pharmacist, payor, and friends and family... How KOL's will interact with local doctors, how doctors and their patients will interact and so on....

Seven tenets to a Holistic Marketing and a Systems Ecology approach:

1. Look at the Big Picture and not just the details or the tactic that you are responsible for. This requires setting aside the time and openness to new ways of planning.

2. Everything is interconnected. When you make a change in one area, you also affect many other areas. Or if you're expecting one area to perform, what interdependencies can effect the success or not? In pharma, these interdependencies can span across media, tactics or customers. E.G., if you're expecting a web DTC program to generate additional NRx's, what is the interdependence on formulary? If formulary is an issue, what other customer initiatives can help apply positive pressure on formulary acceptance?

3. Every single product introduction or major tactic has "unintended consequences." Have you anticipated what these might be?

4. Systems thinking is vital to customer experience business results. Each touch is a customer marketing moment.

5. Consumers are often more holistic than brand managers; doctors more holistic than sales representatives. Managed Care companies more holistic than company representatives. Customers don't think in silos; they think about things from their own perspective and needs-- which may not always get down to a specific product or company...Consumers care about their health--not your facebook page or conversion email...

6. Holistic marketing considers four major components: relationship marketing - integrated marketing - internal marketing - and socially responsible marketing. These go beyond internal or customer silos.

7. Make the time and effort to map out or diagram your marketing eco-system with all key stakeholders. In any study of a marketing ecological system, an essential early procedure is to draw a diagram of the system of interest...diagrams can further the group's thinking and indicate system boundaries. Within these boundaries, series of components are isolated to represent the portion of the world in which the systems marketer is interested...If there are 'no connections across the system' boundaries with the surrounding systems environments, the systems are described as closed. Most marketing work, however, deals almost exclusively with opensystems. There are many different types of diagrams that can help marketers better understand the issues and opportunities from a big picture, holistic view. (Some examples of system dynamics)

How can we take a more holistic and interactive approach to planning so that the marketing system truly fits and supports the customer?... The customer experience is improved?...The customer interactions result in greater value and sales? While these concepts may not be new, how do we start looking holistically at the bigger picture and really working through the interconnections? Thoughts?

 

Also thanks to Nicole Johnson for introducing me to www.inspireux.com

Other blogs and books that may be of interest:

Holistic Marketing Explored

Systems Thinking is Vital to Customer Experience

Applying Systems Thinking to Six Sigma

Thinking in Systems: A Primer by Donella Meadows 

The Fifth Discipline: The Art and Practice Of The Learning Organization by Peter Senge