Targeting the “Right” Doctor

Future Prediction: Pharma companies will develop specific metrics to evaluate a physician’s social “connectedness”, and this will play an important role in “valuing” them and therefore targeting physicians.

To be clear, I am not talking about a physician’s referral pattern. I am talking about a physician’s likelihood to share their experience and opinions with other therapeutic decision makers. 

Interesting research conducted by Wharton found that traditional targets “may not be as influential as previously thought” (See “The Buzz Starts Here”, Knowledge@Wharton).  The research mapped a physician social network in a specific community and found docs that served as important “connectors” between sub-groups.  These “connectors” didn’t fit the traditional KOL profile, but rather represented a doc that was most likely share their experiences with others.

Given the value that doctor’s place on their colleague’s advice and recommendations,  “connectors” are customers that should not be ignored.

Ramifications for today:  Talk to your Market Research partners about their physician mapping offerings – ensure that they are asking the right type of questions that will uncover these “connectors” within social networks versus traditional KOLs or referral patterns.

Ramifications for tomorrow: Targeting is a critical competency that companies should “own”.  Consider developing social network profiling questions as part of your rep CRM systems.  Consult with your CRM system provider to best mine this data, assign metrics to it, and develop a report that could fine-tune your targeting efforts.