Effective Targeting

In America, more money is now spent on online advertising than on radio or print. The heavy hitters here are auto manufacturers and big packaged goods companies. Their dollars are gravitating in that direction because expensive research is showing them it’s money well spent. Many other businesses can read the signs, and are redirecting their advertising budgets accordingly.

Significantly, online budgets are being further delineated between ads delivered to those using computers versus searching on mobile devices. Use of mobile devices, of course, is skyrocketing.

Health care companies have ventured into online advertising quite slowly, making up only one percent of all online ads. Pharmaceutical companies in particular have to wrestle with presenting required side-effect disclaimers on small screens.

To my mind, however, the greatest challenge to mobile health advertisers is accurate targeting.

I don’t want an ad for an AED served to me on my iPhone when I’m searching for an emergency room to bring a loved one.

One trend that helps better define delivery targets is the growing disparity in age between users of home-based computers and those who are coming to rely on Smartphones and tablets for searches. Folks above 50 years old or so have settled in with their desktops, while younger people are going mobile. Young people research health-related issues such as STDs and pregnancy; older (computer-using) Americans want to know more about heart attacks and IBS. Further, studies show that 18-40 year olds are far more likely to download and use apps that aid in monitoring diet and exercise than are older people.

Every company will have to address the targeting issue, and it’s not going to be easy to make the fine delineations that can make the difference between making a sale and wasting money. For example, I’m working currently with the orthodontic device company OrthoAccel and their product AcceleDent (which accelerates tooth movement so braces can come off faster). OrthoAccel may have an opportunity to effectively advertise their products to potential patients by targeting adults, teens and parents of teens who are searching for local orthodontists. But the company shouldn’t advertise to those searching for information on dental implants – an entirely different category of patients.

Of course, any discussion of targeting advertising through analysis of web browsing behavior and online profiles brings up vexing privacy issues – a subject for another blog.

AdAge recently published a fascinating and potentially very valuable graphic. As part of their American Consumer Project, AdAge commissioned GfKMRI to combine their data on 25,000 American households through the Patchwork Nation segmenting system, which breaks down areas of the country (in this case, counties) in to 12 different kinds of community. This categorization, which includes factors such as economics, culture and politics, goes far beyond overly simplistic terms such as “blue and red” in an attempt to bring more detail and nuance to demographic information.

In this case, the result was a map of the United States that shows the prevalence of major illnesses by county. I’ve reproduced a static version of the map below. For an interactive version that reveals data by county, click here.

Prevalence Map Major Illnesses by County

I, for one, was surprised at the irregularity of illness distribution. What’s with the apparent prevalence of cancer in Northern Iowa/Southern Minnesota? I didn’t know Mormons in Utah suffered so much from ulcers. And speaking of irregularity, look at the pattern of those suffering from Irritable Bowel Syndrome that follows a swath from Virginia through the Deep South.

The information in the map has been further augmented by a partnership with Modern Healthcare that examines how different generations want to receive health care marketing messages and the increasing relevancy of cross-generational caregivers. A summary is included in white paper available here.

This data should prove extremely useful for medical device and medical technology companies (i.e. digital health/mHealth) in their efforts to more effectively target their efforts in prevention and disease treatment.

When seeking permission from their mothers, children often employ the argument, “But everyone’s doing it!”

To which the mother automatically replies, “If everyone was jumping off a cliff, would you want to do that too?”

Today, many of us are faced with a situation where seemingly “everyone is doing it,” but we’re still uncertain if simple popularity is a good enough reason to join the trend. What if it’s a cliff?

That situation is called social media. And, especially if you’re considering using it to promote your business (rather than just share photos with friends) it’s all together worthwhile to look before you leap. By now, we’ve all heard horror stories about public relations disasters related to inappropriate use of social media such as Twitter and Facebook. These risks can be even greater in the field of healthcare, where unsubstantiated claims and “loose lips” can quickly spiral out of control. Nobody wants that, but everybody wants customers.

…be assured, your customers and potential customers are indeed using social media

And, be assured, your medical device customers and potential customers are indeed using social media – and not just person-to-person. Everyday, millions are turning to social media to get the latest information from and about product and services providers.

So, the short answer:  Join in. But you don’t have to go in headfirst. You can stick your toe in water first, to see how you like it. That minimizes risk while giving you ample opportunity to learn what works and what your customer (and the medical professional, patient/caregiver community) wants from you.

Here are some ways to stick your toe in the water of social media:

• Post videos to YouTube. Record the presentation you’re giving at the next industry event (professional production standards, please). If it’s long, edit it into smaller segments and post to YouTube. Put links to the videos on your web site.

• Start following other companies on Twitter and Facebook, including (perhaps especially) your competitors. Watch for comments. See what they do right and wrong.

• Start your own company Facebook account. Again, the key here is to remember this is social media, not a place to put overtly self-serving comments or commercials. (You can advertise on Facebook, but that’s a different subject.) Always think of your followers first. Give them something of value. Play it safe. Pretend it’s Thanksgiving Dinner. No politics or religion.

Once you find out the water’s fine, you’ll soon be swimming on your own.

For over a year now, my worldview has been dominated by issues related to mobile healthcare. When you’re in it as deep as I am, it’s easy to lose sight of the fact that, to most folks, this is an entirely new field. And like any new endeavor, there are bound to be mistakes made, and wrong (or at least unproductive) paths followed.

I was reminded of this the other day when I came across the article, Healthcare Marketing Goes Mobile. It prognosticated trends in device usage (smartphones lead the way, with tablets close behind, yawn), but what really caught me was a demographic profile extrapolated from the Pew Internet & American Life Project.

It wasn’t the data itself that concerned me. Instead, it was the idea that one of the wrong paths that mobile healthcare innovators might follow is one of creating products only in response to market research.

Is the best product really an app targeting 25–29 year-old urban black males with some college, making $50k–$75k a year?

Retrospectives of the life of Steve Jobs overflow with delight and admiration for his rare form of innovation. He brought the world products that, until he introduced them, we didn’t know we needed. (I didn’t know I couldn’t live without my iPad until I had one. Now you’d have to pry it from my cold, dead…etc.) Like another super-innovator, Henry Ford opined, “If I had asked people what they wanted, they’d have said ‘faster horses.’”

So the potential mistake I foresee is a company “making faster horses,” in response to polling data. For example, an mHealth developer, acting on the Pew demographic profile, deciding the best product to make is an app specifically targeting 25-29 year old urban black males with some college who make $50k to $75k a year.

I’m definitely not taking the position that market research is useless. My worry is that people will proceed cart-before-horse method and develop apps for a market based on volume (a population responding to a survey) rather than an innovative needs-based (physician/patient insight) concept.

My friend works as a sales rep for a division of Johnson & Johnson selling medical devices. He and I talked about the recent US Senate Panel hearings over possible new FDA regulations for medical device companies advertising directly to consumers.

These regulations would most likely be similar to what is currently required in the pharmaceutical industry.

My guess is that it’s only a matter of time before the medical device industry is required to follow FDA regulations when it comes to DTC ads. (more…)