Regional Relevancy Drives National Pharma Brand Performance… and other things I wish I knew sooner.

Many career moments have led me here, but cutting my teeth as a pharmaceutical sales representative stands out more than others. Fresh out of training, I had a healthy expense account, the best sales skills you can learn in 15 days, and the same messages and tools as the other reps I graduated alongside. I headed out to pound the pavement with high hopes of achieving President’s Club! Six months into my tenure, I began to hear and see things that gave me pause.

Not long into my tenure as a “pharma rep”, I started to see and hear things like: 

• Hockey stick sales performance in some areas.
• Samples flying off the shelf, but no new scripts.
• Doctors saying things like, “I’d love to tell you my patients can pay a Tier 3 copay, but most are on Medicaid (not covered).” Or “The science sounds great, but I’m just trying to get my patients to stop smoking while they’re pregnant.”
• Physicians declining Speaker Programs featuring national KOLs because, “their patients and practices are nothing like mine.”

Being a problem solver, I’d call my peers from sales training and one thing became evident. We were armed with tools reflecting the National brand strategy for the brand’s full opportunity however there were no considerations for the breadth of the opportunity at a regional level. To be successful, you must uncover what’s driving demand or lack thereof.

Fast forward I pivoted my career into agency work to understand and impact HCP engagement. One of my first projects at Relevate Health was for a diabetes brand. In partnership with a trailblazer client, we created a 15% increase in TRx in 4 months. How you ask?

We started with a regional opportunity analysis to explore the “6Ps” - market factors, internal and external, that may impact product performance at the sub-national level (Payers, Providers, Population, Prescribers, Product, and Place). This analysis had applications for both the Brand and sales teams.

The Brand team was able to

• Uncover what was driving variation and action against it.
• Gain a better understanding of where to allocate resources (dialing up and back).
• Create scalable solutions vs. one-off requests.

Meanwhile once a rep understands what is driving their business, they can make better informed, educated decisions on what messages and tools to use.

Virtual sales territories (driver groups) were created pairing geographies together not because they shared a border, but because they shared a pronounced market threat or opportunity.

One virtual region received a pilot plan outlining:

1. Where to dial up and back off existing resources (“use this, not that”).
2. New tools to increase engagement with patients and physicians, customized to a representative’s geography using details like:
   1. photos of and points of view from regional thought leaders
   2. regional prevalence data
   3. access data
   4. timely and locally relevancy such as diabetes resolutions in applicable states

Tools were launched in September. By November, TRx volume in this “virtual region” grew by 15%.

If you’re interested in experiencing similar growth for your brand, please reach out – lauren.becker@relevatehealth.com. I believe deeply in what we do because I’ve been on the other side of things. I wish someone had realized the value of regional marketing while I was still in the field. I know I would have enjoyed that President’s Club trip!