Brand Planning: Insights to Tactics Making Smart Choices

We hear this problem statement a lot.

‘We need to improve how we go from strategic insights, to aligned tactical choices'        

What people are saying is that they are missing WHY certain tactical activities are chosen to help achieve strategic priorities.

Pharma marketing is formulaic, it is tried and tested, rinse & repeat, over and over. Before the pandemic, there was an awareness that this formula was becoming less and less effective but it was still the safe bet. The formula, which is reliant on face-to-face engagement to build rapport with customers, increase the share of voice and drive brand awareness, is now outdated.

Tactical choices haven’t really changed, even since the pandemic;

Sales interactions (face to face), Events, Email, HCP portals, Video OnDemand, Clinical papers......

Part of the challenge for marketers is that data doesn’t always demonstrate clearly the value of each channel so marketers have developed a habit of choosing ALL options knowing that this formula is a safe bet.

Changing this behaviour is a challenge as it has been ingrained for so many years.

AND it doesn't help when leadership is asking for greater innovation, but at the same time is asking for the certainty of success -?How do you successfully approach tactical selection differently?

HOW to choose your tactics differently

Below we share THREE STEPS to help you make smarter tactical choices. These are three key steps that will increase your team's impact, reduce overwhelm and improve alignment to strategy.

When to use this approach (context)

The below steps are ideal when you have been in the market for a few years, know your customers, and have already developed assets and channels that you now need and can optimise.

The focus here is to make smart choices. Often it seems that life science marketers have forgotten they need and should be making choices.?

“I’m actually as proud of the things we haven’t done as the things I have done. Innovation is saying no to 1000 things”

Steve Jobs

Signs that you need to be more strategic and selective with your tactical choices are if you are guilty of any of the below;

• Saying most days ‘I am so busy - We have so many activities to execute’
• Thinking; I’m not sure which of my activities is making the difference
• Execution is a measure of success, not the impact
• Campaign success is not determined until the end of a campaign - often 6-12 months later

This approach is not suited when there are high unknowns, a lot of complexity and little previous experience in the marketplace.

Three Key Steps

1. Get clear on the OUTCOME

This is THE key step we see missed all the time. (pretty much 100% of the time) Your strategy is often not framed up as the outcome you want to achieve. The best way to frame this step is to define your OUTCOME before considering your tactical choices. (OUTPUTS)

What is the difference between OUTCOMES and OUTPUTS?

• The outcomes are what the business wants or need to achieve.
• The outputs are the actions or tactics that contribute to achieving an outcome

To give context, let’s start with a simple non-brand example. Imagine it is Sally’s 5th birthday. You go to the local bakery and order a Wonder Women themed cake for the morning of the party.?

If we ask a group of people the outcome of this transaction, most people will answer that the outcome is the birthday cake. That is not correct.

The outcome of this will be a delighted birthday girl and a group of happy, cake-filled 5-year-olds. The cake itself is the output, provided by the bakery. If the cake had not been tasty, or if the bakery had delivered a racing car themed cake instead of the desired Wonder Woman cake, then the desired outcome—happy kids—would, in all probability, not have been achieved

An easy way to think of this is that outcomes are the results, and outputs are the activities that support the desired results. For example, a business outcome could be ‘increased customer satisfaction'. An output that can help achieve this might be a responsive online learning platform.

Your outcome should be defined with a 12-month window, and then broken down into quarterly outcomes. (milestones)

Each outcome will have success measures that are the results you would need to see to know you have achieved your outcomes. Note: Have a maximum of 3 results per outcome, and we suggest you capture the results as a range. Your chances of success go up dramatically when target numbers are set as ranges rather than a fixed number.

Below are some example OUTCOMES with corresponding results to illustrate the level of specificity you need before you start to consider your tactical activities.

1. OUTCOME: Cautious HCPs become more willing to start patients on medicine X earlier

RESULT: 75-80% of all cautious HCPs download the safety PDF infographic guide by end of Q2

RESULT: 50-55% of cautious HCP nurses request the patient onboarding pack by end of Q3

RESULT: Clinical papers X & Y are viewed by 70-80% of all cautious HCPs by end of Q2

2. OUTCOME: Create a seamless customer experience, regardless of the channel or engagement.

RESULT: Create a single view of the customer by integrating all data in the new CRM by end of Q1

RESULT: Move NPS from 6.5 to 7-7.5 by end of Q2

RESULT: Increase repeat visitors to the HCP portal from 20% to 30-40% by end of Q4

3. OUTCOME: Increase (therapy area) awareness of treatment options for naive patients

RESULT: Increase YouTube video views by 30-40% by end Q3

RESULT: Increase time on website from 30 sec to 2-3 mins by end Q2

RESULT: Increase downloads of ‘doctor discussion guide’ from 30 per month to 80-100 per month

2. COLLECT a variety of tactical activities (OUTPUTS)

Once you are clear on the OUTCOME and how you’ll measure if you have achieved your outcome (key results) you need to collect a variety of tactical activities to be considered.

The key results you have selected will help you keep focused on the activities that ladder up to your outcomes, as in selecting your key results you have already decided what matters most.

Set aside 60-90 mins to have the team collect examples of tactics that might be effective at generating the results you are going after.

This is when you will gather inspiration and references from existing solutions, as well as looking outside, including looking at how other industries solve similar challenges.

There’s no need to reinvent the wheel every time you’re looking for ideas, so the goal of the activity is to find as many great examples of other products, companies, or things that are solving a challenge similar to yours. You can think of this activity as a short research session that will help the team gather valuable information on how others solve similar issues, as well as using this time to look at existing activities that might be effective, remembering to use data insights or other variables to validate the effectiveness of the channel for this scenario.

This is also a great workshop to include your agency in as they will have other knowledge, and you won’t end up duplicating on effort.

By the end of this workshop you will have a collection of sticky notes each with a brief summary of the idea with tangible features & attributes. (create a template on how you want the sticky notes completed)

This is an effective approach for getting the whole group inspired, geared into the solution-searching mode, and for taking the creative pressure off. Plus, it helps break the mould of ‘doing what we have always done’ thinking

3. DECIDE & COMMIT (OUTPUTS)

Once you have a variety of ideas to help achieve each OUTCOME/KEY RESULT you need to prioritise the list of ideas or solutions, and visually represent their impact and effort to make choices.

Draw two axes on a whiteboard, (in a room or virtually) and name them “Effort” and “Impact”, drawing lines to create four quadrants.

Now taking one post-it idea at a time; go to the scale and hold the sticky note in the middle of the four quadrants, where the two dotted lines cross each other.

Start with the effort scale and ask the group directly: “Would you rate the effort of this idea as higher or lower?”. Encourage the group to start giving you feedback by saying “higher” or “lower”. Depending on the voice of the group, move the sticky note left and right along the effort scale and stop at a point where the group seems to agree.

Staying at this horizontal level of the scale, now ask the group how they would rate the impact of this idea. Move the sticky note up or down. When the group agrees on the impact, stick the note to the whiteboard at that spot and leave it there.

Repeat this step for every idea, so at the end, you have placed all ideas onto the EFFORT/IMPACT scale.

Prioritising your tactical activities

Below is an image of how you should prioritise the tactical activities and create an action plan based on the recommendations that you get from the Effort/Impact Scale

So often we see brand planning processes that don’t guide teams on HOW to make smart choices. The above won’t work in all situations, but I can guarantee that when used will speed up decision making, improve creativity & effectiveness and provide greater alignment to your strategic intent.

As always we love hearing your feedback so let us know if you have used any of these approaches, or would like more guidance.

ABOUT DIVERGENT CONSULTING

Innovation is more important than ever in today’s uncertain business environment. Innovation allows companies to take advantage of change, anticipate opportunities, and maintain relevance. We help companies committed to innovation build people readiness that translates into action, value creation and resilience.??

LEVERAGING HUMAN-CENTERED DESIGN

Human-centred design is core to what we do, focusing on complex healthcare challenges with customer needs at the centre. Using our innovation sprint, we apply cutting-edge methodologies such as design thinking & design sprints to guide your team, step by step from problem definition to idea development where the output is a prototype that we test with your target customers, derisking innovation & delivering better services and experiences for your customers.?

Success starts by doing things differently - our unique approach will accelerate your breakthroughs to positively impact patients & HCPs.

Talk to us today to discuss how we help; email Tania Rowland, Chief Reinvention Officer. [email protected]