By Jen Johnston part of the Influencing Healthcare Providers blog series
This is my fifth post in a series about doctor detailing. I most recently discussed choosing a specialty to target and what to consider when making a decision about mailing to healthcare professionals (HCPs) regionally vs. nationally. In this post, I will go over how to speak to healthcare professionals. They care about different things than consumers, retail or wholesale buyers, and pharmacists.
The Science: If your product is clinically-proven or has a clinical ingredient, share the science. This does not mean mailing a 12-page study to every HCP, but rather summarizing the results and providing a way for the HCP to read further if they are interested. There’s a good chance the HCP is reading their mail between patients, so you need to be brief, but impactful.
The Features and Benefits: What does it do and how does it do it? How will this make their patients’ lives easier? If the problem it addresses isn’t well known or widely accepted by this community, you may need to first explain the problem and even cite sources for the existence of the problem.
The Differentiators: Chances are there is another product that does what yours does, just in a different form, via a different mechanism, or with different ingredients. Why should the HCP stop recommending what they currently do and switch to recommending your brand?
The Retailers: If the HCP recommends your product, will their patients be able to find it in a nearby store? The HCP does not want to feel embarrassed by the patient coming back and asking if they can recommend something else since they couldn’t find your brand available anywhere.
Above all, remember this is not a consumer mailing. While the look and feel should be consistent with your brand, you may need to adjust the delivery. HCPs are going to take a clean, clinical-looking message more seriously than one that uses flowery or consumer-driven language, or is a hard sell. If you’d like help executing your doctor detailing direct mail campaign, contact Steve or Angela at DoMoreToday@hamacher.com to take the first step.
In my next post in this series I will answer the question “Should I sample doctors?” Hint, the answer is "yes." If you are wondering how many samples to send, I will explain.