Getting face time with a doctor is a big deal for a sales representative. Usually this face time can be measured in seconds; for the fortunate few, minutes.
One of the most important responsibilities of the marketing department is to equip the sales rep for this 10 seconds. In a lot of ways, medical marketing departments [...]
You should train the people who answer your phones. This is the real front line of marketing.
Most companies hire lots and lots of people with fancy degrees and pay them big salaries and let them sit around far away from the battle. Meanwhile, they pay other people with far less education very little money to [...]
Focus groups can be very valuable in learning about how your marketing materials are perceived. The problem with focus groups is that–when done properly–they can be extremely expensive.
Most medical companies I know do not do focus groups very often, and they have good reasons. Focus groups take up a lot of time, they are [...]
There are studies on this, but I’m not going to look them up. You know it’s true: if you write an ad, the main thing that people will read is the headline.
In fact, a good number of the people who see your ad will ONLY read the headline. (Okay, that number is 70%.) So if [...]
You know the scenario. Somebody (Mr. Bigwig) has to give a presentation and he decides that he needs help with his presentation, so he enlists you (Victim) to help him. However, he refuses to start on this project until 6 p.m. on the evening before it is due and he provides only the most [...]
Most people struggle with writing for a variety of reasons, including the inescapable fact that writing is simultaneously difficult and boring.
However, most good medical marketing types need to know how to write passably well, so here is how. I cannot promise that I can make you an adept and agile writer, but I can [...]
I am not normally a big fan of prognostication (although I am quite the fan of big words) but when one year turns into another, particularly one decade ends and the next begins, it is very tempting to look ahead and see what is going to happen.
Here are my predictions for 2010 for medical [...]
You’re in marketing, but even here you’re not safe. Sometimes math intrudes on your life. For marketing people, the most common form of math is statistics, a pseudoscience that purports to make numbers mean something.
So here is a fast guide to statistics for marketing people.
Most statistics that we deal with have to do with clinical [...]
If there is ever any area of literature that, in general, needs some serious help it’s patient literature. Companies, hospitals, and even physicians all work hard to create materials aimed at helping their patients learn about therapies, treatments, options, drugs, and conditions and most of this stuff goes unread or misunderstood.
That’s a shame, since [...]
Contrary to prevailing winds of change, medical marketing is not illegal, immoral, dishonest, or sinister. Marketing is the glorious art of persuasion which basically means that marketers are tasked with trying to get customers to pick them.
And the most magnificent thing about marketing is that it really has not changed much over the centuries. True, [...]
Even people who hate to write or fear communications work send out emails. In fact, emails are so fast and convenient, there is a seductive concept involved that we all ought to be good at it.
Well, most people are not very good at email. Your email can appropriately represent what you want to say and [...]
Writers do not actually get writer’s block. It is a condition that affects primarily non-writers who are trying to write. But don’t despair if you have writer’s block. It can be cured.
You have to know why you have writer’s block. You have it because somewhere in your past you took an English class and in [...]
Conflict of interest has officially arrived as a buzzword. I know that because it now has an acronym: COI. However, there is nothing coy about the folks bandying the term about.
COI in medical marketing refers to the fact–deemed an embarrassment at best and a transgression at worst–that people who publish on certain topics often tend [...]
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