SKILLS FOR SUCCESS
November/December 2005
Driving Change: Learnings from the Relationship Marketing Model
Dominique Hurley
Vice President, Marketing
Optas, A division of Dendrite
The business of changing behavior—with a focus on improving patient health— can be accomplished through what my professional colleagues and I call “relationship marketing.” Relationship marketing is defined as the creation of a meaningful relationship with customers based on interactive dialogue. Although this term is commonly used in other industries, relationship marketing is still a relatively new concept within the pharmaceutical industry. In this article, I will describe three key principles of relationship marketing that can be used to drive change within organizations, including pharmaceutical companies.
Factor # 1—Trust is the ticket: You get it by uncovering need and delivering relevance.
In relationship marketing, the number one rule is to build trust with customers. Trust is key if you want someone to be open to receiving new information and changing their perceptions or behavior. We build trust by intimately understanding the customers’ needs and talking to them about issues that are personally relevant. Once your customer believes you see their perspective, they are more open to your opinion and thoughts.
Take compliance, for example, which will become increasingly important in January with the passage of Medicare Part D. Patients comply with their medication regimen when they fully understand their diagnosis, the condition’s symptoms, how the drug works and what potential adverse effects may occur. Once you know what they know (or don’t know) through a series of targeted questions, you can start a meaningful dialogue using customized content to address their educational or emotional needs. Because you understand them, they can trust you.
When managing change in your organization, you need to “hear” what each influencer needs and understand their concerns about any new initiative. Do your homework so you can address their personal motivations. Once you have their trust based on these insights, you are well on your way to helping your target audience make the required changes for a more successful outcome.
Factor # 2—It’s all about momentum: Gain momentum through rewards that maximize pace.
The second rule of relationship marketing is to deliver the proper motivation to facilitate a desired behavioral change. When communicating with physicians, we know that they are motivated by the promise of improved compliance which delivers better outcomes for patients and reduces patient management costs for the doctor. We underscore this point when interacting with physicians about the importance of getting patients to stay on the medication they prescribed.
In gaining momentum for your own initiatives, the same tenets apply. Find ways for your project to rapidly deliver rewards to each group that supports your initiative. For finance: return on investment; for sales: improved revenue; for senior management: predictable growth and share. Successful change agents make the organizational imperative of their initiative clear while simultaneously rewarding each individual for support and involvement in the project.
An important point is that each person and group you work with will have different personal motivators. Here again, do your homework so that you can properly articulate and deliver relevant rewards for desired action. When you plan ahead for “buy in and support,” you increase the speed of uptake and support for your initiative—a critical component for achieving paradigm shifts.
Factor # 3—Act Fast: If you’re not generating action, you’re losing traction.
The final rule of relationship marketing focuses on the level of energy you are willing and able to expend to change behavior. Our clients need to make decisions on this front regarding level of investment in technology, commitment to multi-channel communications, desire to measure impact of every tactic, staff resourcing, and customer reach. Each decision impacts the depth of relationship our clients can have with their customers and directly impacts the timeline and level of results.
When this factor is applied to change agents in organizations, it becomes a question of time and prioritizing. Every meeting, every conversation, every e-mail you send should be moving your initiative forward. This requires ruthless scrutiny and constant focus.
Learning how to say no to others so that you have time and energy to focus on your initiative is critical to your success in driving your project forward. My personal filter for saying no is “If you’re not generating action, you’re losing traction.”
Learn and Stay Nimble
Relationship marketing is an iterative process; each tactic reveals insights to further define needs, build trust, design rewards, and change your level of commitment. As a change agent it is critical to constantly evaluate each interaction and build an intelligence set that will directly evolve your message to the organization. Stay nimble, focused, and build those relationships and change will happen
Dominique Hurley, Vice President at Optas, is an industry expert in relationship marketing with over 20 years of experience working with financial services, telecommunications, pharmaceutical, and retail companies. Reach Dominique at dhurley@optas.com.