What makes the truly effective sales representative different? The key is the representative’s innate ability to identify the unique, subtle characteristics of a physician that will enable him or her to appeal directly to that physician’s needs and desires on behalf of the company’s products. Every physician segment evaluates promotional contacts differently based on his or her particular promotional and practice attitudes. To that end, understanding the differences can help pharmaceutical marketers and sales representatives make much more effective promotional decisions.
To communicate effectively to the broadest scope of physicians, representatives need to adapt their interactions to physicians’ underlying attitudes and motivations. But not all representatives are skilled at uncovering those motivations or making those adjustments once they’ve uncovered them.
In an article written for Pharmaceutical Representative, Stacy Vaughn, Vice President, Sales Force Effectiveness, GfK Healthcare, shows how data-driven marketing research exercises, such as a promotionally based attitudinal segmentation, can help drive effective marketing programs and enhance sales force effectiveness as marketers and representatives are better able to develop and tailor content, thereby maximizing spend, increasing physician satisfaction during representatives’ visits and experiencing better business outcomes in terms of promotional returns.
To download the article, Examining Physician Segments, click here.
