Healthy Skepticism Library item: 5940

Warning: This library includes all items relevant to health product marketing that we are aware of regardless of quality. Often we do not agree with all or part of the contents.

Publication type: news

Roner L.
Just the fax, please!
eyeforpharma Briefing 2006 Aug 10

Full text:

Just the fax, please!
Author: Lisa Roner, Editor, eyeforpharma Briefing
(Aug/10/2006)

In today’s feature stories, we talk a lot about marketing ROI and the
intricacies of determining and optimizing the return on marketing
investments. But one thing that always stands out when you talk to
sharp
marketing professionals like Sheila O’Connor and Rob Noble is the
importance
of not loosing sight of the forest for the trees – not making things so
complicated that we abandon reason and logic.

A new survey from pharma marketing firm PharmaKinnex
(www.pharmakinnex.com)
confirms just that and reminds us that sometimes the best answers are
the
simplest ones. In late July, the group released the results of its
recent
Prescriber Marketing Survey, which gauges the marketing communications
preferences of 100 physicians’ offices in the US.

A predictable 27% of nurses and 23% of physicians say they welcome
telephone
calls and visits from pharma sales reps. And while the survey results
confirm that direct mail and visits by reps are the most popular
methods
used by pharma for marketing communication, 40% of those surveyed say
they
prefer to be contacted by fax.

FAX!

“The survey results lend credence to the value of multi-channel
marketing
and the notion that different healthcare professionals prefer different
methods of communication,” says Michael White, CEO of PharmaKinnex.
“However, the ‘low-tech’ fax preference deserves further study as it
calls
into question the value of more elaborate marketing tactics.”

Not to be disrespectful in any way to Mr. White, that’s probably the
understatement of the century.

Can you imagine the ROI from a fax campaign? No whistles, no bells, no
glossy printed brochure, no three-in-one memo pad/calendar/pencil cup
promo,
no rep in an expensive suit and a fleet car – imagine it. It definitely
deserves further study and may blow the value of more elaborate
marketing
tactics right out of the water.

It’s just so simple. But that’s the point. Sometimes we’re all guilty
of
using something comparable to a laser guided, heat seeking missle to
kill a
fly.

.when a fax would do.