Marketing to Professionals: Under the Influence

Doctors don't respond well to the traditional sales and marketing push. But, they do respond well to each other. In fact, there are doctors who wield tremendous power of persuasion over their peers. These doctors have earned the respect and attention of other prescribers and have been recognized for their expertise and knowledge of innovative, emerging therapies. But more important, they are likely to try, adopt, and advocate for new products.

Jerry Maynor

From a marketing standpoint, these doctors represent the top tier of the physician hierarchy—the ultimate key opinion leaders. While pharma has traditionally used a top-down marketing approach to target physicians, in which national key opinion leaders influence regional ones and so on, a new marketing approach focuses on leveraging local leaders to affect change. Even at the local level, these key opinion leaders have the power to effectively spread word of a new product and influence the clinical decisions of their prescribing peers.

Marketers can identify and categorize these local leaders into social and technical networks. The social network includes doctors, mainly specialists, who interact socially, exchange patient stories, and value anecdotal data about a product. The technical network comprises doctors who serve as formal, technical resources and product educators for other doctors. While both networks appeal to different kinds of physicians, they each hold the power to influence the prescribing behavior of their peers.

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