Pharma Marketer Leverages Targeted Oncologist Insights Using KeyOps

THE PROBLEM:

Gaining Access to Fast, Targeted Insights - On a Limited Budget

Kim knew that making strategic business decisions would require an ongoing understanding of how oncologists perceived and used the company’s cancer drug. But with more than a decade of experience working for a large global pharma company, she also knew the challenges of traditional market research tactics.

Advisory boards and in-person qualitative market research interviews are time- and resource-intensive. And the insights they generate don’t always reflect the reality of an entire physician market.
These sessions are typically hosted in a major city centre like Montreal, Toronto, or Vancouver – inherently limiting who attended because of the additional travel time commitment required.

“You can do your traditional market research where you book a facility and physicians come in for hour-long interviews,” said Kim. “But having done that for several years, I found that you would see similar faces each year. You’re not getting a breadth of feedback or insights that are reflective of customers from across the country.”
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In addition to these factors, traditional market research tactics were cost prohibitive.
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“The competitive pricing of the KeyOps market research offering was really unique and appealing" said Kim.

The Solution:

Highly Targeted, Asynchronous Physician Surveys

When Kim learned about KeyOps from Darren Anderson, KeyOps’ Chief Commercial Officer, she quickly understood how the company’s innovative, digital-first approach to capturing physician insights would benefit her work.

Using KeyOps, Kim could survey targeted oncologists to gather information related to multiple indications – and have actionable research results within a couple of weeks.“

I really liked the KeyOps platform offering because it’s asynchronous,” Kim explained. “Whether a physician is available on their lunch break, in between patients, or on a Saturday morning with a cup of coffee, they can complete a survey whenever it's convenient – and know it’s going to take around 10 minutes.”

For the same cost of a single in-person advisory board meeting, Kim could complete multiple KeyOps surveys throughout the year. And with KeyOps, her market research was no longer limited to a specific geographical area. This national reach resulted in more trustworthy, reliable data.

“You get the insights that you need from a sample that’s really representative of practices across the country – from urban academic centres to smaller community centres,”said Kim.

The Outcome:

Real-Time Data to Inform Product, Sales, and Marketing Decisions

After partnering with KeyOps for physician market research, Kim was consistently generating timely, relevant physician insights that could help her make well-informed business decisions.

Sending short, asynchronous surveys to a targeted list of oncologists routinely generated fast, reliable insights. Her commercial team also found that physicians in KeyOps’ proprietary HCP community offered thoughtful, comprehensive answers to the company’s questions.

“I’ve been pleasantly surprised by the quality of responses we get when we have open text questions,”said Kim. “Initially our team was concerned about including multiple open text questions, but our experience is that physicians really take the time to provide thorough responses with KeyOps.”

Assess the Competitive Landscape: In the gastric cancer space, Kim surveyed oncologists to understand how, when, and why they use various treatments. These insights were used to help shape her competitive messaging and market strategy for oncologists.

Test Physician Support Tactics: The KeyOps survey platform was used to concept test a digital educational tool for physicians. This feedback ultimately helped the company decide not to move forward with the development of that tool.

Evaluate New Market Opportunities : When new data emerged that showed promising results for a pipeline product, Kim surveyed oncologists to help uncover the potential size of the market opportunity. The first-party physician research fromKeyOps was used to validate her team’s assessment of third-party cancer statistics and epidemiology data.

“Building this physician tool would have required a large investment from a people, resource, and dollar perspective,” said Kim.“By quickly gathering physician insights withKeyOps, we were able to better direct those funds to other projects that would be more impactful for our business.”

These represent just a few examples of how Kim is using targeted physician insights from KeyOps to make better business decisions.

“I’ve worked with a number of different research partners over my career, and I’ve found the KeyOp steam to be a great partner,” said Kim. “You feel like they really do have a vested interest in the insights that you’re trying to uncover – and they do their best to help you achieve your goals. It’s a way to gain critical insights that complement the other information channels you have available.”