FAQs

Q. What kind of media do you use?
A. As its core medium, DoctorsDialog uses high quality,
first class, personal correspondence, accompanied by
unique personal Q&A and response feedback
instruments.  DoctorsDialog can also integrate fax,
e-mail and online instruments and blogging, along
with journal response ads.

Q. Isn't mail used a lot less today?
A. No.  It is simply used more effectively.
While healthcare marketers are using the net,
they are also using more relevant response mail.*
A notable example, parallel to healthcare is the
discipline of direct marketing, where sales are made
through media without reps.  Execs in direct marketing
continually test the full range of media against controls
for response and ROI.  They are using more targeted
(personalized, segmented) response mail than ever to
make and close sales.  The question is not whether to
use one medium over another (such net or mail), but
to test and use every medium more effectively.

*Notes:
--Pharma budget projections for coming years show
direct mail growth (MM&M).
--Direct marketing in 2009 accounted for 54% of all
US advertising dollars (DMA).    

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Q. Why do you use mail as the core
DoctorsDialog medium?
A. Because it continually outperforms other physical
and digital media, in number of exposures, in number
of responders, and in depth of responses. It steadily
increases sales and earns an average ROI higher than
salesforces (clients' sales and ROI analyses, and
ACNielsen analysis) Important to know that while a
Dialog uses mail to carry its messages back and forth,
its components and content are very different from
other kinds of mail...such as its first class, personal
correspondence, its unique personal Q&A and
aggregate response reporting instruments, its
response-tested copy methods, and more. As noted
above, direct marketers continually test all media
against controls for levels of response and ROI. 
They continue to use response mail as a core
selling medium, both to make the sales and to
close it.

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Q. What's the DoctorsDialog response rate?
A. We use three quantitative measures:
Two for response and one for exposure. The two
response measures are number of responses and
number of responders.  As some Doctors respond
twice (at start and at completion), the number of
responses is the higher of the two measures.  We
consider the number responders to be the most
important measure, as it shows how many doctors
engage (not how many times they engage). 
The number of responders ranges from 7%-36%. 
Follow-up DoctorsDialogs have increased the
cumulative number of responders to 27%-69%.  

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Q. Is “exposure” rate important?
A. The exposure rate reflects the number of Doctors
who do not respond and yet who may see the Dialog
contents.  Exposure can be called reach.  It is an
estimate derived from exposure tests on the mailing
package used in Dialogs. Tests show exposures range
between 49% and 78%.
This measure is important, especially with the aggregate
response feedback wave.  Pharma ROI analyses show that
even though this aggregate response feedback wave
generates the lowest number of responders, it produces
the greatest, most lasting NRx increases!  Further, client
ROI analysis has verified the feedback effect on
non-responders, reporting an ROI 4.52:1 from these
non-responders.  (See “Do the aggregate responses
have the effect of an opinion leader?, below.)

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Q. What's the quality of response?
A. Fewer people ask this question, but the quality of
the response makes all the difference in results. 
When Doctors voluntarily take the time to answer
15 to 25 questions to indicate the value to them of
the message points and their use of the product, their
responses have to be considered high quality.  ROI
analyses by our clients of DoctorsDialog results
verify this. 

Q. How many questions do you ask?
A. As many as is necessary to convey the entire message. 
The usually ranges from 15 to 25 questions, seldom less,
occasionally more.   

Q. What kind of questions do you ask?
A. Dialog questions come in a wide variety, depending
on the message to be conveyed. The questions convey
the entire product message in an appropriate sequence,
then “ask for action”.  Primarily multiple choice, the
questions can cover awareness, experience, importance,
significance, relevance, prescribing, patient and doctor
preferences, intentions to recommend or to try, and
much more.  In fact, more than 2,000 such questions
have been asked and answered in DoctorsDialogs.

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Q. Does answering really make a difference?
A. ROI analyses proves that answering the Dialog questions—
designed to positively alter doctors knowledge, attitudes and
practices—directly increases prescription sales.  Sales analysis
by our clients reinforce this.  It only makes sense.  Each
question conveys an important piece of the message. 
While answering each, the Doctor must fully take-in the
question, consider, and select an answer.  This process
increases comprehension and recall.  The Summary of
Responses, showing each question once again, along
with the aggregate answers to the question further
serves to reinforce the message.  (See What doctors say...)

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Q. Who writes the questions?
A. We write the questions, using the experience we've
gained from writing more than 2,000 questions for nearly
100 products.  We then plug the questions into the program. 
With your approvals, we then produce the entire program,
while reporting its ongoing results to you.  Saves you lots
of time.  Frees you up to focus on other projects. 

Q. What would I have to do?
A. As DoctorsDialog is a turnkey program, you would
simply brief us and provide relevant information and
materials (research papers, vis aids, letterhead,
company and product logos). You would then submit
the program we create for review and approval. 
We will assist you during the review process,
if you wish. 

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Q. How long does it take to do?
A. One to three months to prepare, four to five
months to complete both phases (usually 3~ waves). 
The second wave follows the first by about 4 to 5 weeks. 
The third follows the second by about 6-8 weeks.

Q. During that time, do Doctors tend to forget?
A. Personal correspondence in each wave reminds and
updates Doctors on the ongoing Dialog.  These reminders
work, as controlled ROI analyses by clients show a
continuing growth in sales over the course of the Dialog.

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Q. How would a DoctorsDialog work in
the marketing mix?
A. Think of a Dialog as a “Powerful alternative to
reps and opinion leader”.  Collaborating doctors
prove to do as good a job as reps, and a better job
than an opinion leader in support of the product
message.  So, if you have little or no rep coverage,
or no opinion leader to influence, you can use a
DoctorsDialog as an alternative.  It will detail your
product in full with many, and relay positive peer
influence to most.  

Think of a Dialog as a way to Cut through the clutter:
If you have a budget for mail, A Dialog is a proven
way to get your message seen.  Doctors today have
less time than ever to get the information they need
in order to serve patients.  They have less time to see
reps, or wade through emails, or search online.  They
want VERY HIGH RETURN on the time they invest. 

DoctorsDialog's first class correspondence with its
personal message cuts through promotional clutter. 
It places your information on Doctors' desks and
into their hands.  Its immediacy prompts many to
reach for their pen and respond to you.  It motivates
many more to read the aggregate responses.
It inspires most to use the product. Response quantity,
response quality, and ROI analyses substantiate this.  

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Q. Do you offer samples?
A. Yes, if you wish.  While offering samples is not
necessary to generate response, Dialogs have offered
samples a number of times.

Q. Do you handle fulfillment?
A. If you offer literature or other information, we can
fulfill it.  If you offer samples, we will compile the
sample requests and forward them to your sample
fulfillment operation in the format they require.

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Q. How much does it cost?
A. To determine your investment in a DoctorsDialog,
we must first ask you a series of questions to learn
what your require.  The questions cover sales goals,
integrating with other initiatives, and field force,
timing, target speciality(ies) and numbers, format
of prescribing information, fulfillment options
(samples, literature, materials), online and fax
options, reporting needs (summary and market
pulse [plus blog] for management, sales, marketing
research,), graphic option with feedback, vis aid,
journal response ad and reports.

For your reference, investment in the core interactive
mail segment of a DoctorsDialog can be similar to that
of a high quality direct response mail program.

Last point.  The investment in a DoctorsDialog covers
the entire program, start to completion.  To assist you
in budget planning the investment is set at the start
and billed in 3 installments.

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Q. Why should I use a DoctorsDialog instead
of a quality direct response mail program?  
A. The investments may be similar, but the outcomes
different: For example, a client director of marketing
first ran a multiwave direct response mail program,
which conveyed a monolog message with color
photographs, and asked some brief questions. 
He then ran a DoctorsDialog and compared the results. 
The Dialog pulled 5 TIMES the number of responses
to 5 TIMES the number of questions.  More, it
generated sales. He has since used 3 more Dialogs. 

His Canadian counterpart has used 2 Dialogs to date.

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Q. Is sharing the responses with Doctors'
the only incentive?
A. No.  We believe sharing the Summary of all the
Responses is the initial incentive to respond (see
What doctors say...about seeing the summary
of responses). 

A close second is the complete clinical information
Doctors get through the concise Q&A, which many
apparently appreciate (see What doctors say...about
learning the message).  A meta-analysis of psychometrics
shows that half of all Doctors prefer to take-in information
by thinking it through (interacting), rather than talking it
over (conversing).
 
Other strong incentives:
--Doctors need clinical information on products that can
improve patient care. 
--Doctors like to give their opinions about products. 
--Doctors want to know the opinions of other doctors
about products, and how others use those products.
--Doctors will tend to use a product when they are given
all the above (see What doctors say...about using
the product).

There are more incentives. 
--Dialog marketing appears better received than
one-way, monolog marketing, which tends to
alienate many today.
--Dialog marketing's mutually-informative mutually-
beneficial format has been proven repeatedly through
literally hundreds of programs to appeal to many
thousands of Doctors (see What doctors say...
about the DoctorsDialog method).

One last underlying incentive:
Supporting all the above with response and ROI-tested
components and content (including language, eye path
flow, typeface, layout, and more) within each package
continually proves to effectively reach, engage and
involve more Doctors.  (Example, one client compared
a graphic mailer program—not recommend by testing-
-to a DoctorsDialog: The Dialog pulled 5 times the
response, to 5 times the number of questions.)

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Q. Do specialists respond better?
A. Specialists tend to respond at a higher rate than
primary care doctors.  And some specialties tend to
respond at higher rates than others.  Ask us about
yours.  We'll share with you the response rates for
yours, and if you like, the psychometrics which tend
to determine levels of response by specialty. 

Note: “Responders” not “respondents”? “Responders”
is a noun; it carries (we believe) a more active
connotation.  “Respondent” is either an adjective
or a noun with a less active connotation.

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Q. Do you use Dialogs with other
health care professionals?
A. Yes.  We've conducted dialogs with nurse
educators, pharmacists and optometrists. 
All successful.

Q. What is the response from other
health care professionals?
A. As well as with doctors.  For example, a
Dialog with nurse educators achieved a 64%
response to 15 questions.  A Dialog with
pharmacists achieved a 13% response to
23 questions.  A Dialog with optometrists
achieved a 36% response to 21 questions.

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Q. Do you pay Doctors to respond?
A. No.  When you offer to share the responses with
Doctors, many willingly collaborate in exchanging
information.

When you want to keep the response information
to yourself, checks can work as a response incentive. 
(A good example would be testing the exposure levels
of the different types of mailing packages.)
However, after writing the original guidelines for
product managers, “How to do check studies”, we
tested the idea of simply offering to share the
responses. Sharing worked so well, we stopped
using checks as incentives.

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Q. Do the aggregate responses have the effect
of an opinion leader?
A. New research shows: “Cascades of influence are
driven not by influentials but by a critical mass of
easily influenced individuals.” (Watts and Dodds, 2007). 
To substantiate this effect through DoctorsDialog:
--An ROI of 4.52:1 from non-responders, many of
whom see the dialog Summary, was reported by a
client analyst who set out to verify the effect of critical
mass influence on non-responders. 
--A product manager used a DoctorsDialog to circumvent
a somewhat critical opinion leader by feeding back
positive mass opinion from responding Doctors to all
Doctors.  He achieved the highest worldwide sales increase
for the product that year, thus reinforcing Watts and Dodds
research.
--ROI analyses of two DoctorsDialogs by clients show that
the highest, most lasting sales increases occur following
critical mass influence feedback.

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Q. Can I use the response information?
A. Yes.  Like our clients who have done all of the following...
--You can use cumulative response reports to track ongoing
Dialog results, present to management, analyze the
relevance of message elements.
--You can use doctors comments and questions to keep
tabs on the market pulse—much like a blog.
--You can provide responder profiles, showing individual
and cumulative response, to appropriate sales managers
and reps for territory monitoring and personal follow-ups. 
--You can use cumulative response information in a visual
aid to support sales rep calls.
--You can use cumulative response information in a
journal response ad to expand influence and increase
responses.
--You can provide cumulative response reports for
marketing research analysis (cumulative responses are
similar to research responses, with a variance of less than 5%.)

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