Você está na página 1de 4

MM

Boosts the
Bottom Line
CRAIG STINEBAUGH AND GLENN SABIN
By developing a
sample allocation
strategy that
optimizes product
sales, pharma
companies can
spend less and
earn more.

amples are big business. US pharma companies distributed more


than $10 billion (retail value) of samples in 2001 according to
IMS Healththe equivalent of 7 percent of industry salesand
marketers enthusiasm for sampling seems to be growing. Although
industrys total promotion spending grew by 21 percent from 2000 to
2001, sampling swelled by 31 percent during that same time period.
An effective sampling strategy can drive both sales and profit growth
with no increase in sample spending. In many cases, it can be achieved
with a decrease in the overall sample budget.
With that in mind, this article
discusses the most common shortcomings in current sampling practices
quantifies the lost opportunity associated with the current practices
describes how to develop a more effective sample budgeting and
allocation strategy
gives examples of best sampling practices.

Room for Improvement

Craig Stinebaugh
and Glenn Sabin
are principals in the Princeton, New
Jersey office of ZS Associates, a
global management consulting firm
specializing in sales and marketing
strategy and execution.

Insufficient variation in current sampling practices results in under-serving high-value physicians and over-serving low-value physicians. The results are lost sales opportunities. (See Sampling Across Segments. )
The problem starts at headquarters where companies commonly allocate a fixed number of samples per territory for each planning cycle. A
fixed allocation process fails to place samples where they will be most effective. Two quick fixes can yield immediate results. (See Low-Hanging
Fruit, page 4.)
Furthermore, sales forces typically dont impose enough variation in
their per-detail sampling rate across physician segments. Sampling Across
Segments shows that reps leave more samples per detail when visiting
high-potential physicians than low-value doctors and that they generally
make more details to those physicians during a call cycle. However, the
sampling differences still fail to compensate for the differences in potential
between segments. Reps should strive to consistently tie sampling to
physicians potential to initiate new prescriptions, such that the sampling

CATHY SELTZER

Better Sampling

rate is fairly constant across segments. As the example shows, low-potential physicians are effectively receiving three times as many samples per
patient as high-potential physicians. Smarter
sample allocation can generate additional sales
because more sales can be gained from high-potential physicians than will be lost from low-potential physicians if samples are reallocated to
equalize the sampling rate across segments.

Effective Strategy
Poor allocation of samples can cost companies
up to 5 percent of sales, based on recent ZS Associates studies. To avoid that loss, companies must
ensure that each physician segment gets the optimal sampling amount. Optimal allocation avoids
cannibalization with low-value customers and
provides sufficient samples to high-value customers to capture a greater share of new patient
starts. (See Sampling Response, page 3 for more
detail.) That example illustrates how a sampling
rate that is too low is not sufficient to support the
number of patients that physicians need to start
on therapy. Conversely, an excessive sampling
rate provides physicians with so many samples
that the amounts distributed to patients actually
reduce future sales.
Determining the optimal sampling rate is part
of developing an effective sampling strategy. It
has four key elements:
Budget. Companies set a total national volume
for each brand to be distributed in each planning
period.
Allocation. Companies also typically determine
sub-allocations for several different planning levels, including sales team (or company in the case
of co-promotion), region, district, and territory.
Allocations by physician and group practice are
less common.
Configuration. This element involves the number
of sample units per pack and the number of sample packs per case. Because physicians give patients sample packs, the number of sample units
per pack should be based on the number of days
of therapy required to prompt a patient to fill the
full prescription. Once the number of units per
pack is determined, marketers must then determine the number of packs per case. Reps typically leave full cases with physicians to save time
and simplify record-keeping, so the sample packs
per case should provide enough flexibility that
reps can tailor the total amount of samples that
they leave with each of the target segments.
Channel. Sales reps are the most common
method for distributing samples to target doctors, but other approaches are becoming popular.
2

Alternate approaches often involve a combination of direct mail and the internet and sometimes include voucherswhich patients can redeem at pharmaciesin addition to physical
samples. An RxCentric.com study shows that 50
percent of MDs prefer vouchers to physical samples. Vouchers enhance tracking capabilities, enabling companies and physicians to see redemption patterns. Some physicians prefer vouchers
because they require less paperwork and physical
space, while other physicians feel strongly about
the immediate patient benefit associated with
taking home a physical drug sample instead of a
piece of paper. Smaller companies are turning to
those new channels to achieve wider geographic
reach than their sales forces can provide while
larger companies are experimenting to see if they
can get access to no-see physicians.

SAMPLING ACROSS SEGMENTS


High-potential physicians typically receive more samples, and details, than
low-potential physicians. But relative to new prescriptions (NRx)new patient startstop physicians receive fewer sample days of therapy (DOT). A
more rational strategy is to maintain a constant sample rate (DOT per NRx)
across physician value segments.

MM

Sampling

Sales reps are the most common


channel for distributing samples to
target doctors, but other approaches
are becoming more popular and often
involve a combination of direct mail
and the internet.
Maximizing Results
An optimal budgeting and allocation strategy
must include the following steps:
Issue Identification. Companies should perform analysis to understand the effectiveness of current sampling patterns. Cross-functional
discussions between
sales, marketing, and
operations often reveal
additional concerns such as
Prescription Drug Marketing
Act compliance and production constraints. Also, executives
can analyze national audit data
showing sampling volumes across all products in
a class to gain insight into sampling trends and reveal whether current sampling levels are in-line
with competitors levels.
Measurement. Using advanced statistical analysis, companies should attempt to measure the
impact of sampling on prescribing. However, that
task is complicated by several factors
Sampling volumes are highly correlated with
detailing activity.

SAMPLING RESPONSE

Incremental sales

The ideal sampling strategy is balanced between under-sampling, or lost


patient starts, and over-sampling, which may cannibalize sales.

Insufficient
samples to
drive
patient
starts

Diminishing
returns to
gains

Sample supply exceeds patient type


availability and cannibalizes sales

Optimal
range

Sample rate (sample DOT per market NRx)

Source: ZS Associates, 2002

Graphic

Physicians hold samples in inventory and,


therefore, distribution follows an irregular
build-and-deplete pattern. That creates a
lag between sampling activity and results,
which the statistical design must take into
consideration.
Although individual doctors sign for samples,
any physician within a group practice can use
them.
Ultimately, the analysis must determine the
sales impact of changes in the sampling level for each segment and
separate the effect of samples
from the effect of details.
Optimization. Here,
companies take raw
learnings about sampling
responsiveness and determine
what the optimal sampling rate
should be in the future. The plan of action should use statistical information from
the past and incorporate the anticipated effect of
future events.
Once planners determine each segments sampling rate, they can easily calculate the allocation
for any desired level. Sample allocations should
account for monthly fluctuations in usage, such as
the seasonality observed for antihistamines and
many antibiotics. Matching the supply of samples
to the flow of patients maximizes the chance of
getting new patient starts.
When finalizing the sampling plan, companies
must also remember the tight link between detailing and samplingsizable reductions in reps
sampling budgets might
adversely affect their detailing patterns. Sadly,
reps often cite samples as the primary tool for
gaining access to physician offices, signaling that
reps are not adding enough value in the sales
process. However, for certain segments, there are
more cost-effective channels than face-to-face rep
visits if the sole activity is to deliver samples.
Some best practices that will help managers
implement a new sampling strategy include:
Direction. Provide reps with guidance on optimal sampling levelsand at the very least,
explain the rationale for the new levels and
make that information available to the field.
Companies often struggle with how much direction to give the field on detailing and sampling for fear of undermining reps autonomy.
Arming them with an effective base plan can
help reduce the time reps need to spend on
planning and analysis and maximize the time
available for visiting customers.
Dialogue. Work with sales managers to explain

MM

Sampling
the rationale behind the allocation process and
show them the financial implications of suboptimal sampling. They will then be in a better
position to reinforce the need for new
approaches with their field reps. Also,
executives should provide the field with
tracking reports to show how closely actual
sample allocations are following the plan. That

LOW-HANGING FRUIT
Companies can improve their return on sampling by adopting two quick
fixes. One is to vary the national budget for each call cycle to reflect local
seasonality patterns so that samples are available during peak demand. The
second approach varies rep allocations to reflect differences in physician
mix across territories and directs samples to higher value physicians.

Reprinted from PHARMACEUTICAL EXECUTIVE, March 2003

AN

can lead to a constructive


dialogue between reps and
managers about the additional
factors that may be driving reps
sampling behavior.
Pilot Programs. Conduct pilots in selected geographies to experiment and extend organizational learning. That is particularly valuable
when trying new channels to supplement field
efforts.
Additional factors may impede exact implementation of the optimal plan. There simply
may not be enough room, for instance, in the
high-potential physicians sample closet to hold
all the samples companies want to provide.
In that case, field forces may provide vouchers
instead of physical samples. Also, payer and
provider organizations are moving to limit sampling or, in extreme cases, prohibit it altogether.
Clearly, customer policies must be respected
despite what the strategy calls for.
Finally, field reps often resist the idea that
some territories should receive a smaller sample
budget than others, believing that it limits their
incentive earnings opportunity. But it is crucial
for companies to direct samplesand other
promotional spendingto the customers on
whom they will have the biggest impact. If customer opportunities and sampling needs are
not evenly distributed across the field force,
then companies should enact a different incentive plan to account for necessary differences
in sample allocations.
Some suggestions are harder to implement
than others. However, companies that go for
even the low-hanging fruit can capture returns
of up to 5 percent of salesa reward much
greater than the effort required.

ADVANSTAR PUBLICATION Printed in U.S.A.

Copyright Notice Copyright by Advanstar Communications Inc. Advanstar Communications Inc. retains all rights to this article. This article may only be viewed or printed (1) for personal use. User may not actively
save any text or graphics/photos to local hard drives or duplicate this article in whole or in part, in any medium. Advanstar Communications Inc. home page is located at http://www.advanstar.com.

GLOBAL LEADER
ZS Associates
www.zsassociates.com
inquiry@zsassociates.com

IN

SALES

AND

M A R K E T I N G C O N S U LT I N G

Boston Chicago Evanston Frankfurt


Milan Paris Princeton San Francisco

London
Toronto

Você também pode gostar