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CRAIG STINEBAUGH AND GLENN SABIN
By developing a
sample allocation
strategy that
optimizes product
sales, pharma
companies can
spend less and
earn more.
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.
MM
Sampling
SAMPLING RESPONSE
Incremental sales
Insufficient
samples to
drive
patient
starts
Diminishing
returns to
gains
Optimal
range
Graphic
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.
AN
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