Market Research with Physician Consultants: An Overview

This is the first of two eTips! examining market research in the context of physician consultant meetings. This month's issue addresses the nature of this target group and the advantages of this type of market research. Next month's issue will address the variety of research methodologies available to gather the valuable information.

Physician "consultants" comprise what is often considered to be the most valuable market segment of a given product. Applying the standard "80-20 rule," they can be defined as the 20% of customers that account for 80% of the experience with a product.

Given today's health care environment, these providers tend to be extremely busy and less available or willing to participate in traditional market research venues. They often receive multiple invitations each week, across several different products, to participate in research. "Consultants meetings" provide them with a more attractive alternative, primarily for three reasons:

• Access to the latest information about a treatment or therapeutic class;
• The opportunity to respond directly to the manufacturer; and
• Interaction with peers.

The information obtained from these physicians can benefit a manufacturer in several ways. One advantage is the strengthening of the relationship with the practitioners. And, while consultant-based research is qualitative (and thus not "projectable") to the entire population of prescribing practitioners, it is representative of the views of this expert segment.* The data obtained from this group can then provide a directional indication of what works with prescribers not in this expert segment. These results can be tested with a small sample of "non-consultants" and, where no differences occur, used to reach those people as well. These follow-on results will identify areas where there are differences, thus allowing subsequent research to be more focused and consequently more cost effective.

Another benefit of this research is that interactions can occur on a regular basis. This provides timely feedback on fast breaking market circumstances, such as adverse FDA actions. Companies can quickly assess the impact in much less time than required to implement a standard research project. As a result, this increases the speediness and the likely success of the company's response.

*This assumes that the research employed a random sampling method and used an appropriate sample size.