A brand team with an injectable hormonal therapy indicated for the treatment of advanced prostate cancer was experiencing lackluster brand performance with key payers, integrated delivery networks (IDNs), and large community urology group practices.
In the crowded LHRH (luteinizing hormone-releasing hormone) agonist/antagonist category, their target customers didn’t see any benefits to their brand over competing products. In order to move the needle, the brand needed to identify key attributes and develop effective messaging aligned with access value drivers and promotional support for their field-based account managers.
Find out how the brand uptake ignited.
Define value from your customer’s perspective
The healthcare market is undergoing seismic shifts that are altering customer needs. For example, Medicare’s new payment and delivery system reform (associated with MACRA) aims to improve patient care and overall quality without increasing costs. Many brands are now challenged to transform their approach in an effort to prove their benefit related to value-based care.
Clinical dynamics are also at play. Therapeutic diversity, along with increasing numbers of competitors and decreasing differentiation between products, are all converging, which reduces your brand's opportunity to stand out. In addition, many brands now have multiple indications, while others are targeted for specific subpopulations.
All of these factors point to the need for strong product differentiation and explicit communication regarding the distinct value your brand brings to organizational customers. Brands lacking a firm understanding of the value their product provides to meet customer needs are at a competitive disadvantage.
Create the promise of value and prove it
Creating a distinctly different mechanism of action for a pharmaceutical product does not guarantee it will meet the needs of payers, provider organizations, and their patients. The only possible way to meet organized customer needs is to demonstrate how your brand improves the standard of care in areas customers care about.
Your brand’s value proposition highlights key differentiators from your customers’ perspective that make your product superior to its competitors. This value then becomes the foundation for clear, concise, and compelling brand messaging that underpins all of your promotional programs and materials.
Brand value must be substantiated with credible supporting evidence that can withstand advanced formulary management, guideline recommendations, and emerging technological assessment criteria. This creates the opportunity to enhance rapid product uptake and propel your product throughout its life cycle.
“What the customer thinks he or she is buying, what he or she considers value is decisive—it determines what a business is, what it produces, and whether it will prosper. And what the customer buys and considers value is never a product. It is always a utility—that is, what a product or service does for him or her. And what is value for the customer is anything but obvious.” —Peter Drucker
9 key elements of an impactful value proposition
It identifies current and potential customers’ unmet needs.
It pinpoints competitors’ strengths.
It distinguishes brand differentiators vs its competitors.
It recognizes the value drivers for access.
It identifies what customers value most about the brand.
It promotes the benefits of the brand vs competitors.
It provides strong proof of the benefits to substantiate the value.
It reflects the target customers’ priorities and decision drivers.
It is meaningful, credible, and sustainable.
Examine your brand promise before sales fail to accelerate or begin to decline
A weak value proposition fails to effectively demonstrate and communicate how your product can meet customer needs, which leads to lackluster sales performance and inefficient use of marketing resources and budget. Your payer/provider organization customers are left questioning how and why they should use your brand, where it fits into their treatment pathways, and what makes your brand better than its competitors.
Evolve your message to stay ahead of the competition
To remain as robust, impactful, and current as possible, your value proposition must change and grow as new competitors enter the marketplace, standards of care are updated, healthcare policies are modified, and your customers’ needs shift.
Changing a perception of lack of value can be difficult and expensive and hinders your ability to maximize sales potential. Given rapidly changing market levers, it’s important to reevaluate your brand value proposition often, likely once a year.
Aventria Health Group was brought in to take on the challenge of crafting a compelling brand voice—which resonated with key customers—using our proven “Taking Promise to Performance” value proposition development process. Through a deep dive analysis, including an extensive series of field interviews as well as validation testing with payers, IDNs, and large group urology practices, Aventria created segment-specific branded and unbranded message platforms and sales presentations.
Aventria’s high-impact, value-based platform consisted of clear positioning, defined message pillars, and credible evidence-backed messages. Now, for its urology practice clients, the brand could boast a unique mechanism of action that included rapid testosterone reduction and fewer associated side effects for patients—a major differentiating factor when treating patients with advanced prostate cancer. Even a formerly perceived weakness regarding the need for monthly administration and clinic visits was transformed into a value-based safety benefit for at-risk diabetes and cardiovascular diseases patients. And, for payers and IDNs, the brand was able to meet clinical and economic priorities to deliver value.
With a reinvigorated key account team, armed with a new value-driven messaging platform and accompanying managed market-specific sales tool that spoke directly to the target audience, brand sales grew.
For information about how Aventria Health Group can help you achieve market access success, please reach out to:
Dave Dierk, Co-President, 30-year sales and marketing thought leader in pharmaceutical diagnostics, biomedical, long-term care, managed care, employer, and pharmacy communications, at dave.dierk@aventriahealth.com.
Making a difference in patient care by helping patients, providers, and payers collaborate on shared priorities