5 Steps When Revisiting Your Payer Marketing Strategy

Are Payers Just Not That Into Your Brand?

You’re trying to optimize market access for your brand, yet you have a growing sense that your value proposition isn’t resonating with payers. Perhaps they’ve rejected your value-added programs, ignored your account managers, dismissed your budget impact models, or passed on contracts designed to place your product on a preferred tier, or to avoid a step therapy requirement or other restriction. These may be signs that payers are just not that into your brand.

Costly Payer Marketing Mistakes

Some brand managers respond to a perceived lack of payer interest by making greater investments in payer marketing—without first determining whether their programs can move the needle. Others filter market access insights by searching for, favoring, and recalling positive payer feedback, while giving less consideration to or even throwing out negative payer reactions. These can be costly mistakes.

Ways You Can Make A Difference

If you suspect that payers are disinterested, take these steps:

1. Confirm that payers are truly not interested. Payers might lack interest temporarily when another market event (e.g., entry of a generic or branded product, new indications, clinical data or safety warnings, changes in pricing or contract terms) has their attention. Or, the lack of interest may be enduring.

   Track payer brand perceptions of, and formulary management/medical policy decisions for the competitive set, and benchmark these perceptions and behaviors to other therapeutic areas. This competitive intelligence will help you understand the market context and inform your payer marketing strategy in light of changing market conditions.

2. Understand the basis for lack of interest. Payers’ level of interest in your brand often reflects the relative importance they assign to the therapeutic area. Shifting interest for a therapeutic area could take more time and money than shifting interest in your brand. And if you are successful, your efforts will, of course, benefit your brand as well as your competitors by growing the market—the rising tide lifts all boats.

   The reason for disinterest is an important insight when revisiting your payer marketing strategy and underlying assumptions. You may learn early on that payers’ disinterest is set in stone, and that shifting marketing resources from payers to other stakeholders may be more cost effective.

3. Assess options to enhance your value proposition. Depending on the basis of payers’ lack of interest, you might be able to attract their attention. For example, they might notice your brand if you lower the acquisition cost by offering richer rebates, or provide new real-world evidence that demonstrates a clinically significant difference (not just a statistical difference). Offering price protection or risk-based contracts tied to measurable, valued endpoints, such as reducing hospitalizations and readmissions (and not intermediate outcomes), may also do the trick.

   However, less costly and less risky value-added programs, such as patient or provider education programs and budget impact models, typically don’t resonate with payers. Concept tests should inform go/no-go decisions, and find ways to strengthen offerings.

4. Stop sharing known information. If payers already know your product’s dosing and route of administration, for example, then it will likely be ineffective to make the worn case that greater convenience will lead to improved compliance and, subsequently, to savings.

   Do not misinterpret payers’ rejection of messages as a lack of understanding. They get it, and repeating a message will not make it more salient. Instead, focus their limited attention on messages that have been tested and proven to be most impactful.

5. Target interested payer segments. Some payers may be—or become—more interested in your brand and its therapeutic area. Segmenting and profiling payers will enable you to customize communications. As many observers note, “If you’ve seen one payer, you’ve seen one payer,” and a one-size-fits all payer marketing approach is not an optimal strategy.

   While market success is possible without payers’ embrace, it’s more challenging if they prefer one or two competing brands—especially if those preferences translate into patient cost-sharing differentials or restrictions that negatively impact your market share. Know that your actions, such as DTC advertising and offering copay cards—as well as your inactions, such as a lack of transparency—can tip payers from not being into your brand to not preferring your brand. It’s a subtle, but important, distinction.