The Internet: A Necessary Training & Marketing Tool

Using the Internet will be an important key to success of this market in the future.

ByDr. Gina Nick

In my last column (March 2005) I laid out the necessary strategy for developing and maintaining an enthusiastic and effective sales force. Foremost among the recommendations is the need to meet the demand for up-to-the-minute gathering and sharing of information. The natural healthcare industry is uniquely beset by requirements for both breadth and depth of information, covering the entire range of data on any one of the many conditions it hopes to alleviate. It must at once cover progress in multiple products and interventions, while at the same time extend over durations of time that adequately reflect the chronicity and slow progression of these challenging health problems.

The electronic age is both blessing and curse—a helpful tool, a fearful enemy and a necessary part of the 21st century. Ignored, complementary and alternative medicine (CAM) will lose the progress it has recently made and fade into the past. Misused, CAM will waste so much time getting “wired” that its primary purpose will sink into neglect. But addressed now and actively pursued, the instant, worldwide communication it offers can greatly expand the capabilities to generate, process and disseminate research data, as well as extend the results to the marketplace in a timely and efficient manner.

Of its research potential, little need be said beyond what is intuitively obvious. Given a carefully designed protocol, subjects from all over the globe can be gathered into a single, or multi-armed, study; data can be gathered and collated in real time; preliminary results, calculated in brief time spans, that suggest protocol modifications can immediately be spread to the entire research team; and subjects can be followed across any geopolitical boundaries—an important consideration in view of the mobility of modern populations and the fact that many of these studies will extend for years. In addition, researchers do not need geographic proximity to participate and can therefore include front line practitioners desirous of becoming part of a research team no matter where they reside.

Even before data begin to accumulate, marketing can take advantage of the new direction proposed by the CAM industry, both to trumpet its fresh dedication to scientific methodology and to advise the market of anticipated research directions. Further, a large portion of the market can be invited to participate. As mentioned earlier, this opportunity has many advantages to both practitioners and the industry:
• It elevates practitioners’ status with their patients;
• It keeps them current on products, indications and treatment regimens;
• It brings practitioners into partnership with the larger industry, promoting enthusiasm and loyalty; and
• It serves as a vehicle for disseminating new products as they become the objects of research. (As mentioned in earlier articles in this series, a new line of products is needed, one designed particularly for practitioners and emphasizing purity and fixed chemical contents, mostly of individual identified molecules.)

An even more current concern for CAM is the rapidly growing market for electronic product detailing. Known as “e-detailing”, this form of marketing already has an assured place in the pharmaceutical industry. Although not poised to replace in-person sales calls, e-detailing is receiving favorable ratings by the industry. According to Steven McGuire, a pharmaceutical marketing expert, Internet marketing has greatly improved brand awareness and prescription writing, and it has generated repeat encounters. Monique Levy of Jupiter Research estimates that over two-thirds of pharmaceutical marketing executives are investing in this medium. And, says Mark Bard, president of Manhattan Re­search, the number of physicians participating in e-detailing has jumped 500% in the last three years to over 200,000.

The recommended strategy, which will be even more compelling in the natural products industry, is to involve the practitioner in an enjoyable combination of learning, participation and marketing in a brief period of time (roughly 5-10 minutes as if between patients) per encounter. In the mainline pharmaceutical market, product awareness is the primary problem, according to Haya Taitel at Ortho-McNeil. It must therefore be an even greater problem with natural remedies, given that treatment regimens are more complex, and products and their indications less specifically identified.

Coining the term “respect” or “permission-based” marketing, leaders in this field recommend that these sessions ask clients to participate by offering their knowledge and views on a specified subject, inject quality informational material into the presentation, while at the same time promoting a related product or products. It also improves the quality of the encounter, and therefore positive client response, to make the encounter entertaining with humor and high-end graphics. There are marketing companies who have already produced hundreds of these short sessions for major pharmaceutical companies and are planning many more.

Enlisting one or more such companies—who already have an established success rate with big pharma—as participants in designing and executing programs for CAM products would jumpstart the entry of CAM into this rapidly growing area of marketing. First, as a pilot project, select the most promising field of current endeavor in natural remedies, ideally one with established present and planned future quality research, to design a protocol marketing approach. One could profitably choose, for instance, oral and topical hyaluronan for the treatment of arthritis, diminished vision and cosmetic use on aging skin. The same substance has recently been approved for intra-articular injection by the FDA, and there are numerous studies available, both animal and human, reporting favorably on its topical and oral use. The literature on horses is particularly extensive. Human studies are, for the most part, small and less than rigorous, leaving much room for high-quality (randomized, placebo-controlled, statistically significant) clinical studies in the future.

Such a project could begin with a presentation of the current literature, a request for opinions on the quality of the presented research, a screen for the audience to input any experience they have had with the products, an offer to participate in an upcoming series of clinical studies, and a “coupon” for free samples of product. There is actually enough literature to fill a substantial series of brief “e-details” on various uses of hyaluronan. While disseminating the first cycle of these details, research protocols could be in development. Subsequent series would describe the research protocol, again solicit participation from the practitioners, then begin reporting the progress of the research.

Subsequent projects should begin with more of the most promising products and those conditions that can demonstrate convincing improvement in the shortest periods of time. However, because CAM deals in large part with chronic, slowly progressing conditions, these should not be neglected, but rather included early in long-range planning. Studies of osteoarthritis and aging skin, for instance, can produce both short- and long-term results, so protocols using hyaluronan for these conditions should be designed with both in view. Other issues, such as cancer prevention, require extended time periods to be relevant. If, however, short-term benefits can be identified from the same regimens, protocols statistically powered for both short- and long-term primary endpoints would greatly increase their overall yield.

This series of articles has discussed a wide range of topics related to the current position of CAM healthcare in the public eye and the scientific community. It has urged, above all, a change in direction to rigorous scientific methodology, following in the highly successful footsteps of the pharmaceutical industry both to strive for the quality of their research and also to emulate their marketing successes. Medical progress has reached a crossroads where a different type of condition has now taken center stage—the chronic, slowly progressive illnesses that test the limits of current research methodology. Many of the next generation of treatment regimens will come from natural products. Current public opinion is realizing this fact.

A unique opportunity now exists to move CAM into the vanguard of health research, not only by being scientifically rigorous, but in the process by amalgamating our practitioners into a partnership for both research and marketing. Electronic media are key to the success of this venture.NW