Tag: marketing

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Microsoft Dynamics CRM 2013 “Official”

Microsoft has announced the next version of Microsoft Dynamics CRM will be available in the “fall of 2013”.

It is unfortunate that we did NOT hear an official release date, so, that gives Microsoft some wiggle room on what the definition of Fall is. I am all for quality releases and prefer a quality release over hitting a specific date, however, a date helps people with planning. As I learn more information on dates I’ll communicate that. The “unofficial” release date is October 2013. We saw a couple of dates slip late last year, so let’s hope Bob Stutz and company are better at hitting their targets this time around, and more importantly, communicating them in a timely fashion.

On to a few details.

The good news for all users is, this is a dual release for both Dynamics CRM Online as well as Dynamics CRM on-premise. The online version is officially called “Microsoft Dynamics CRM Online Fall ’13”. Sound familiar? Yes, I know, real creative there, but, what’s in it, is more important than what they call it. Bottom line with Dynamics CRM, you have the power of choice. We still see a lot of clients that prefer to manage their own servers and software, with Dynaimcs CRM, you get to decide how to use it.

The official announcement:?http://www.microsoft.com/en-us/news/Press/2013/Jul13/07-02DynamicsCRM13PR.aspx

This release includes a major User Interface overhaul. The user Experience has been “re-imagined” and will be a complete departure from previous versions. ?Below gives you some insight into what that new UI looks like:

Dynamics CRM Vision Experience UI screenshot

No official word yet on whether or not the previous user interface will be completely removed or allowed to be turned on if needed. The stated goal I’ve heard so far, is all screens and forms will be the new UI/UX with no switching back to “classic” views.

Another major area of focus is on process oriented experiences.?Process guidance, based on industry-leading best practices, will help teams more easily, e.g., ?move from lead to close?faster than ever before. Flexible and configurable, it gives your organization the ability to be agile in the face of change. Essentially CRM will guide users through their processes. It’s like having built in step by step guides to working with clients whether you are in marketing, sales, or service/delivery roles.

Dynamics CRM Vision Process Guidance

 

Also planned are new tablet and smartphone experiences?with access to the CRM functionality and analytics. Smartphone apps for iPhone, Android and Windows Phone 8 will follow shortly after. Here is a taste of the tablet experience.

?Dynamics CRM Vision Tablet Experience

Eager to weave Yammer’s successful enterprise social capabilities into more offerings, Microsoft has been making an effort to bring the technology to its business applications portfolio, including Office. Now, Dynamics CRM is getting in on the act.

Dynamics CRM 2013 will offer deeper Yammer integration, the new release will provide “capabilities for people to collaborate with each other and share customer knowledge through Yammer right within the CRM solution, enabling them to deliver amazing customer experiences,” Microsoft said in a statement. I can tell you we have started using Yammer internally for the last 6 months and see major improvements in collaboration and information sharing. If you are not familiar with Yammer, think of it as Facebook for your company, but really focused on teams working together.

Dynamics CRM Yammer Vision

In addition, Dynamics CRM 2013 will feature support and integration for MarketingPilot marketing automation. Microsoft acquired MarketingPilot, a provider of multi-channel marketing management software, late last year. I’ve had a little bit of hands and it’s has quite a few enhancements that you’ll be able to take advantage of. It has the usual suspects in Marketing Automation capabilities, including emails, landing pages, contact forms, and social media. Stay tuned for a deeper dive when we are given the ok to provide more details.

?Dynamics CRM with MarketingPilot Integration

Finally, Microsoft recently announced Lync and Skype integration which provides for sharing of contacts and the ability for the two applications to connect to each other. Included in the CRM 2013 release will be improved seamless support enabling instant access to either or both of these applications. If you are not familiar with Lync or Skype, think of these as Facetime for your company and customers. It’s pretty cool and provides productivity boosts with built-on phone calls, conference calls, video calls, and desktop sharing.

Dynamics CRM with Lync Integration?Dynamics CRM with Skype Integration

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5 Keys To Success In New Medical Device Marketing Paradigm

5 Keys To Success In The New Medical Device Marketing Paradigm

5 Keys To Success In The New Medical Device Marketing Paradigm
5 Keys To Success In The New Medical Device Marketing Paradigm

The way medical device companies market and sell to physicians is changing dramatically. That?s why operational and cultural changes are the keys to success.

There?s a looming cost challenge as the nation grows older and more people retire and require health care. Being able to improve outcomes while also reducing health costs is where opportunity is born.

Tools, technology and training are vital in this new?medical device marketing?paradigm.

?Selling to physicians and being paid on the basis of how many widgets sold is so 20th century,? an article on the MedCity News website points out. ?The new world order demands evidence of how well a device works and whether it reduces the cost of care.?

Medical device sales needs to change from selling based on features to selling on economies and outcomes ? a change that ultimately will benefit physicians, health care operators, patients and sales representatives. Acting more like business owners changes your outlook, particularly when dealing with patient health, diagnosis or treatment.

The article on the MedCity News website offers five tips for success as the medical device industry evolves in 2013.

  1. Embrace comparative effectiveness.
  2. Take an aggressive approach to international markets.
  3. Innovate for local markets.
  4. Hire medical economists.
  5. Engage with patients to build better products.

Read more here >>>

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4 Strategies For Improving Operating Performance With Medical Device Marketing

4 Strategies For Improving Operating Performance With Medical Device Marketing

improving-operating-performance | Photo Courtesy of Konstantin Sutyagin http://www.flickr.com/photos/cool-photos/1532310585/sizes/q/

Improving operating performance may mean the difference between winners and losers in today’s challenging medical device industry.

With the Affordable Care Act and medical device tax now in place, companies must change their strategies and approaches, much like pharmaceutical companies did 10 years ago. A CRM system specific to the medical device industry is critical to this process.

Companies can start by identifying performance gaps and improvement opportunities through an operations performance index (OPI) review, according to an article on the Medical Device and Diagnostic Industry website. Then, they can best apply these four strategies to medical device marketing.

Read more here >>>

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The MarketingPilot Update

The MarketingPilot Update

Microsoft announced the MarketingPilot acquisition back in October 2012. MarketingPilot (MP) offers integrated marketing management (IMM) and marketing resource management (MRM) capabilities. Included functionality includes asset tracking, social media marketing to email marketing automation. The big question of the day is, will this replace ClickDimensions or any of the related marketing applications. Answer….not sure yet.

MP claims to provide email and social marketing, however, it's not clear how deep they go here. MarketingPilot Key DifferentiatorsIt seems, initially, that MP is focused more on the planning and resource management aspects of marketing, whereas, CD and others focus more on the execution of marketing.

The first image describes their key differentiators. The second screenshot below gives a glimpse into some of the capabilities we'll see in this marketing update. Interestingly, the demo's of MP were VERY limited covering about 5 minutes of actual demo. I suspect there is still quite a lot of work going on behind the "curtain".

Stay tuned for more details in the near future here. 

MarketingPilot User Interface - UI

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Microsoft Convergence 2013 – Netbreeze Announcement

 

Microsoft Acquires Netbreeze

Of course the surpise announcement of the event, Microsoft?purchases?Netbreeze. Yes, I know, I had never heard of them either, however, their focus is social media monitoring, analytics and measuring capabilities to accelerate social for everyone and all available in Microsoft Dynamics CRM.

I am super excited about having these capabilities, particularly inside of Dynamics CRM. This will be a boon to marketing, sales and customer services teams. This adds exciting capabilities to generate new leads, improve sales and close ratios, and act on potential customer service issues.

Netbreeze Social Monitoring ScreenshotAccording to some information gleened from various sources:

Netbreeze’s Social Media Monitoring solutions allow decision makers to tackle their strategic questions by semantically analyzing and evaluating web content.

Our language processing and text-mining technologies support more than 30 languages, including Russian, Arabic, Chinese, Korean and Japanese, thus helping international companies to meet todays biggest challenges in business intelligence.

Specialties -?Social Media Monitoring, Sentiment Analysis, Social CRM, Integration to other systems, API for full data access.

 

Read a bit more detail here at Gigaom -?http://gigaom.com/2013/03/19/microsoft-buys-into-multi-lingual-social-analytics-with-netbreeze-acquisition/

Netbreeze Social Media Monitoring Screenshot.

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iPharma Connect Conference?The New Commercial Model

The 11th Annual iPharma Connect Conference was held last week in Philadelphia. This year?s theme was ?Digital Innovation for Marketing Decision Makers in the Life Sciences Industry?. I will share some notes on the conference and key trends and ideas that might provide you some value as well.

At its core, digital marketing is about making connections.  For Pharma, Bio and Device manufacturers, this is defined by connections with patients, physicians and payers. 

Hot Sessions for 2012 Include:

  • Keynote address by POZEN?s Chief Commercial Officer on the changing pharma commercial model
  • Regulatory update on the implications of FDA?s guidance for mobile medical applications
  • A physician?s perspective on preferred digital channels
  • Case study for online support systems and today?s patients
  • Industry panel on war stories and lessons learned from non-effective digital marketing campaigns
  • Best practices for implementation of multi-channel closed loop marketing capabilities

Keynote Address: The Old Model Just Won?t Cut It ? The Revolution of the Traditional Pharma Commercial Model

The Opening Keynote was kicked off with Liz Cermak, EVP and Chief Commercial Officer of Pozen, Inc., formerly WorldWide VP of Johnson & Johnson. The bottom line is the old model won?t cut it. The days of sample drops and focus on call volume are over or should be). We are now in the midst of the revolution of the traditional pharma commercial model. This echo?s what we have been hearing from the majority of our clients. Highlights include:

  • Rep access declining rapidly even when allowed office access, gets harder every day
  • 25 percent of physicians are inaccessible, and growing
  • Sales rep headcount down 26 percent from 2005 peak, today around 75,000
  • Physicians are now embracing digital
  • 9 of 10 feel one access improves quality care
  • 82% of physicians have smartphones
  • 64% own tablets
  • Physicians & Patients are seeking more information online

The patient shift has gone from getting information direct from the physician to participatory medicine and coupling your own information from online and community sources with the physician. This shift will continue as patients become more responsible for their own care. I can affirm this as I had a recent healthcare event (I?m fine now) where my physician directed us to online communities for more detailed information about the condition and even said to just ?Google it? one time.

The other major shift is on social. The healthcare industry has been reluctant to embrace it, largely due to regulatory uncertainty. The challenge is, social is happening with or without the industry, so it?s time to jump in. Sidenote: I blogged about the recent FDA Guidance on Social Media, click here. A little more on the social revolution in Healthcare:

  • It?s a Social world whether we like it or not.
  • Social accounts for 1 out of every 6 minutes sent online, and growing rapidly.
  • 61 million people use mobile phones for health info in the US.
  • More than 25 billion pieces of content (web links, news stories, blog posts, notes, photo albums, etc.) are shared each month.
  • There are currently over 133 Million blogs.
  • Over 50 Million tweets per day.
  • YouTube receives more than 2 Billion (with a B) viewers per day.
  • Digital is the audience connector.

Success in this new model requires:

  • Customer centric behavior
  • Consistent messaging and sharing
  • Audience engagement
  • Efficient organization workflow

Addressing the new commercial model, Liz described six tenets of the new commercial model

1. Fish where the fish are. 

  • The new model requires pharma to have customer centric behaviors.

2. Shift personal selling to physician centric selling

  • Expand and use digital sales toolkit.
  • Provide sources and access to digital and mobile medical information
  • Use eDetails and live chat.
  • Shift rep focus to services, right now services are only at 5 percent, must include multi-channel capabilities.

3. Make it relevant to your audience

  • 79 percent of physicians watch video clips on lectures and drug info.
  • Physicians are interested in connecting beyond the office visit, e.g. digitally, 1:1 presentations.
  • Pharma must be perceived as trusted partner along the patient health journey, nearly half of all Americans look up health info online, general health and social are high and growing, be part of those interactions.
  • Gamification is a trend and new behaviors, provides greater chance of improved patient adherence and disease management, makes it more engaging and fun.

4. Facilitate patient and physician connectivity

  • Previously was more about physician to pharma connectivity
  • Current use in digital communication is email, secure messaging, online video conferences
  • Patients are driving the physician relationship shift

5. Social is possible and without fear

  • The train has left the station.
  • Social Health issued by 30 percent of population.
  • Challenge is how to engage and be relevant.
  • Regulation has paralyzed the industry.
  • Must balance risk and benefit.
  • Resulted in >2 Million people screened for COPD, >60 Million impressions.

6. Fully integrated multi channel marketing is now

  • Communicate consistently and beyond the pill.
  • Digital marketing is growing rapidly, 2012 digital spend is forecast at 18.9% of major media spend, which is over $39 Billion.
  • Market research, planning, partnerships, advertising, direct response, CRM, social, mobile, must all be included.
  • E.g. Drive4COPD campaign, used social media channels (Facebook, Twitter, Email, Digg, etc.) and traditional marketing (magazine ads, banner ads, direct mail).

    I have to say, in my experience, Liz hit it out of the park with these tenets. The magic if the internet has empowered patients and physicians alike. The technology shift is happening rapidly. My grandmothers next phone will be a smartphone because she wants to ?surf the net?. Instant access to information is becoming the norm. Organizations and representatives both must adapt with these changing realities. The new commercial model must do all of the six tenets?and then some.