Moving the needle: Identifying inflection points

A deeper dive into behavioral mapping with Kunsan Kim, SVP Brand Strategy, Planning.

This blog is part of a series on our new data-driven platform, INFLECTIONeffect.

Think about the last purchase you made. Why did you choose that brand or product? Are you confident in your decision? Did you see an ad or learn about it from a friend?

These actions, along with many others, are small but mighty inflection points along the buyer journey. Every buyer has several inflection points – milestones or micro moments, that change mindset or behavior – that can shorten the time from awareness to adoption.

In healthcare, these inflection points are arguably more critical, given the potential to advance patient care and outcomes. And identifying those points is the goal of behavioral mapping: our strategic framework designed to pinpoint and take action on the factors that drive HCP and patients’ decisions to adopt new therapies. Kunsan Kim, SVP of Brand Strategy and Planning, explains this process and why marketers need to map behaviors and identify inflection points as part of their commercial plan to make brand campaigns seamless, personalized, and effective.

1. Let’s start by talking about behavioral changes in pharma and healthcare. It would seem clear – a new healthcare innovation or treatment comes out, why wouldn’t we (HCPs, Patients) all flock to adopt it? Why are shifting behaviors such a critical aspect of a marketing plan?
   
   There’s a lot of reasons why people, whether patients, doctors, or other stakeholders, may be resistant to change. Research has found that it takes, on average, 17 years from the time of a medical discovery to see implementation into clinical practice. That’s way too long for some of these great medicines and therapies to gain ground, so shifting behaviors is critical to ensuring HCPs are informed of the treatment options available and that patients receive the best care possible.
   
   Much attention is paid to the idea that marketing is about changing how people think. But sometimes, more is required than just a shift in perception. Instead, we may need to be answering specific questions like “How can we incent change to this particular behavior?” In order to do that, you first need to understand what behaviors need to shift.
   
   But not all behaviors impact the business the same way. So, it’s important to understand which behaviors have the greatest potential to motivate change and a market trajectory. These are the inflection points.
   
   
2. What’s the current standard when it comes to planning your commercial approach?

    

   Each year, clients engage in a long, arduous brand planning project. This typically takes months.

   In most cases, the real problem plaguing brand planning is the disconnect between all the amazing thinking that’s done during planning and the day-to-day execution. Often, brand planning gives us well-thought out, but very high-level strategic imperative statements, such as “Protect market share from new entrants.” Having strategic imperatives is important, but too often we have seen brands unable to effectively pull high level strategy through to implementation in a direct and measurable way where you can track progress at every point.

3. How do Navigator365 and behavioral mapping solve these pain points?
   
   Behavioral mapping is a key part of our INFLECTIONeffect  approach. We utilize our proprietary data to help brands understand and isolate the behaviors that stand in the way of commercial success. With behavioral mapping, we develop a detailed model that maps goals to behaviors that can optimize growth. It’s not about providing wild, surprising events that brands are overlooking, but to provide context around everyday moments that make or break campaigns.
   
   By identifying the inflection points where change can take hold – such as the moment of diagnosis or relapse – we’re equipped with isolated behavioral goals that guide us in making the best decision at each phase of the commercial journey. This in itself provides greater day-to-day alignment into where we need to focus our efforts to meet set objectives.

   With each behavior coupled with a success metric, we can ensure, on an everyday basis, that we’re moving in the right direction.

   Fundamentally, INFLECTIONeffect and the exercise of behavioral mapping is designed to help brand teams become not just great marketers, but real problem-solvers that change behavior, and therefore the standard of care, one increment and one step at a time.
   
   

4. When it comes to mapping behaviors and beliefs that need to be changed, what are some of the inflection points companies should be looking to create when thinking about bringing a new product to market?
   
   Every brand faces different barriers but one common mistake we see when identifying inflection points is focusing their sights on the sale and ignoring all the key moments that happen before and after. There’s often a disconnect between what brands, HCPs, and patients are saying and what is actually happening. Identifying the inflection points helps us bridge the gap.
   
   For example, we had a client who was convinced if they could just get more people to use their product, they’d be successful. The real problem we found wasn’t acquisition, it was that patients weren’t continuing use their product after one month. When we populated all of our tactics and metrics in context of that milestone, retention, we saw they didn’t have a strategy in place to help people stay on the product. Their inflection point wasn’t getting more customers, but keeping customers. This realization helped us revamp our messaging and create materials that would be most impactful to their brand goals, answering questions like “How do you deal with the first sign of a side effect?”
   
   In turn, highlighting the inflection point saved the campaign – and patients – from falling through the cracks and helped us quickly pivot to invest in tactics that would have the greatest ROI.

Learn more about INFLECTIONeffect and behavioral mapping by watching This Medical Moment here.