Response Rate Averages 55% to 75%
The first time Teva Marion Partners, used long distance phone cards as a survey hook last year, they generated a 75% response rate among its target audience of physicians, nurses and other healthcare professionals.
The Sprint [FON] Prepaid Foncards - which continue to achieve response rates between 55% to 75% - were given to more than 600 healthcare professionals in exchange for answering a telephone survey at a trade show. The research was part of Teva's pre-launch campaign for Copaxlon, a new drug therapy for relapsing-remitting Multiple Sclerosis.
Thirty minutes of free long distance prove to be an attractive offer for Teva's target, particularly physicians at trade shows who use the cards to help curb high long distance telephone rates at hotels.
Like most startups, Kansas City-based Teva had to be ultra conservative with its market-research dollars. Teva found that using Sprint's Foncards was significantly more efficient at $3 or $4 per person with immediate turn-around of about three weeks.
Focus groups against the same target would cost $200 to $250 per person (estimate includes an outside market research firm and paper-based fulfillment) and direct mail surveys have a much longer turn-around time with much lower response rate, says Gwen Duzenberry, Teva's market research manager.
Expanding Research Audience
With the Foncards, Teva framed demographic-specific questions and collected patient and professional information about the industry prior to launching Copaxlon in April 1997.
"I have been able to manage a fully integrated research effort for less than $10 per response," says Duzenberry, who uses the phone cards for testing promotional concepts, aligning sales resources and structuring trade show campaigns. Last year, the cards were distributed to 10,000 people at trade shows and to focus groups.
Pre-launch market research objectives included:
- Identifying customer needs for MS drug therapy, specifically focusing on "quality of life" issues;
- Gaining industry insight on how Teva's closest competitors-Biogen's Avonex and Berlex's Betaseron-were perceived; and
- Developing competitive positioning opportunities.
Sprint's Healthcare Angle
Phone cards are becoming hot research tools for healthcare companies because of the quick turn-around.
More than 20 healthcare organizations are using Sprint Foncards for market research efforts ranging from pre-launch marketing programs to gauging satisfaction among customers and physicians, says Dan Terrill, group manager for Sprint Foncards.
And the long distance phone card usage rate for healthcare promotions at more than 50% is among the highest of all the industries that Sprint targets.
The cards also disproved the perception that only women - traditionally high users of long distance services - would be attracted to phone card promotions.
The Teva campaign reached several hundred male doctors, who tend to use the cards for personal calling needs and as gifts to family members and staff, says Terrill.
Although the cards provide low-cost, high response market research opportunities, the question structure is limiting, says Duzenberry.
Open-ended answers are not cost effective, which means that each question and potential answers must be clearly worded and well thought-out for the best result. Initially, Teva participants answered as many as 21 questions. Now they answer six or seven. (Sprint, Dan Terrill, 913/624-5300; Teva Marion Partners, Gwen Duzenberry, 816/966-5000)
Using Long Distance as a Market Research Perk
Using Sprint [FON] Foncards in healthcare promotions can generate high response efficiently, especially among doctors, who use them at trade shows to avoid exorbitant hotel long-distance rates and as gifts, says Gwen Duzenberry, manager of market research for Teva Marion Partners, a Kansas City-based pharmaceutical firm. The cost, which is based on volume of cards and the number of minutes they are used, is much less expensive than paper-based direct mail programs.
But the key to generating high response is in framing the right questions. Duzenberry offers these tips:
- Keep the number of questions to a minimum, no more than 10 at a time.
- Identify what segment should receive the longer time increments, typically your harder-to-reach targets. The phone card time increments range from 30 to 120 minutes.
- Keep questions fresh, regularly updating the inquiries to reflect trends in the marketplace.
- Encourage confidentiality by requesting that name and address information is optional.
Source: Teva Marion Partners/Sprint