Opinion Leader Management
Situation | Offering Benefits
- Management of long and productive relationships with key opinion leaders is recognised as critical to all stages of the product lifecycle. Surprisingly however, this is an area where many pharmaceutical companies have left plenty of room for improvement.
- Managing opinion leaders involves a fine balance between identifying and supporting the drivers and needs of the opinion leader, whilst also supporting the priorities of the brand.
Executive Insight’s closed-loop approach to managing opinion leaders focuses on the following areas:
- Creating a common definition, across all functions, of what constitutes an opinion leader
- Improving the process of identifying regional, national and international opinion leaders
- Sharing the thought leader relationship between marketing, medical and sales
- Developing the credibility and brand loyalty of opinion leaders
- Aligning opinion leader action planning with strategic priorities of the brand
- Optimising the influence cascade through both formal and informal networks
- Continuously improving the opinion leader management process
- Strengthening relationships with thought leaders will be the primary benefit that will result in many more benefits.
- Optimising all aspects of the influence cascade means that these improvements can:
- increase brand representation
- increase sales