Relating Influencers to Prescriber Preference
Obviously, one can't ignore the fact that not every doctor has the same preferences. For a picture of how doctors really interact
with influencers, we've segmented the influencer data based on the prescriber preferences we used earlier into:
» Doctors that prefer local sources—ranking local meetings and peer-to-peer as one or two
» Doctors that prefer non-local sources—ranking International meetings and KOLs one or two
» Average doctors—not filtered by rankings
Figure 6: Nominees Per Doctor
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Shown for each of these groups (see Figure 6) are the average number of influencers each doctor named and their average rating
for how much influence the opinion leader had on their practice.
Not surprisingly, doctors that preferred local sources of information recognized no international influencers. What is surprising
is that doctors that preferred international congresses or KOLs as information sources had significantly more influencers
not only at the national level but also at all levels —even locally and in-practice.
So, while doctors preferring local sources will have to be targeted with local and regional meetings, local influencers have
an impact on all oncologists no matter what their information preferences are.
Figure 7: Amount of Influence on the Doctor
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Our last chart (see Figure 7) looks at how influential (on a scale of one to 10) the oncologists rate each type of influencer
to be.
While local-preference prescribers have fewer influencers at each level, they generally find the local influencers to have
a much higher impact on their practices.
The non-local preference prescribers still show a lot of influence from opinion leaders at all levels except for practice
partners—preferring outside sources of information over in-house sources.
Conclusion
As the marketing world changes and doctors increasingly use non-traditional sources of information in their practices, marketers
must be able to access doctors who can help them interpret the information and put it into the context of patient treatment.
While printed journals remain the most important source of information for the oncologists we studied, they also recognize
that local peers—in their roles as speakers, for consultation, and as practice partners—play a critical role.
Jerry Maynor is Director of Business Development at Cegedim Strategic Data. He can be reached at jerry.maynor@cegedim.com
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