General Session
Friday, June 10
9:00 - 10:00 a.m.
Shifting to a Customer Focused Strategy
Anne Boyle, Massachusetts Medical Society
PRC: 1 Contact Hour in Research
How does a very traditional organization transform into one with to a customer-centric perspective? Learn how one company worked through this process in several phases, starting with methodological challenges and internal fragmented customer knowledge, resulting in an ongoing tool to frame research and audience knowledge.
This presentation is based on the experiences of The New England Journal of Medicine as it re-invented itself in the face of a rapidly changing industry. Revenue channels needed to be re-invented due to emerging readership expectations for online content and increased competition brought about by changes in technology. Understanding the motivations and long-term objectives of readership was critical and in the end enabled the publication to focus strategy and product development relative to core groups, illuminating underlying ideas for continued success.
This presentation also illustrates the unique challenges of conducting market research with physicians, who can be difficult to recruit for qualitative research and may require expensive incentives. Additional challenges included the wide range of differences in physician training outside the United States, significant differences in physician needs for how and when they seek medical information, and the large gap that exists between physicians who are highly engaged with e-technology and those who prefer printed materials.