40% sales growth in six months for a natural women’s health product with plateauing sales
Problem context
Our client, a pharmaceutical company with a women’s health business in Italy, had recently added a natural treatment for menopausal symptoms to their portfolio. After an initially successful launch, sales soon started to reach a plateau.
The client could not understand why their product had stalled. They intuitively felt there was potential for growth but were unsure where to turn. Insight Dojo were brought on-board by the CEO to diagnose the issue and make recommendation to reverse the plateau.
Our approach
Upfront problem solving with client team: Before conducting any research, we spent time with the senior client team to get their hypotheses for the plateau and on potential sources of growth. Would growth come by increasing 'push' from physicians, or would we see better results by encouraging more patients to request the product ? Would it be worthwhile focussing on the current target list of doctors, or should we look to penetrate new channels?
A logic tree allowed us to ask these questions in a systematic way, tap into the team's intuition, and ultimately focus our efforts on improving communications to the gynaecologists
Designing for insight: We needed to develop an in-depth understanding of the gynaecologists’ prescription barriers and motivations, and the interventions required to create the change. To do this, we suggested an ethnographic approach, visiting the offices of gynaecologists around Italy and spending time with them in their own environment. The suggested approach initially received pushback – this method had not been used before and there were many logistical issues to consider.
Conducting research in the doctors’ offices gave us important insights into their attitudes and motivations.
Insights
Having visited 18 gynaecologist offices across the country, we started to observe a particular group of gynaecologists that the client had not previously been aware of, specifically those who had a strong belief in natural products. This group attended courses on natural products, read papers on different ingredients, and had samples of similar products in their offices. It soon became clear that this was an interesting group and one that the client should prioritise.
The identification of this group and an understanding of their motivations challenged many of the client’s pre-existing beliefs about their target doctors:
After sharing the insights, we ran a follow-up co-creation session with members of the client team and 8 gynaecologists. Here we jointly develop a mechanism of action story which could be used to communicate the product to the newly identified segment.
Impact
The insights were pivotal in shaping the targeting and communications for the product, with sales increasing by 40% in the next 6 months following the implementation of our recommendations.
The product soon became the second largest brand with the fastest sales growth and has subsequently become the number one brand.
This work demonstrated the power of being immersed in the doctors’ world and 'seeing' their behaviours in situ.
Our findings highlighted the value of taking an authentic approach in communications - by focussing on its natural character, rather than trying to frame itself as a drug, our client's product was able to find its niche and ultimately buck the trend in plateauing sales.
What we learned
This has been one of the best examples of concrete business impact from customer insights. Our growth in sales can be largely attributed to implementing the Insight Dojo recommendations