InSites Blog

On 23 June, InSites Consulting organized a Smartees workshop on research communities.

Tom De Ruyck, Senior R&D Manager introduced the wonderful world of research communities. The results of the Meet the Joneses are clear: 2 out of 3 marketers claim to know what their customers want, but only 33% actually knows their customers when confronted with the test. Research communities are a good way to sense the life of your customers and get really connected with them.

After the introduction on the InSites philosophy, we let our customer talk. Because who can tell you better how it feels to be connected than our clients, who are actually running a research community with InSites Consulting. Therefore, Martijn van Kesteren (Ben & Jerry’s – Unilever) and Barbera van der Wal (ING) shared their experiences on how they’ve gained insights into their target group by means of a research community.

Engagement is important. Not only engagement from the community participant, but also from the internal project team. Running a research community is an ongoing project, the community is 24/7 accessible and you must have an open mind. Once the moderator signals posts that need a reply from your side, you must be willing to do so in an open and honest way. The key is to give something back to the participants. They provide you with a lot of (personal) information and are willing to cooperate, but you have to give them something in return. Let them know what you’ve learned, which new ideas the community brought you and which actions you will take.

A research community is a very effective way for gaining insights because it gives you answers to questions you didn’t ask!

As an InSites employee & new joiner of the InSites Health team, I was very curious to see our Health knowledge & experience summarized in the InSites Health Smartees.

‘Never skip breakfast’ is one of the basic health commandments, so we started the workshop with a sumptuous breakfast! The other guests and I were fully ready for the start of a highly efficient workshop!

• The patient can no longer be ignored – 43% of patients look for online health info every month

There’s a lot of movement in the world of Health. Some evolutions are less impactful from a market research perspective, but others are ‘incontournables’. One of them is the way in which patients are stepping forward and are engaging a lot more in conversations about their health (offline & online), which is a true revolution in the Health sector and is deeply changing the relations between the HCP, the patient & the pharmaceutical company.
The first way to anticipate this new situation is to monitor and to know ‘your tools’ as a Health Conversation Manager. My colleague Magali Geens, InSites Consulting Health Director, gave us a view on the 2010 Health Study: Social Media Use in Health. The audience, renowned people in (European) health care marketing, was especially excited about the results because this year the data were extended from Europe to the rest of the world.

• Do not fear – but learn from patient conversations & act!

Health marketers learned how they should engage in the conversation with the empowered patient: track search behavior on Google, find out whether competitors already use ‘sponsored links’ (e.g. no pharma company has yet bought a ‘link’ for the Dutch term ‘hoofdpijn’ (‘headache’ in English)), read conversations about treatments, side effects etc. between patients on communities, social networks…
I think the most important thing I learned was that pharma companies do not need to be afraid of online patient conversations – on the contrary, it is an opportunity for them to learn from these conversations and think of ways to optimize the HCP-patient-pharmacy relation within the given context.
Some more arguments: conversations are more often positive than negative; patients are very open to be activated online by the HCP & the broader industry (e.g. 48% is interested in a doctor who can be consulted online!)

• The answer is out there… Tapping into the conversations of connected patients and caregivers

After a refreshing break, Prof. Dr. Niels Schillewaert taught us how to answer health-related questions without asking questions to patients… You could literally ‘sense’ the enthusiasm of the audience upon encountering the added value of social media nethnography on the basis of two cases in Health Research. The presentation clearly inspired people as there were a lot of questions about how to do it in practice and for which business goals it is relevant (e.g. brand analysis, online marketing, evaluating ad impacts…)
One slide of the presentation highly enlightened me: the summary of the advantages of social media nethnography. In short: there is a reduced interview bias (no single question is asked to patients), really new insights (new questions pop up based on answers found), the answers are surrounded by a ‘rich’ context (patient language, spontaneous answers in the ‘heat of the moment’), emotions are measured and you can go back in time…

• How to forecast prescription behavior of HCPs

Within the continuously innovating market research industry, we may not forget that as a research agency, we still massively conduct ‘traditional’ online quantitative research.
Sarah Mertens from AstraZeneca presented us the research design and learnings of a pan-European Physician study. The goal was to quantify current prescription behavior and future switch intention among specialists of a product x and to understand drivers & barriers to switch from current treatments to product a.
I learned here that close cooperation between the client & the research agency was very important for the success of the study. In order to have a 100% solid & valid design, some smart elements were built-in (e.g. reliability of measurement was double checked: self-reported prescription behavior was almost an exact match of the up-to-date available prescription data).

At the reception afterwards, all attendees were fully engaged in conversations about patient conversations and I … I was really proud to be part of the Health Team of InSites Consulting!

Interested in the presentations?

Smartees offer a blend of insights and practical solutions to the challenges you face every day as marketers and researchers. On Wednesday 23 June we’ll be focusing on communities and how to use them in new product development, marketing research and the interface with the consumer.

• Tom De Ruyck will explain the philosophy behind connecting with communities, and show how InSites Consulting put it into practice with De Standaard, Danone and Chiquita.
• Tom Goderis and Dado Van Peteghem will show how to harness the power of the contemporary consumer through co-creation communities.
• Martijn van Kesteren (Unilever) and Barbera Van der Wal (ING) will talk on their experiences with communities.

Check out the full program online!

As well as the experience offered by our speakers, Smartees offer the chance to network with colleagues and peers in a relaxed atmosphere and they’re free. Sign up right away to make sure your reserve your seat on 23 June in Rotterdam (NL).

The healthcare market is using an amazing range of social media to develop new products, gather data, and speak to patients and healthcare professionals.

If you sign up for our free Healthcare Smartees in Ghent (BE) on 17 June, you’ll hear providers like AstraZeneca Europe explain how they use these techniques in real life, what they’ve learned from hard experience, and discover the practical advantages of techniques you’ll be able to bring to your work.

Smartees are free workshops for marketers and marketing researchers, led by internationally recognized researchers. They’re smart food for clever researchers, offering the chance to discuss industry developments with colleagues in a relaxed atmosphere.

On Thursday 17 June our Director of Health Research, Magali Geens, will also be presenting our 2010 Health Study called Social Media Use in Health. The study updates previous research and this year has also expanded in scope to include worldwide data. It shows how healthcare providers are using everything from Facebook to Twitter to understand their customers and start a conversation.

Sign up and reserve your place for the Health Smartees here.

Join our Connected Smartees on Thursday 8 April 2010 in Rotterdam (NL) and meet the ‘contemporary’ consumer.

Tom De Ruyck (Senior R&D Manager) and Annelies Verhaeghe (Senior R&D Manager and ESOMAR Young Researcher 2009) will guide you on your way to grasp this new consumer. By using advanced research methods and a careful selection of research design, you’ll be able to reach your consumers.

Check out the full program online and sign up for free!

InSites Smartees are a chance to hear how marketers like you are innovating to solve research problems and gather more useful data. They’re informal, practical, and offer the chance to network with your colleagues.

Smartees are our free workshops for marketers and researchers. Led by experts, they’re a chance to get up to speed on the latest techniques in marketing research and practical techniques for better marketing.

Want to save our Smartees in your Outlook Agenda? Click on the below dates.

• Thursday 8 April 2010: Connected Smartees (NL – Rotterdam)
• Thursday 27 May 2010: Smartees (NL – Rotterdam)
• Thursday 17 June 2010: Smartees (BE – Ghent)
• Thursday 30 September 2010: Smartees (NL – Rotterdam)
• Thursday 18 November 2010: Smartees (BE – Ghent)

We invited members of our online research community, who use Twitter, to take part in this Twitter study and promote it to their followers and friends, on Twitter as well as on other social media. In total 620 tweeters from all over the world took part in the study. And it were the ‘real’ users of the platform as they do 17 tweets a day and are on Twitter for 14 months (on average).

The fully ‘fused’ research study, of which results could be followed in real-time on www.ultimatetwitterstudy.com, consisted out of three main parts that cover the full range of opportunities to conduct market research on Twitter:

1/ Discussions with users of the social media platform via their answers on the tweet/question of the day (during 2 weeks) and 10 in-depth ‘twinterviews’ (consisting of 15 tweets/questions) via the direct messaging system of the platform.

2/ A quantitative profiling survey among the followers of the account we made for the study and their friends.

3/ An observation of what our followers share on Twitter in order to enrich our findings. The Twitter API was used to download the tweets from the site; text mining software for conducting the analysis. In total, more than 52.000 tweets were gathered! As a last step, we discussed the results of the study with some experts via an online discussion group.

Some of the key findings of the study:

• The typical Twitter user seems to be a male in his late twenties/early thirties, who is quit tech savvy and active in IT, media/advertising or the consulting business
• The user generated definition of Twitter sounds as follows: “A social network of friends and/or business contacts where you can share and discover interesting, exciting, inspiring or funny news/links in a very fast way”
• It’s perceived that the people on Twitter are also influential in the offline world in one way or another (industry experts, journalist, bloggers, celebs, …)
• Most people started using Twitter out of curiosity and to stay connected with the people and trends within their industry
• People start following people who are able to make them: curious, smile and/or wonder
• Brands on Twitter should act like humans: listen carefully and talk back in a very personal way! This instead of spamming their followers with advertisement…
• Twitter is the new sharing platform: 20% of the tweets contain a link to a blog, site or movie
• Google, Apple and Amazon are the most discussed brands on Twitter. Followed by a mix of tech companies and strong international brands like Starbucks, Disney and HP
• People really address questions to brands, hoping that they are listening and will answer!

Tom De Ruyck: ‘Twitter is a conversation hive, and it could be very insightful for brands to tap into it and learn from what consumers are saying about them. Secondly, people tweet in the heat of the moment: when they experience something positive or negative with your product. This is never seen before! It’s a threat (negatives comments about your brand are in the open), but also an opportunity for your client services team to take immediate action and make customers happy again. And probably they will spread the word about that too!’

Profile your own Twitter network, take a look at the presentation and the ‘Ultimate Tweet Hall of Fame’ @ www.ultimatetwitterstudy.com!

The presentation with the full results from the study was given at ‘MRS’ Online Research Conference’ in London and ‘Digital Marketing First’ in Brussels. Next opportunity to catch-up with Tom and the results of the study is at the next ‘InSites Smartees’ on the 19th of November in Ghent (subscribe via www.insites.eu/smartees). The presentation will include concrete tips to use Twitter both as a marketing and a research tool within your company!

For more information contact Tom De Ruyck via tom@insites.eu.

Are you looking to understand the latest techniques in marketing research that will put you ahead of the game? Sign up for our FREE Consumer Insights Smartees on Thursday 22 October (2pm – 6pm) and hear how marketers are using new research techniques to gain new consumer insight.

Nanno Palte, Director Marketing Insights will co-present the Danone WaterWorld Community case with Michel Rogeaux, Senior Expert Consumer Science Danone. The case shows that fusion research is a successful and innovative recipe for gathering in-depth insights.

Want to find out more, check www.insites.eu/smartees

Want to know what your customers need before they know themselves? Are you looking to understand the latest techniques in marketing research that will put you ahead of the game?

Sign up for our ‘Taking Consumers Insights forward‘ – Smartees on Thursday 22 October (2pm – 6pm) and hear how marketers are using new research techniques to gain new consumer insights.

Find out more about the full program!

Last Thursday, InSites Consulting organized its first Health Smartees. More than 20 professionals from the healthcare industry listened to presentations of Magali Geens, our Director Healthcare Research, Rudi Van Campenhout from UCB and Annelies Verhaeghe, who presented a client case.

Magali kicked off and presented the results of our 2009 Pan-European patient study. This study revealed 4 actionable patient segments, which allow us to really understand the needs of different patient profiles. It showed us the increasing involvement of certain patients in their relationship with healthcare professionals. Today, it becomes very clear that pharmaceutical companies have to change their current sales and communication approach and start taking into account this new patient. Neglecting this influence might lead to a big loss in business potential.

Therefore, understanding patients and speaking the language of the patient is a key priority for healthcare marketers these days. In order to answer this need, InSites Consulting developed a ‘Daily 2.0’ website for Merck Serono. During the Smartees, Magali gave a demonstration of this tool: it allows Merck Serono to have live and continuous updates of patient news that appear on the internet. Through a smart system that relies on RSS feeds, marketers receive frequent updates of patient information to “keep the finger on the pulse”.

However, it shouldn’t stop here. More than just observing, InSites Consulting helps companies to analyze these patient conversations on the internet. For UCB, Annelies Verhaeghe conducted an online patient nethnographic study in the field of epilepsy. The analysis of more than 30.000 patient conversations leads to new insights and understandings towards their patients. Rudi Van Campenhout and his team are now translating these findings into concrete actions.

During the coffee break and lunch, the discussion about the “empowered patient” and the different patient segments continued, and clients started wondering how they could start implementing this in their own business. This really motivates us to keep on ‘Taking health research forward’!

For more information, you can contact Saartje Van den Branden (Saartje.vandenbranden@insites.eu) or visit our Smartees website.