The ROI Multiplier Hiding in Your Marketing Budget

The ROI Question

A great deal of time and money goes into defining what ROI is, how it is measured and whether it has been realized. Rightfully so, as marketers, their analytics and finance teams must be able to answer the question when asked by the C-suite.

If I told you a $250k investment could deliver a minimum return of $1 million on DTC spend, would that be worth a conversation? Likely, that $1 million is a low-end benefit.

Is it AI? No.
A new piece of tech? No.

It is a person. An actual human. A Media subject-matter expert… an internal Media Lead, Director level, to be precise. Every pharmaceutical marketer should have at least one.

Common Gaps Without an Internal Media Lead

In my experience as a media lead in this category and now as principle of a media consultancy, there are commonalities amongst those pharma companies that do not have an internal media lead.

There is a capability gap in pharma. Real, operational, and strategic media capability at pharma companies is not altogether common. Of course, many excellent media pros are at the larger marketers such as J&J, Pfizer, Merck — they know the benefits expertise can deliver. However, for many smaller and even mid-market pharmaceutical marketers, internal media expertise is non-existent. If you are a marketing decision maker at one of these companies, this opportunity is directed at you.

Given this, there can be an over-reliance on the media agency to take on work that should be handled internally. The best client/agency partnerships are built on the principle of trust and verify. In the absence of an internal media voice, there is no objective, expert verifier to ensure media is delivering on the right KPIs.

With no internal media voice, the client media operation is rife with inefficiencies. There is no media leader to ensure consistency across the portfolio, to define a media agency strategy, to set standards on effectiveness and efficiency, to break down internal silos to secure alignment and approvals on key initiatives.

With no media expertise in-house, companies run the risk of turning the media agency value delivery exercise into something either too vague on parameter definition or overly focused on costs and pricing as the basis for value definition. The internal media lead lives each day in the business and know best what drives success, how ROI is defined, ways-of-working between client stakeholder groups, in and outs of the business planning process, and can guide the media agency to ensure this landscape is deftly navigated, decisions are made, and deadlines met.

The Current Talent Opportunity

Finding the right talent and cultural fit is imminently possible, thanks to the pending contraction to the media agency world as the IPG and Omnicom merger goes through regulatory hoops. This means there is amazing talent out there ready to step in and raise the media game at your company. But what are the characteristics requisite in the right person for the role?

Key Characteristics of the Right Candidate

Pharma Media Experience from Day One
Must have pharmaceutical media experience. This is a unique category, with a specific knowledge base required to be effective from Day 1. In addition to having the technical qualifications, someone with pharma media experience can bring the external world into your company, citing initiatives that have worked well and those to avoid, along with how competitive organizations approach media strategy and activation. Especially given the current administration’s views on DTC advertising, you really need a media lead who is plugged in on all events impacting media and has the ability to have the right action plan ready to go depending on the circumstances.

Integrated DTC and HCP Strategy Mindset
Must have integrated DTC and HCP mindset to ensure best use of media investment. All elements of the overall plan should be working together across DTC and HCP with the internal media lead orchestrating that coordinated plan.

Deep Knowledge of the Agency Landscape
Should have a strong grasp of the media agency landscape, not only the holding company agencies, but all the relevant independents too. This will ensure your media agency model will be drawn from the full consideration of a thorough landscape analysis.

Expertise Across Legacy and Emerging Media
Must know the ins and outs of legacy offline and online media channels cold, but also be extremely well-versed in new media as it scales and can determine if and when your brands should be investing in these and to what degree. A relevant example all marketers are grappling with is the role of AI. Your Media Lead should be leading this work as it relates to media strategy, investment and measurement

Strong Data Literacy and Platform Awareness
Now more than ever, a good client media lead knows data. How to get it, how to leverage data, the difference between useful data and that data that is not worth securing. What are the platforms leveraged at your company, what are those accessible via the media agency and what does the third-party provider marketplace look like?

The $250K Investment That Delivers

Taking all of this together, investing $250,000 in fully-loaded cost for a media director headcount to come in and chart the course for media operations, excellence in strategy, activation and measurement, and innovation, will easily deliver quantifiable efficiencies via the following:

• Establish Clear Scopes, Briefs, and Operational Norms: Ensure the media agency is working off clear scopes and briefs that will deliver the best work as well as setting operational norms and embed those both in the business and at the agency so everyone knows what happens when, who approves what, who is in the meeting, etc. These actions will ensure the agency is focused on priority work and know how to get projects approved and implemented. Doing this will reduce agency hours churn, allowing unproductive hours to be refocused on business-driving work.
• Review and Challenge Media Plans for Maximum Impact: Be able to review and challenge media plan and investment recommendations to ensure your brands are getting the right media at the best pricing. This will result in either more efficient or more impactful media. If done right, it should deliver both enhanced pricing and impact.
• Balance Advocacy and Challenge to Drive Performance: Serving simultaneously as the internal advocate for the media agency as well as the chief challenger of the agency to take performance even higher is not an easy thing to do, but like a good manager, a strong media lead can both advocate for the agency when required with internal stakeholders and challenge them when there is room to consider alternative approaches. This will create a “one-team” dynamic that will bring out the best work in the best cultural climate.

Measuring and Managing for Impact

Each of these can be planned out with KPIs and quantifiable delivery targets as part of annual objective setting. The progress can be tracked and targets updated during typical relationship management that should be happening at regular intervals (ie, Quarterly Business Reviews).

Why Agencies Benefit Too

Media agency teams working on pharma accounts will benefit greatly from having a plugged-in media client as it will help them to focus and prioritize work, secure stakeholder access and approvals to meet critical deadlines, as well as have an internal advocate to help advance the overall quality of the work by reinforcing the importance of media as a critical growth driver to the business. That said, the Media client needs to be the right kind of partner for the agencies with the right balance of advocacy and challenge, with the industry knowledge to have the right level of gravitas with the agency.

Practical Next Steps for Stakeholders

For Pharmaceutical Leaders (ie, C-Suite):

• How much are you investing in DTC Media across your portfolio? If it is anywhere upwards of $25 million, you should be seriously considering how media is run at your organization.
• Who is approving the work and do they have the right level of capability to interrogate and challenge agency recommendations?
• Is there one internal media owner or is it up the individual brand teams?

For Pharmaceutical Marketers:

• How much of your time is being spent on operational media work versus growing your brands?
• What level of confidence do you have in your media capability? This includes not only the day-to-day media operations but also media strategy, integration of data, effective media KPI setting…not to mention what is the media agency landscape and what is happening in the industry at large.

For Media Agencies:

• Keep your client abreast of where you are experiencing operational challenges and demonstrate how the agency would be better positioned to drive media effectiveness and innovation if there were a competent media client in place.

Closing Perspective

Now, as a lifelong media person who has spent the better part of my career as an internal media lead, you may consider this a biased viewpoint. Maybe it is, but even so the facts and rationale are objective, logical and it is a provable point-of-view. Now more than ever, qualified internal media leadership is not a luxury, rather a necessity for DTC media spenders of any scale in the pharmaceutical category. Reflect on the key questions I have set forth and start building the business case. It is worth doing.

Scott Grenz is the president and founder of Genco Pura Media LLC