The account will consist of number of customers spanning secondary care, primary care, tertiary care, community health as well as policy makers and payers from the integrated care system and hospital trusts. Understanding both the decision-making unit and the decision-making process are crucial for success. For example, the largest Integrated Care System (ICS) in the England, NHS North East and North Cumbria has a general population of 3.1 million people. Their healthcare is delivered by a workforce of 170,000. This covers 14 local health authorities, 67 primary care networks and 11 NHS foundation hospital trusts (1). This is one of 42 similar systems across the UK. There is no feasible business argument to have resources available to target or interact with all customers, nor would this be appropriate due to the number of healthcare specialties and therapeutic classes available.

Segmenting and having a targeting approach of the customer base is critical. This is a time-consuming process and must align with the value proposition, objectives and strategy to be deployed. In 2020, Bain & Company surveyed executives about their experiences with customer segmentation, 81% said it was a critical tool for growing profits, but fewer than 25% believed their companies used it effectively. The analysis showed that, over a five-year period, businesses that successfully tailor product and service offerings to desirable customer segments post annual profit growth of about 15%. By contrast, companies that fail to connect the right value propositions to the right customer segments realize annual profit growth of only 5% (2). With findings like this it is a process that should be handled with care and can yield good results if deployed well.

The first stage required in this process is to profile of the customer base. This is undertaken using a variety of means, including a third-party customer list based on specialties and job title analysis. This can be expanded with insight gathered from customer facing teams either through a standalone exercise or by insights captured from previous visits and recorded as profiling variables in the CRM solution. These ratings can be used to great effect if they are simple to understand, communicate and most importantly are recorded regularly. The power of digital channels is often overlooked in this space and there are many opportunities to build profiling data from digital activities. This requires a mindset shift to ensure every interaction is an opportunity to learn something new about a customer, to gain new data and enhance insights. The customer experience needs to be optimal and provide value with the outcome sought for the customer to be willing to provide something back, be it an opinion, answering a closed question or participating a poll or a survey. Customer profiling data requirements should be planned and built into the customer journey development stage rather than positioned at outcome stage only where it often becomes an afterthought.

Primary market research is often used at the profiling stage utilising a target product profile and a sample of representative customers from across the DMU, usually based on job titles and some elements of demographics, building on primary research that was previously undertaken. This approach will refine the customer profiles allowing customer segments to be identified and the creation of a persona that facilitates the building of a typing tool that is often placed into the hands of the customer facing team to segment the customer base for the best chance of commercial success.

Using this approach exclusively is high risk, this is built on a small sample of data from customers that are open to participating in market research and assumes a scaled-up version of the sample will be representative when extrapolated. In addition, subjective and perception-based profiling by customer facing teams can cause a sub-optimal outcome.

Utilising a blended approach of data driven profiling (a future opportunity for AI to support), applying insights from primary market research allows a more balanced approach to segmentation that can provide a robust base to support decision making and go-to-market approach, whether to adopt a traditional, digital or hybrid targeting strategy.

The targeting strategy should be defined based on the segmentation, at this point customer relationships and understanding come to the forefront. The targeting strategy should be differentiated, key customers designated high value and high will often necessitate a named contact where a face-to-face approach is deployed. This compared to lower potential customers where establishing a desirable return on investment is more challenging, a hybrid or digital approach is often the best course of action.

Although the profiling, segmentation, and targeting process requires significant effort, it is crucial for shaping an effective go-to-market strategy and should remain valid for 12 to 18 months. While adjustments can be made periodically, they should not compromise the overall segmentation or targeting approach. Marketing should lead this process with a customer-centric view, but it often shifts to sales teams, turning into a routine call plan. As a result, key customers, representing just 0.005% of the account population, may be deprioritised due to access challenges instead of being strategically targeted by the wider organisation.

Profiling, segmentation and targeting dictates the go-to-market strategy, give it the time, investment and follow-up it deserves.

Article sources

1. North East and North Cumbria ICS (northeastnorthcumbria.nhs.uk): "Home | North East and North Cumbria NHS (northeastnorthcumbria.nhs.uk)"
Accessed September 2024

2. Harvard Business Review (hbr.org):  "Find Your Sweet Spot (hbr.org)"
Accessed September 2024