HCP Message Testing
A product’s promotional story should be primarily shaped by its customers—composed of what they perceive as its most important, differentiating, and compelling attributes and benefits.
Message testing studies that culminate in story construction exercises elicit the structure and content of this optimal promotional story.
An initial step on these studies is consultative—we work closely with client teams to develop a set a compelling and comprehensive set of messages for subsequent testing.
The team identifies several categories of messages—typically 4-7 categories—that will play an important functional role in the product promotional story.
The client team then ideates and composes a series of message elements / candidates within each category.
During the interviews, respondents assess all the messages in each category. They select the top messages in each category and elaborate on why they find these messages are motivating to prescribe the client’s product.
Drawing from their selection of top performing messages in each category, respondents arrange the messages sequentially to construct the story that is most likely to persuade them to use the product preferentially over competitors.
We excel at these HCP message testing and story construction studies, in part, because our researchers tend to push harder to elicit and understand the underlying reasons for respondents’ favorable and unfavorable views of certain messages. This provides insights that help to refine and optimize the messages throughout the story.
We have also done many of these message testing studies (in the US and globally)—both among professional (HCPs) and consumer / patient audiences—at a significantly lower cost than our competitors at large market research companies.
Frequent Questions
How does your HCP message testing and story construction process work
We first work consultatively with the client team to organize message candidates into 4-7 functional categories. In interviews, HCPs assess and select their top messages within each category, then arrange their selections into the sequence most likely to persuade them to prescribe the product over competitors.
Do you test messages with patients as well as HCPs?
Yes — we’ve conducted message testing and story construction studies among both professional (HCP) and consumer/patient audiences, in the US and globally.
How is your pricing positioned relative to large market research firms?
We’ve consistently delivered these studies at a significantly lower cost than large market research companies, without a large-agency overhead structure.