Patient Segmentation
Method:
People with diabetes are incredibly diverse. But experience also tells us that there are many commonalities: characteristics, experiences, and attitudes that are shared across the diabetes community. We have learned that diabetes is a complex mosaic of patients in different stages of disease progression, treatment success, attitudes and behaviors. This underscores our entire approach to research and we think naturally in terms of segments rather than broad categories of the diabetes population.
A segmentation story at dQ&A may begin with simple demographics; move on to incorporate psychographics; and end with very diabetes-specific reasons for choices and preferences. We do believe, however, that to be useful, all segmentation must be:
- Distinct – they predict different preferences and behaviors, giving form and focus to business strategy;
- Actionable – we can reach the groups we have defined, speak in the right tone, and listen thoughtfully;
- Inspirational – helping build a culture of empathy that draws out creativity, innovative thinking, and problem-solving;
- Future-proof – both relevant and accurate today and over extended product development cycles.
Examples:
- Attitudinal segmentation of patients with type 2 diabetes for a diabetes drug launch. Map the results of attitudinal questions about care to other diabetes-specific and demographic variables to drive successful targeted marketing channel and communications approaches.
- Segment patients based on unmet diabetes care needs and patient preferences, to support the regulatory submission for a new diabetes drug.
- Ongoing proprietary patient segment development and behavior tracking in the USA for a major diabetes device company. Several clients view our syndicated patient data by segments that we have developed, for example, based on patient engagement, doctor relationship, recent diabetes progression trends, as well as therapy categories and demographics.
- Characterize which segments of the diabetes population would be most receptive to new diabetes therapy concepts. Over the past nine years, we have conducted over 75 standardized product concept tests. This work has underpinned significant investment and M&A decisions, corporate strategy choices, product launches, product and design decisions for dQ&A clients.
