A Guide to Comprehensive Physician Targeting

Defining your target physician is a crucial step for every commercial leader in the MedTech industry. Not only does clear targeting save your team the time and effort of chasing the unqualified prospects, but it also ensures that your team is working efficiently and with clear prioritization. MedTech companies that underinvest in defining their physician targeting are unnecessarily giving their competitors a chance to seize a greater market share. This comprehensive guide provides an overview of how you can structure your physician targeting, the questions you might ask yourself, and how to utilize the Alpha Sophia platform effectively. You will be impressed at how quickly you can generate a sophisticated lead list and a clear action plan.

Start by reflecting on your product

The first step in identifying the right physicians to buy your MedTech innovation is to thoroughly understand your product. You should ask yourself the following questions:

• Which medical indications and corresponding procedures is my product designed for?
• Which procedure codes should a physician be working on to benefit from my product and how frequently?
• What kind of physician specialization is required to utilize my product?
• What setting of care is my product best suited for?
• What type of clinic or practice as well as organization size is my product best suited for?
• Is my product an improvement on an existing product or a new innovation?
• Is my product leading on cost or on patient outcome?

By the end of this exercise, you can create a bespoke lead list of physicians on the Alpha Sophia platform who would benefit from your product based on multiple dimensions.

Cut up the geography

Now that you have identified the physicians relevant to your product, it is time to define your geographical target market. By selecting your (initial) geographical target market wisely, you can narrow down your list of physicians and direct your sales team more effectively. Alpha Sophia’s map and territory management features make it easy to answer the following questions:

• Which regions have the highest volume of procedures relevant to my product?
• Which regions have the highest density of relevant specialized physicians?
• What is the opportunity density per region?
• What is the ideal layout of sales territories?

By the end of this exercise, you should have a better understanding of which region to target first based on the volume of relevant procedures and number of relevant specialized physicians.

Think about your ideal physician persona

Once you have a great list of physicians who would benefit from your product, you need to identify strategic personas that you think will be likely adopters. Here, you can drill down further by using some of the Alpha Sophia’s filters. For example, you may ask:

• What kind of physician seniority is most likely to be interested in my product?
• What kind of topics are relevant physicians publishing on?
• Is my target physician  an innovator persona or more of a cost-conscious optimizer persona?

By the end of this exercise, you will have a list of target physicians who are highly relevant in terms of their professional career and unique attributes, making them likely to be successfully engaged by your sales team.

Craft your personalized approach

Now, it is time to craft your personalized approach to each physician on the target list. You or your team can delve into the individual physician profiles on the Alpha Sophia platform to understand their professional history and attributes. For example:

• What is their specific procedure volume for the codes relevant to your product? Is it increasing or decreasing over time?
• What affiliations do they have and what has been their professional trajectory?
• What are they writing about in publications?
• What payments from competing companies are have they received in the past?
• Are they active on social media, and if yes, which sentiment are the expressing?

By completing this final step, you will be equipping your sales team with powerful information that they can use to create personalized sales pitches for each and every physician on bespoke lead lists. Hence, the commercial team can allocate their resources effectively, to create overall “the biggest bang for their buck”.

Alpha Sophia provides a hassle-free solution to answer all of these questions and more, in just a few clicks. Our platform continuously updates data sources, ensuring that you always have an accurate picture of who to target. By investing time in building your ideal physician persona and target lead list on Alpha Sophia, you are positioning your team for success while minimizing risks and optimizing your resources. For more information on how Alpha Sophia can help you achieve your sales goals, reach out to us today.