I’m your customer. Are you listening to me and I am important to you?

About the Author

Richard Meyer is a passionate Internet DTC marketer with over 15 years of progressive experience in consumer marketing who`s worked on top pharmaceutical brands like Cialis, Prozac and Sarafem, as well as two years with Medtronic Diabetes. He is currently consulting for his own company, Online Strategic Solutions, and writes a DTC column for PM 360 magazine and blogs for Eye for Pharma in addition to his own blog, World of DTC Marketing.

I am an empowered patient. I am a real human being who has needs and wants, hopes and ambitions, and wants to do what is right to get through this week. For way too long you have bombarded me with TV ads on drugs even though I don’t trust you. You continue to group me into market segments and treat me as a number but because of the Internet I can learn everything I need to know about you and your product and listen in to what others are saying about your “mild side effects”.

I am sick and tired of being treated like segment A or segment B. I am an individual and want to be treated like a person not a statistic. I might visit your product website to read the safety information about your drug but after I leave your site I will go to a lot of other sites, including social media, because I don’t trust you or the FDA anymore. If the side effects are “that bad” than in all likelihood I won’t ask my doctor for your product because I have enough to deal with everyday.

I use social media for health but I don’t want to have a conversation with you on Twitter. If you can bring other people like me together on a site where I can talk and learn from their experiences it will help me decide but establishing trust between you and I is going to be a long process and I prefer to take baby steps.

I am starting to question why you are in business? Is it to make as much money as you can or are you really concerned about me and my health? Why don’t you learn about ME not my demographic segment so you can address MY needs?

Stop selling me and come to me when I want health information at places that are convenient for me. When I do want to learn about your product I expect the information to be easy to get and understand and I don’t want to learn via the news that there maybe a potential problem with your product; I want to hear it from you in terms that I can easily understand because I can determine if the risk is acceptable.

I don’t spend enough time with my doctor really discussing my overall health. He just asks me why I’m here and then writes a prescription which I may or may not fill depending on how sick I might be. Sure I want to take care of myself and prevent things like osteoporosis and high cholesterol but right now I have so many other things on my mind that sometimes I forget preventative medicine. The costs of my prescriptions has also increased as my company looks to cut costs through changes to our health plan.

By the way although your product may satisfy my needs I want more than that today. I expect 100% satisfaction and want to be delighted every time I interact with your brand. If you trust me and provide me with a good product I might tell others but if you disappoint me you can believe that I let others know.

The best thing you can do is bring others like me together to build relationships, ideas and interests and do what we love to do most. I know that marketers are real people like me, well almost real, but you really need to see the health world through my eyes. Together we can be real people and solve problems and if you really want me as a customer then let me know because together we can do extraordinary things. Treat me like I’m important to you but know the limitations of our relationship.