Merkle Health: 2016
Merkle Health
7001 Columbia Gateway Drive
Columbia, MD 21046
Phone: 410-443-4000
Website: merkleinc.com
Accounts
Account wins 11
Active business clients 76
Services Mix
Digital Agency Services 32%
Technology Solutions 26%
Analytic Solutions 23%
Marketing Consulting & Strategy 19%
Client Roster
AbbVie
Amgen
Anthem Blue Cross Blue Shield
Blue Cross/Blue Shield DC
Boehringer Ingelheim
Bristol-Myers Squibb
Celgene
Cigna International
Delta Dental
Delta Dental of Va.
Eli Lilly
EmblemHealth
Genentech USA
Gerber Nutrition
GlaxoSmithKline
Humana
Laser Spine Institute
Medical Mutual
McKesson Specialty Health (NC)
Neos Therapeutics
North Shire Long Island Jewish Hospital
Sanofi
Shire US
Sunovion Pharmaceuticals Inc.
For Merkle Heath in 2015, the year was marked by staff additions, product developments, strategic acquisitions, and breakthrough ideas, executives say.
The year’s accomplishments
Merkle health added 13 new team members in 2015, of which 5 were added to the leadership team, including Jari Raus, VP and associate client partner; Jennifer Quinlan, senior VP, client partner; Steven Bass, VP, strategic growth; Dan Bernard, VP, client partner; and John O’Brien, VP, strategy. Additional hires included Stephanie D’agastino, director, solution management; Catherine Mackin, director, strategy; Andrew Watson, senior strategy director; Bernadette Foy, account director; Dan Platz, account manager; Deborah Percival-Ortiz, account director; Nicolette Black, account coordinator; and Lisa Steinberg, associate account director.
“Merkle works with industry leaders to deliver the best results for our clients,” executives say. “We maintain a number of strategic partnerships and alliances that allow our marketing professionals to use best-in-class tools to help build customer relationships. We entered into a couple prominent industry partnerships in 2015, such as Yahoo, Baidu, Rentrak, Oracle, and Telium.”
According to agency leaders, Merkle has developed an analytic process that creates a rich dataset of physician marketing response propensities – by marketing channel, by therapeutic class, and by message type. “The analysis leverages classic mixed modeling techniques and applies a robust use of multi-level modeling in order to build out the measurement of individual HCP-level response by channel,” executives say. “Key to the use of regression models is the ability to test the independent effects of each channel, even when the physician has received marketing touches from across a large number of tactics. The output of this process is a set of HCP level response scores that can be used in marketing planning.”
Executives say two strategic acquisitions amplified Merkle’s capabilities and scale in 2015: Pointmarc, a leading digital analytics consultancy with world-class site analytics and optimization capabilities, and Periscopix, a London-based performance marketing agency specializing in search, programmatic media and web analytics.
In 2015, Merkle published its second book, The Platform Marketer, written by Craig Dempster, executive VP, digital agency group leader and John Lee, executive VP, chief strategy officer. “Today’s landscape of digital audience platforms, extensive customer data, and high-powered marketing technology creates an incredible opportunity for marketers to identify, target, and convert high-value customers in a systematic, profitable manner,” executives say. “The result is a decided competitive advantage. In order to achieve this, marketers must master the perfect mix of competencies. The Rise of the Platform Marketer: Performance Marketing with Google, Facebook, and Twitter, Plus the Latest High-Growth Digital Advertising Platforms is the handbook to get there.
“In 2015, we also published the fourth installment of our award-winning Marketing Imperatives series, which also focused on The Platform Marketer competencies.”
According to agency leaders, success in today’s pharma marketing environment requires a “people over product” approach – in other words, “people-based marketing.” Integrating the marketing strategy across platforms, vendors, databases, and agencies are all challenges facing health marketers. Executives say this approach is the inspiration behind MerkleONE, an all-in-one marketing solution suite for pharmaceutical marketers.
Executives say the solution addresses the difficulties companies face in connecting their first-party data to the direct targeting and delivery of relevant content to the right customer at the right time. “The platform does this by providing a specific set of tools and competencies to help marketers make the most of first-party and third-party data insights,” they say. “In fact, it transforms data into visible, actionable insights that can then be used to activate targeted, data-driven campaigns that engage individual patients, physicians, and HCPs – in real time. Effectively, MerkleONE enhances integration between data sets previously managed in silos, thereby providing pharmaceutical marketers with the ability to adopt an insight-driven approach to people-based marketing.”
Structure and services
According to executives, “Our organizational structure is designed to serve our clients, who are at the center of business model. The industry-specific client management organization is staffed and supported with industry professionals who possess experience across many health categories. Their subject matter expertise across marketing disciplines includes specific skills in relationship management solutions, digital, mobile, creative, and analytics. Services include marketing strategy, marketing analytics, digital agency, creative, and marketing technology; with a keen focus on delivering a positive marketing outcome.
“As a data-driven, technology-enabled performance marketing agency, Merkle Health serves clients with a thorough knowledge of their marketplace, combined with deep-rooted expertise in the core disciplines that comprise our performance marketing solutions: Agency Services, Marketing Solutions, and Consulting.”
Future plans
In 2016, executives say Merkle Health will continue to be aggressive in uncovering the challenges, successes and outcomes necessary for delivering people-based marketing across devices and channels for our clients. The insights we have through our heritage in data, technology, and analytics gives us the ability to drive better integration across audiences and channels to deliver improved customer experiences that positively impact outcomes for HCPs, pharma companies, and consumers.
Philanthropy/citizenship
According to executives, Merkle Health’s clients and employees participate in philanthropic causes that are important to them, and the agency supports a number of those initiatives. Merkle supported more than 72 organizations in 2015, “and when added to employees’ personal dedication, our collective charitable activity would make any company envious,” executives say. “We also have a major industry practice dedicated to helping large not-for-profit organizations. Our data-driven, technology-enabled performance marketing strategies support their missions and growth initiatives.
“And while, as a company, we don’t want to favor one over the other, in many cases our employees rally around these clients’ missions because they believe so strongly in what they are working in support of. In 2015, we did a pro-bono project for a small charitable foundation to help them understand the reasons why a person gives, in order to gain the insights needed to increase donations and engagement. Our research was conducted over a few months, and we delivered to the client key segments that should be targeted, along with the communication plan, strategy, analytics, and creative. Merkle’s passion is helping our employees and clients feel good about the work they do, whether it’s a philanthropic initiative, helping to support a pro-bono project, or supporting the missions of our nonprofit clients.”
