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Marketing activation

Activation Agency Consulting firm Experts Specialists Consultancy

Retain your existing customers and engage your prospects in your buying journeys

For more than 30 years, our specialized team has been supporting companies in the definition and implementation of their marketing activation strategies to engage and retain their customers and prospects.

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    Key success factors for a marketing activation strategy

    Marketing activation encompasses the deployment of marketing tactics aimed at engaging consumers, enhancing brand visibility, and driving sales. Despite its pivotal role in marketing efforts, marketers face a multitude of challenges within this domain.

    One key success factor for a successful marketing activation is for sure strategic planning. It is key to develop a well-thought-out activation plan, outlining not only the plan per se, but detailing on tactics, timelines, the budget and resources required to execute a successful activation initiative. In order to most suitably reach the target audience, factors such as location and best suited channels must be considered.

    What are key elements to consider in a strategic planning exercise for a marketing activation campaign? How to build a marketing activation strategic planning?

    Obtaining a very clear understanding of the customer is essential to successfully target your audience. Success in activation starts with a deep understanding of the target customer, whether it is a client, a patient, a passenger, … It is indeed key to understand customers’ behaviors, pain points, preferences and expectations to best define the right activation plan. In order to get to this level of understanding it is crucial to invest into market research, establish customer feedback loops as well as data analytics.

    How to obtain detailed understanding of targeted customers? What are key elements to know to optimally launch an activation initiative?

    Having very clear objectives in mind is a key prerequisite for a successful marketing activation. Clear objectives provide the direction of the activity and also drives the evaluation of the effectiveness of the marketing activation during and after the campaign. Such clear objectives could be for example raising brand awareness,  increasing product adoption and sales, generating new leads, to name a few.

    How to define my marketing activation objective and how to evaluate success? What are key performance indicators that need to be considered in an activation campaign?

    How we support you to define your marketing activation strategy

    At Alcimed, we evaluate client and patient engagement in relation to an offer according to criteria adapted to each need. This ad hoc diagnosis and our expertise enable us to define the most appropriate levers to activate to encourage clients and patients to take a more active role in managing their purchasing or consumption acts, and in favor of choosing your offer.

    Examples of recent marketing activation strategies carried out for our clients

    • Patient Activation Program in Europe

      We have helped a pharmaceutical company educate hemophilia patients in several European countries about the existence and value of specific hemophilia treatments to help them make informed decisions about their treatment.

      Alcimed began by understanding the current situation in the different project countries through discussions with doctors, patients and patient relatives at every stage of the patient activation process: awareness, consideration, action, advocacy.

      Our teams then benchmarked existing activation programs in order to inspire our client with proven ideas, before co-constructing “operational activation packs” during workshops with the different country teams.

    • Development of a 'direct-to-patient' activation program

      We supported the primary care division of a healthcare industry company in the implementation of a pilot patient activation program aimed at making patients more active in their choice of medication among different therapeutic alternatives.

      After conducting a diagnosis of the situation and exploring examples of successes and failures of direct-to-patient activation programs in several countries, we led a workshop with our client’s marketing, medical and legal teams and selected two actions to be implemented as a short-term test in a first geographical area.

    • Searching for new levers of patient activation in vaccination campaigns

      We helped a leading player in the vaccination sector to understand the psychological barriers to influenza vaccination in Indonesia, and to identify new ways of activating patients in their vaccination journey.

      To this end, we conducted documentary research and interviews with healthcare professionals and patients. These analyses enabled us to identify the psychological disincentives felt by patients, and to identify ways of activating them to become more involved in the vaccination process.

    • Definition of a marketing activation plan for Key Opinion Leaders (KOLs) in the medical field

      We helped one of our customers define an activation and communication plan aimed at a target group of key opinion leaders in the field of type 2 diabetes.

      To do this, we gathered their preferences regarding communication formats and channels, held several workshops with each country included in the study, discussed their involvement and defined what their core medical values were.

      We then worked with the global medical team to discuss and finalize a marketing activation strategy that could be adapted to each country concerned.

    • Marketing activation strategy for the launch of new innovations in the agri-food sector

      In preparation for the launch of a new product, our team supported a major player in the food industry develop a marketing activation strategy. The aim of our project was to identify and define the right activation levers, in each in-sycope country, to promote alcohol-free beers, focusing in particular on their health benefits.

      To do this, our team first developed a set of marketing arguments based on an in-depth scientific analysis of the nutritional benefits of the ingredients present in alcohol-free beer. Once the key messages had been defined, we identified levers to activate consumers in their beer consumption choices (e.g. participation in market events on the theme of nutrition, collaboration with influencers in each of the countries involved in our project, etc.). With a set of well-constructed messages and identified activation levers, Alcimed enabled its client to prepare its product launches in over a dozen markets worldwide.

    • Definition of new ways to approach and activate physicians for a pharma player

      Alcimed supported a pharma player in increasing awareness around their drug in the corresponding population of physicians.

      We helped our client develop a segmentation of physicians beyond the current segmentation according to sales potential. We developed questionnaires for the sales force to enable them to group their customers into the defined profiles. Our team then worked on new ways to approach these physicians according to each segment and these new ways were tested in the field by our client’s sales force.

      This project allowed our client to co-create with our team the future guidance of approaching and activating customers by the sales force and to implement innovative new ways of interaction.

    • Definition of a compelling and activating value proposition for a biopharma player to enter a new market with their product

      We supported a client involved into blood products to define a new value proposition aiming at supporting its entry into a new market and at activating customers.

      The key to this project was to discuss with the stakeholders deciding about purchasing of new equipment in the hospital sector. We discussed with the stakeholders in order to understand how currently blood products are applied and used, what in this setup are their needs and pain points and further understand what new type of blood products would need to bring to convince them to purchase and use it.

      We used this information to develop a compelling value proposition including marketing claims in order to support a prime positioning in the new market and to further activate customers to drive sales.

    You have a project?

      Tell us about your uncharted territory

      You have a project and want to discuss it with our explorers, write us!

      One of our explorers will contact you shortly.


      To go further

      Founded in 1993, Alcimed is an innovation and new business consulting firm, specializing in innovation driven sectors: life sciences (healthcare, biotech, agrifood), energy, environment, mobility, chemicals, materials, cosmetics, aeronautics, space and defence.

      Our purpose? Helping both private and public decision-makers explore and develop their uncharted territories: new technologies, new offers, new geographies, possible futures, and new ways to innovate.

      Located across eight offices around the world (France, Europe, Singapore and the United States), our team is made up of 220 highly-qualified, multicultural and passionate explorers, with a blended science/technology and business culture.

      Our dream? To build a team of 1,000 explorers, to design tomorrow’s world hand in hand with our clients.

      Whether it is to attract a new customer, re-engage an inactive customer or create a brand ambassador, marketing activation is based on one thing: each customer/prospect has the potential to be loyal to the brand or to retain other customers. Activation is based on information. As a supplier, we inform our prospects or customers, in various forms and at various times, so that they can choose whether or not to become more “active” in their choice.

      There are four stages of marketing activation that should be taken into account in the activation strategy:

      1. Awareness: researching, educating oneself on the topic
      2. Consideration: finding a point of sale, talking to a salesperson or a doctor in the health field
      3. The action: proactively request a product or treatment
      4. Influence or advocacy: sharing your story with others, being an active brand ambassador.

      Patient activation is defined as “an individual’s knowledge, skill, and confidence for managing their health and health care” (Hibbard et al., 2005). It encompasses the knowledge, confidence, skills, abilities, beliefs, and willingness of individuals to oversee their health and healthcare.

      It is key for self-management of patients and assessment of patient activation allows to early identify patients at risk of worsening condition. Improving patient activation can also be a lever for healthcare players to improve patients pathways and overall care management.