Key Questions To Boost Your KOL Management – Part 6/8: Engagement Plans

KOL Management is a broad term that, in our minds, refers to the complete life cycle of identifying, mapping, segmenting, planning, engaging, and interacting with KOLs. From beginning to end. In this series of articles, we address the key questions to ask at every step of the cycle to ensure that your KOL Management is focussed, compliant, mutually beneficial, and of real scientific value.

Why Is Engagement Planning A Critical Part Of KOL Management?

Engagement planning involves taking all the information, insights, and knowledge you have on KOLs (gained from both internal and external sources) and arriving at engagement/touch-point plans for each KOL based on strategy, tactics, benchmarking, segmentation, influence, available internal resources, and a whole host of other factors. This is the heart of effective KOL Management; it's what drives the overall way forward.

To help you get there, ask yourself these questions:

Have you run an engagement planning workshop to get everyone's input on how best to engage and collaborate with KOLs? Have you ensured that you have considered all valuable internal knowledge and viewpoints?
Have you developed which will feed into the overall engagement plan?
Does the plan address the strengths, requirements, and collaboration preferences of each KOL, i.e. considering the needs of each KOL themselves?
Does the plan address the most critical components for KOL Management — who will you engage, what will you engage them with, where & when will this engagement happen, how will you measure the impact/success of your engagement?
Are all your tactics aligned to the right KOLs based on not just your needs, but also the needs of the KOLs themselves?
Is every stage and component of the above process driven by evidence which can also be used to justify your KOL engagement decisions to any external or internal party?

By addressing the questions above, you can make KOL Management decisions that rely less on faith and luck, and more on instinct and facts.

Costantino Ciotti

Services & Innovations

+44 (0)20 8191 9823

costantino.ciotti@systemanalytic.com