Challenge

In the context of infertility therapy, there are key points in the awareness, education, diagnosis and treatment pathways that present challenges to pharmaceutical companies offering ART products. These include a high percentage of potential patients who never seek diagnosis and a high percentage of patients who drop out during the course of treatment.

Solution

The core of ExMI's strategy was a comprehensive web site resource that was rolled out and customized for many different markets, including the United States and key European and Asian markets. These portals provided users with local market resources encouraging condition awareness and diagnosis. Since 2004 and the launch of the international program with Organon (later acquired by Schering-Plough), ExMI has focused on the ongoing management, optimization and promotion of the U.S. FertilityJourney.com property.

Broken out by treatment stage, the solution offers users:

1. Services to find local IVF specialists and clinics
2. Ongoing support for couples via a FertilityCoach newsletter program that anticipates emotional and information needs at a particular stage of the diagnosis and treatment process.
3. A centralized Fertility Support center that aggregates news, fertility podcasts, guidebooks and recommended resources

Results

Using measurement and competitive baseline inputs, ExMI has helped Schering-Plough expand the site's value proposition, optimize the conversion effectiveness of its key site services (+25% in 2008), as well as improving organic SEO effectiveness (+80% in 2008).

Complementing a separate product web site and dedicated HCP web site that addresses ongoing fertility research, FertilityJourney.com remains an important portion of an over arching digital strategy that has seen Schering-Plough make significant gains in prescription market share at the expense of the category creator.