Clinical Medical Education Products: Developing an Institutional Sales Approach


CHEST | American College of Chest Physicians

Product Development


Can a medical society’s best-in-class clinical learning product successfully expand into the institutional market?




Background

The American College of Chest Physicians (CHEST) retained C&E to assess whether the CHEST SEEK Library, a clinical learning program for pulmonary, critical care, and sleep medicine professionals, could find success with an institutional sales model in addition to the current individual subscription model. This investigation was in service of CHEST’s five-year growth plan focusing on both mission (growing the number of learners served) and business (growing education programming revenues).

What We Did

To assess the opportunity in the institutional market, C&E conducted a series of market research interviews with potential buyers (including hospital and academic librarians, medical program directors, and private practice managers) and potential sales partners. We also completed an environmental scan of comparable products, looking at both B2C and B2B markets. C&E developed institutional buyer profiles to help illustrate our findings and recommendations to CHEST.

Outcome

With C&E’s short- and long-term recommendations in hand, CHEST leadership came away with a clear sense of where the institutional market opportunities for the CHEST SEEK Library are – and, just as importantly, where they are not. The outcome was a practical view of the strategy for (and investment needed in) product development, marketing, and sales infrastructure for success in institutional markets.

CHEST has considered for some time how to approach institutional engagement models and sales outside the journal space but wrestled with understanding institutional needs, which are not uniform. C&E helped us define an entry point that could offer a strong value proposition and a strategy that could enable growth over time.

Nicki Augustyn, CAE

Publisher and Senior Vice President, Marketing, Communications, and Publishing