Traditional methods of search leave professionals and business people high and dry. SearchMedica.com's senior product manager describes the alternative.
Salmon snagging is a popular pastime in Wisconsin and parts North. When my colleagues in the Midwest told me about it, I couldn't help but see the parallels between the sport and vertical search engines.
The idea is simple. Each year, salmon swarm up and back down a river. Fishermen stand on the banks of the river with giant hooks. They throw the hook into the water, snag a salmon and flip it up onto the bank. They keep throwing the hook back until they reach their limit of salmon.
If only pay-per-click (PPC) search marketing were so easy. When you go snagging in the PPC river, you don't know what kind of fish you will net. And, if you are focused on any vertical market, you are probably wasting your money, because you are snagging consumers and people from every other industry instead of the one you're targeting.
To overcome this problem, vertical search has emerged as the way to target specific business-to-business markets. Nearly every key vertical industry is served by at least one search site or portal, and these sites -- while serving disparate markets -- share many characteristics. First, the content they provide serves the specific interests of business users or professionals. Regardless of the industry segment, the vertical search site presents relevant results drawn from industry-specific content. Additionally, the user can tailor his search to specific target content.
Vertical search providers employ subject matter expertise to keep search results relevant and clear. Sources of content range from proprietary data, open websites, sponsors and advertisers, and other users. Vertical search solutions can provide an alternate way to access structured database content, such as a business directory. Finally, the vertical search solution helps the user by providing comparisons and relationships among the content.
Some examples of leading vertical market search sites include the following: agwebsearch.com in the agriculture industry; chemindustry.com for the chemical industry; edcomp.com for computer training; dodge.construction.com/reports, ebuild.com and reedconstructiondata.com for the construction industry; globalspec.com and icmaster.com for engineering; searchmedica.com, devicelink.com and dentalproducts.net for medical and healthcare professionals; thomasnet.com for industrial segments; findlaw.com and lawyers.com for the legal profession; biocompare.com for life sciences; and sciencedirect.com and scirus.com for the scientific market.
Case example: How doctors surf the internet
Physicians comprise a particularly interesting audience for vertical search. A recent survey of 6,000 doctors by SearchMedica.com found that 77.6 percent of primary care physicians (PCPs) use the internet frequently to find clinical information. That number grew to 91.2 percent among PCPs who were 45 or younger. Psychiatrists, too, use the internet to find medical information, but their numbers are slightly lower at 63 percent.
While most medical personnel search the internet, different types of doctors use different starting points. For example, 70 percent of oncologists (cancer doctors) and nearly 65 percent of PCPs start their searches with a specific website. The rest of the medical professionals say that they begin with a search engine. Psychiatrists were split about their search preferences: 58.6 percent started at a search engine and 41.4 percent began at a website.
Google was the search engine of choice for most medical professionals. About three fourths of psychiatrists (73.1 percent) said they used Google frequently to search for clinical information. Three out of four respiratory doctors did the same. And just over 50 percent of PCPs reported using Google most of the time.
Finding answers requires sifting data
The problem doctors have in searching the internet is that mainstream search engines are not designed for medical professionals. Google and the other consumer-focused search engines tend to consider all content types equal in indexing terms. Personal webpages, paid testimonials, blogs and wikis are considered acceptable content right alongside credible research data such as clinical trials, peer-reviewed journal articles and authoritative drug prescribing information. Moreover, in search engines that rank results according to popularity, this less credible content may have more exposure and a higher ranking in search results than a medical journal article despite the journal article's superior credibility and scientific nature.
For medical professionals, this means that they have to sift through a great deal of trivia in order to find the information they want. And doctors do not have time to waste. Experts suggest that general practitioners often see from 22 to 28 patients in an average day. This schedule leaves very little time to discuss patients' symptoms, minor issues and preventive healthcare. Clearly, medical professionals are busier than ever before and do not have time to spend combing through search results.
In fact, doctors reported their biggest problem using Google was too many results to sift through. For PCPs, 65.4 percent noted too many irrelevant results. Psychiatrists noted the same issue with 63.8 percent citing erroneous information as their main problem. Both groups noted that their second biggest problem with Google was the lack of authoritative clinical information; while 18.3 percent of PCPs and 21.9 percent of psychiatrists reported this lack of clinical findings as their main problem.
More focused channels such as online portals and search engines dedicated to medical professionals are emerging. These sites provide doctors exactly what they need to excel in their practices and continually improve patient care. Just a few examples of the pre-screened clinical resources available to medical professionals today through vertical or specialty-focused medical search engines include:
- Full-text journal articles
- Comprehensive drug and prescribing information
- Continuing medical education opportunities
- Peer-reviewed articles with medical citations
Pre-screened search tools aid the process
Physicians, like most business professionals, are busy and need to find the information they seek quickly, but how does this apply to search marketing?
Easy. Search engine marketing programs on behalf of pharmaceutical and other healthcare companies are usually based on the direct-to-consumer (DTC) model and mostly tap the high traffic, consumer-oriented search behemoths. But this is not a cost-effective method to reach physicians and other medical professionals. The overwhelming percentage of searchers at Google, Yahoo! and the other mainstream engines are consumers, which makes those sites expensive and inefficient for the vertical marketer.
Emerging direct-to-physician (DTP) opportunities, however, easily reach physicians and practicing medical professionals with great precision. This model allows pharmaceutical and other healthcare marketers to tap into online portals and vertical search engines that appeal specifically to doctors and medical professionals. Focusing on sites that separate out the salmon allows marketers to be more efficient with their marketing dollars, even while paying a PPC premium.
With new DTP websites that focus specifically on appealing to doctors and medical professionals, the days of trawling are long over. Fishermen have to wait until that special time of year to snag the salmon, that most desirable of fish. But pharmaceutical and healthcare marketers don't have to wait for the right time anymore. DTP opportunities are available now.
Cyndy Finnie is the senior product manager for SearchMedica.com at CMPMedica. Read full bio.