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Perspectives Article
KOL Identification: Go to the Source
Selecting the right key opinion leader (KOL) to present your CME program or to serve as a speaker is critical to your event’s success. Since bio-pharmaceutical companies often receive an array of research proposals that merit sponsorship, it helps to identify leading scientists or KOLs in a field. This information improves the proposal-review process and enables companies to reach the largest possible audience for their efforts.
As an alternative to utilizing the traditional method of identifying KOLs via speaker searches, publication lists, and academic/clinical positions, consider going to the source. Asking your audience, such as community practitioners and other provider groups, to identify leading physicians in a specific field typically provides highly accurate information about which KOLs have the greatest impact.
Telephone interviews or Internet surveys can be used to query community practitioners for this information. These can be conducted in a minimal amount of time, and they yield valuable information regarding community, regional, national, and even international KOLs.
For example, community practitioners may be asked the following questions to identify KOLs:
- Who is your most trusted source of information on a complicated case?
- Who would you most like to have as a colleague on a clinical trial?
- Who is most highly involved in conducting cutting-edge research—both in your region and nationally?
Respondents can then be asked to provide explanation for their choices.
Using this method, KOLs are identified based on community practitioners’ knowledge of a physician’s work and experience. Following the interviews or survey, results are analyzed and maps are created that show the “reach” (or range of influence) of the various KOLs who are named.
Reach maps become an effective tool for pharmaceutical companies who need to understand where a KOL’s influence is strongest and, hence, where individual KOLs can be used for the maximum impact. The information that these maps provide can be used to design CME or speaker series for the community that is highly engaging and relevant to your audience.
About the Author
Ms. Susanne Bowen directs the design, management, and reporting of G & S Forum medical meetings, which target healthcare industry thought leaders and KOLs.
Ms. Bowen has more than 23 years of experience in qualitative and quantitative analysis (domestic and international), including the gathering, synthesis and interpretation of data culminating in tactical and strategic recommendations.
Prior to joining G & S Research, Ms. Bowen worked in the telecommunications, international finance, and consumer packaged-goods industries—in the for-profit and non-profit sectors. She has worked in marketing research, planning, and financial analysis capacities for several companies, the most recent being ACNielsen. Ms. Bowen earned a Master degree from the American Graduate School of International Management and a B.A. from the University of North Carolina (Chapel Hill).
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