At iMedExchange, we are constantly asking ourselves the question "how does that bring value to our members". No... really... I mean constantly. We asked this question last year when we were experimenting with an ad-revenue model. The problem is that banner ads and popups don't bring value to the users who are the targets. Sure, ads can sometimes (if intelligently and contextually targeted) help a user learn about a vendor or product that may actually turn out to be a good fit for the buyer. But that's clearly the exception because CPM stands for "cost per milli", i.e., that banner add or popup has to be shown 1,000 times to earn the .50 cents, $2, $10 or (in case of targeted physician ad placements) even as much as $100 - $200 CPM rate. What I take from that is that you have to show a lot (and I mean A LOT) of people a distracting, annoying and utterly valueless ad before you uncover that rare person who might find what you're selling to be a good fit.
But we tried it...on a very limited basis mind you. We solicited feedback from some of our physician members and they agreed with what I just said. However, if we were selective about what ads we allowed in and we used the revenues from those ads to build more and more value in other areas... well then it was worth testing. After all, they understand to build a sustainable vertical social network that adds value to physicians, it has to make money. But underlying that was the clear understanding that if we adopted that ad-revenue strategy then we would be undertaking a revenue model that added no real value to our members.
That didn't sit well with any of us and so we scrapped it almost immediately and went to work solving the riddle, "how does a social network make money while AT THE SAME TIME adding real value." The answer for us was what we've come to call a sponsorship model. Consider the following two metrics:
- Physicians sit at the hub of a roughly $2.5T industry, controlling much of the spending that happens in that industry.
- Physicians are in the top 1% - 2% of salary earners in the country.
This makes physicians, among other things, the most sought after demographic on the planet. A decent barometer of this is the fact that advertisers regularly pay $100 - $200 CPM to reach physicians, whereas other demographics are very lucky to draw $10 CPM rates... and most are much lower than that. What this told us was that organizations seeking to gain access to this highly respected group should be willing to bring real value to the physicians they are trying to reach. Thus was born the sponsorship model. In a nutshell, we work with third parties on behalf of our physician members to develop "best in class" opportunities that bring real and immediate value to our members. If a third party isn't interested in providing this kind of value to our members, then we are happy to pass on the opportunity. How do we know if the opportunity is of sufficient value? As with other important questions regarding our members, we asked them. We even have special Physician Sponsorship Panel through which every relationship and every offer is vetted. If this physician panel says "no" then the answer is "no".
We are assembling "best in class" opportunities into a membership benefits program we call iMX Advantage and we are excited to be just days from launch. Once the program is live, we'll be making new partner announcements here on our blog so stay tuned.
