#20: Let’s talk about detail aid

When compared with an event highlight bulletin or patient education brochure, the number of words in a detail aid is much, much fewer. However, the work involved is not. And many times you may need to rewrite, rewrite, and rewrite.

What is a detail aid?
Detail aid is a marketing tool containing promotional messages incorporated with creative elements. It is a sales aid that pharmaceutical sales representatives used to engage doctors in a dialog about a drug. The detail aid can be in a print form (eg, booklet, flip chart) or an electronic document (eg, PDF file, on the web).

The detail aid contains information about a particular product, including clinical data supporting the product’s efficacy and safety, charts and graphs illustrating those clinical data, and also possibly guidelines on dosing and administration of the drug.

Nature and style of a detail aid
Simply put, detail aid is all about promotion. Clients would like to see their product look good in a detail aid – the product must appear at least as good as, if not better than, the competitor’s product, either in terms of efficacy, safety, tolerability or any other factors of relevant significance.

While a detail aid can be produced to introduce a new drug or new treatment concept, it may also serve as a reminder of an existing drug, to provide latest clinical data, or to address specific concerns and issues regarding the use of the drug.

Sometimes clients may just want to focus the whole detail aid on a particular clinical paper by highlighting the positive results reported on their product.

If you have one detail aid sample in front of you, you will probably notice these few characteristics of a detail aid:

- The sentences inside are mostly short.
- Promotional language is maximized.
- Every statement is substantiated with good references.
- Design is creative and eye-catching.

So how do you get started on a detail aid? Well, find out in my next post! :)

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#19: Newsletter - How to go about it?

The process of developing a newsletter is basically the same as any other projects – writing, editing, obtaining approval on text, designing, and getting final approval from client.

The only difference is that you have more preparation work to do.

Get a good briefing from the client
* Ask questions like – How many issues (bimonthly or quarterly)? How many pages? What kind of format (eg, 6 short articles or 3 long articles)? Is there an ad placement?
* Collect relevant materials for background study or to be incorporated into the newsletter.

Plan your work
Based on the frequency of issues and number of pages per issue, estimate the amount of time you need to work with and generate a working timeline.

Source for content
The materials provided by your client are probably not sufficient to fill up the newsletter. You need to do additional research and gather all necessary information and data for its content. Try online resources.

Presentation format
Depending on the nature of the newsletter, it can be, for example:
* Simply showing a number of clinical abstracts.
* Featuring medium-to-long articles, which are in fact a re-write of shorter articles or abstracts put together.
* A combination of an interview with a medical expert, plus some clinical updates (abstracts, conference reports, etc) for some variety.

Lastly, don’t forget to give the newsletter a title!

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