IMedExchange: Makes Sense to Me
Over at alarm:clock, Jon Burke reported on IMedExchange raising some angel funding. As Jon reported, this is closed system with only practicing physicians being allowed to participate. Without making some long tail analogy, the basic premise simply makes sense. All doctors on all aspects of the company. Angels? Doctors. All 40 of them. Board of Advisors? Doctors. All 222 of them.
From a VC perspective this tells me a couple of things. First, 462 practicing physicians think this is a good idea. Not bad. Secondly, unlike Jon's shock, I do think the CPM for that target can be pretty high. Let's face it medicine has just a slight twinge of commercialism to it and I personally believe the Drug companies, equipment companies, etc, will pay serious coin to get directly in front of this targeted audience.
I suspect there are several of these highly targeted opportunities out there with a reasonable economic model. It might not be "VC" grade (whatever that means) but the it should be a good business.
Rick,
First, thanks for the plug. For your information, you are correct regarding CPM rates being higher for this demographic, but ad serving rates are just the tip of the iceberg if we adequately serve physicians in a way we believe will enhance their lives. Last year, ad dollars spent on social networking sites, according to eMarketer, was $900M and will reach $2.5M by 2011. Marketing dollars spent by Pharma last year totalled $37.5B and only $1B of that was spent online. That $1B will reach $3B by 2010. Call me if you would like to talk further. (206)658-2408
Regards,
Cliff
Posted by: Cliff Chirls, President of iMedExchange | July 24, 2008 at 14:19
OT: What's the story on the Pheedo redirect link instead of a direct link to Burke's blog? Are you tracking outbound traffic from your blog or was that the original link you followed?
Not mad, just a curious marketer...
Kevin
Posted by: kcmarshall | July 24, 2008 at 17:13
Interesting. How much of that $1B spent online is targeted at doctors? I don't know too much about drug marketing, but it makes sense to differentiate between physicians and patients. For patients, typical web display ads are effective because they can entice patients to "ask their doctor about XYZ". I wonder how effective ads are for doctors. Don't pharmaceutical companies send them to "conferences" in the Caribbean somewhere to promote their products? :). Anyways, it seems like doctors like it and find it helpful. Good Luck!
Posted by: Robert | July 24, 2008 at 23:31
Kevin,
It was the link I saw the story on and just clipped it from my reader.
>R<
Posted by: Rick Segal | July 25, 2008 at 01:08
Yes, CPM on that target can be pretty high, but I still think that education CPM is still the highest. Education will continue to grow nowadays.
Posted by: Blue Thunder | July 27, 2008 at 09:08
Rick, did you mean to state "...246 practicing physicians think this is a good idea" as opposed to "426," as 40 angels + 222 advisors would equate to 246...
Posted by: Brandon | July 28, 2008 at 09:13
I'm curious about these numbers, 40 angels and 222 advisors... Isn't that a lot of people to deal with, and doesn't 222 people make a bit of a bloated board of advisors?
Not criticizing, but I would certainly like to understand how that works.
Posted by: Alex G | August 12, 2008 at 11:21