Tremendous-powered product launch catapults Evolus to #3 market share, saves $1 million

In 2019, Evolus (NASDAQ: EOLS) was ready to launch a direct competitor to Botox called Jeuveau. Botox commanded 70% market share and significant brand recognition. A new competitor hadn’t entered the neurotoxin market in a decade. The Evolus team needed a creative launch strategy to win over physicians and patients alike.

With this in mind, Evolus developed a first-of-its-kind cash incentive for patients. They partnered with Tremendous to distribute over $20 million to 180,000 patients across the country in just eight months.

Challenge

Evolus faced an uphill battle in launching Jeuveau.

• Traditionally, aesthetics companies use purchase-based promotions (e.g. buy three treatments and get 50% off the 4th treatment) or loyalty programs to generate sales.
• As a new player in the market, Jeuveau hadn’t yet built the brand awareness or customer loyalty needed to execute such promotions effectively.
• Evolus needed a strategy to convince both healthcare providers to stock Jeuveau and consumers to choose the product over established competitors.
  

Solution

Evolus took a two-pronged approach:

1. They would market Jeuveau to clinicians by pricing it less than Botox.
2. Evolus appealed to patients with a cash incentive. Those who opted for Jeuveau received a digital $75 Visa prepaid card.  

The team wanted to send the incentive directly to patients. And they wanted to use the Evolus mobile app to brand, track, and deliver it.

Pharmaceutical marketing agencies quoted roughly $1 million to run and administer the campaign. Balking at the cost and faced with a tight timeline, Evolus turned to Tremendous.

Evolus and Tremendous built a custom solution within weeks. Using the Tremendous API, Visa prepaid cards would be seamlessly delivered in the Evolus mobile app.

• Evolus marketed this promotion directly to consumers, primarily through social media.
• Patients booked and managed their appointment in the Evolus app.
• Upon checking into the clinic, the Tremendous API generates a $75 Visa digital gift card.
• Patients could instantly redeem the gift card and use it towards the procedure itself, or keep it to use elsewhere.

And instead of paying $1 million in unnecessary agency costs, Tremendous enabled Evolus to buy the Visa cards at face value (read: for free!).

“We landed with Tremendous because of their technical flexibility, robust API, and willingness of their leadership team to understand and customize their software to our unique use case,” said Ben Hahr, Evolus’ then-director of product management.

Results

Captured #3 market share position 6 months post-launch

The marketing campaign was immediately successful:

• Thousands of physician offices signed up and purchased Jeuveau.
• Within six months of the launch, Jeuveau catapulted to the #3 market share position.
• In total, Tremendous processed more than 180,000 Visa cards for Evolus patients across the United States over the course of the eight-month campaign.

“We expect Jeuveau to be one of the top five aesthetic product launches on a revenue basis,” Evolus President and CEO David Moatazed said in an ivestor update.

Deeper insight into procedure usage and clinic sales

Pharmaceutical manufacturers traditionally had low visibility into product usage. They could track product sales to clinics, but they didn’t know how often the product was actually used.

With Tremendous, Evolus gained deeper insight into post-sale activities.

• The Tremendous incentive was delivered once the patient checked into the clinic. Thus the number of Visa cards sent is a proxy for the number of Jeuveau procedures completed.
• Evolus was able to analyze this data and send sales reps to physicians interested in administering Jeuveau.

That led to other benefits at the clinic level:

• Higher total sales
• Larger bulk purchases, and
• Reductions in trial periods for Jeuveau.