Forma Life Science Marketing Blog  filter by author: David Chapin

Marketing Checklist: Ask the Right People

I’ve been thinking about life science marketing checklists and wondering: What items are so important from a marketing perspective that they should appear on a checklist?

One item that would be on my marketing checklist is this:

•    Ask your actual prospects and your customers for their opinions.

Marketing Checklist: Thought Leadership

Marketing Checklist: Understand Your Competitors

I’ve been thinking about life science marketing checklists (see my post on 8/13) and wondering: What items are so important from a marketing perspective that they should appear on a checklist?

One item that would be on my marketing checklist is this:

• Keep track of your competitors on a periodic basis.

Marketing Checklist: Segment Your Audience

What's on YOUR Marketing Checklist?

Checklists are incredibly useful and a couple of recent books make a strong case for checklists in healthcare. In Safe Patients, Smart Hospitals: How One Doctor's Checklist Can Help Us Change Health Care from the Inside Out, authors Peter Pronovost and Eric Vohr discuss how a simple checklist helped reduce infection rates at Johns Hopkins to virtually zero for a specific procedure. And in The Checklist Manifesto: How to Get Things Right, Atul Gawande shows how checklists are helping in all kinds of situations.

The Need for Content in the Life Sciences

Distinguishing Social Media from Content Marketing

Interruption Marketing is Dying

Clear Terminology: Social Media and Content Marketing in the Life Sciences

Treat the Cause, Not the Symptoms.

Why it is Important to Have a Strong Point of View!

The Marketing Mechanism of Action

Benchmarks for Marketing Performance

There aren’t a lot of benchmarks in life science marketing.

For example, no one (that I know of) has researched the average bounce rate for (to pick just one business sector in the life sciences) all formulation companies by measuring the statistics for all the home pages in that one sector. Or measured the conversion rate for signing people up for webinars on PEGylation from competing companies.

Why Consistency is Important in Marketing

Why Market Research is Like a Clinical Trial

Why is it so hard to diagnose your own marketing ills?

To judge from all the poorly positioned marketing in the life sciences, it must be very hard to diagnose your own marketing ills. Otherwise firms would fix what is so obviously wrong.

It is hard to diagnose yourself. It can be dangerous too. In fact, they won’t let doctors do it, because the stakes can be so high – life and death. The impacts of marketing are serious too: success or failure of the business.

When Free Isn’t Free: Thought Leadership and Thought Extortion

There are times when free isn’t free.

What is the Relationship Between Thought Leadership and the Psychology of Persuasion?

The basic premise of content marketing is that giving away information that an audience finds useful and relevant will encourage them to respond with trust and give you the opportunity to engage them in dialog.

But why does giving away thought leadership influence people? Social science has some answers. One of the pioneers in this field is Robert Cialdini, who has written extensively on the psychology of persuasion.

Failing Fast

Warm Coffee and Bright Smiles: We Have the Best Service!!!

Thought Leadership

What makes a thought leader a thought leader? There are many answers to this question, but in the end, it boils down to just a few things:

Thought leaders are trusted if they 1) know more than you do (this knowledge is frequently the result of intense or deliberate study), 2) they can explain what they know in ways that are relevant and compelling, 3) they are recognized by respected authorities or by the audience as a thought leader and 4) they are visible and influential in their field (through speaking, publishing, etc).

A Difficult Test

Here is an interesting test; one on which most life science companies won’t perform very well.

Gather all your branded marketing material in one room. This includes everything, your printed material, online material, ads, blog posts, pictures of your trade show booth, direct mail, email blasts, white papers, etc.

Then read it, all of it. You might think this tedious, but aren’t you producing this material with the expectation that your prospects will be reading it? Go ahead, sit and read. Pay attention; make notes.

The Value of the Diagnostic Process is the Same in Marketing and Medicine

When you go to a doctor, the most important thing that happens is the first thing: the diagnostic process. Questions get asked, your patient history gets taken, tests are run and results are examined.

Only then can the treatment begin, because only then does your team of medical specialists know enough to recommend and implement the right treatment.

Referrals in the Life Science Sector

When we ask clients how they get new business, some life science firms respond: “We get most of our customers from word of mouth and referrals.”

The implication is: “We are getting high quality clients and saving money on sales costs; isn’t that great?”

Authentic Complexity

A Key Diagnostic Question for Life Science Brands

When diagnosing your own marketing ills, it is hard to know how to differentiate the urgent symptoms from the important ones, and the important ones from the unimportant ones.  

Even trained professionals, like doctors, don’t diagnose themselves. Yet, everyone believes it is OK to diagnose themselves for marketing issues.

The Demise of the Blockbuster Model in the Life Sciences

Ensuring Repeat Business in Life Science Companies

Repeat business is a key to many life science companies’ success.

When people are thinking about buying again, what controls their decision? One factor is this: Was the experience enjoyable enough to repeat? But this brings up another question: What exactly do you remember about your experiences, and how does this color your decisions about repeating this experience in the future?

The Basic Steps of Marketing

Who Can You Trust in Life Science Marketing?

A Telescope is Better than a Magnifying Glass when Diagnosing Marketing Ills

What is Compelling?

To Lower Health Care Costs, Ban DTC

When Tighter Regulatory Scrutiny Leads to Better Lifescience Marketing, Something is Seriously Wrong

What are the Goals of Marketing?

Who Should be in Charge of Your Positioning?

If you don’t have a clear positioning for your bioscience company, your services or your products, the following people will be very happy to develop one for you, free of charge:

Your customers,

Your prospects,

Your competitors,

The media,

Your mom.

Complex Science Doesn’t Make You Special

Genetic Engineering of Your Firm’s Marketing DNA

One Word You Should Never Use in Your Life Science Marketing

We Couldn’t Have Said It Better…

The Importance of Hierarchy in Marketing Life Science Products and Services

Why You Shop vs Why You Buy

When Should You Ignore Your Competitors?

In discussions with a bioscience client the other day, we noted that many firms in the life science service sector are concerned about a very narrow aspect of their competitors’ marketing: the feature list.

“If ‘those guys’ have a list on their web site, we better have a list too.”

Envisioning an Understandable Future, by Looking at a Confusing Past

The Evolution of Complexity Demands an Evolution in Clarity

Is DTC Worth the Trouble?

The Origin of Branding in the Life Sciences

Two Trends in Web Sites for Life Science Companies

Hype Cycle

A Periodic Table of Visual Communication, a Reference Tool for Life Science Marketers

Predicting the Future in the Life Sciences

Google Sidewiki and Life Science Marketing

The Need for Clarity in Marketing