Digital marketing in the life sciences is often misunderstood and underutilized. Where do you devote your resources to maximize conversions? Should you incorporate a paid ad strategy, or double down on your organic performance (or both)? Does your website need a few optimizations, or a brand new look? These are questions we see often in [...]
Social media marketing is all about engaging with your audience. Being able to communicate directly with your audience is one of the biggest advantages of social media marketing. But it can be difficult to leverage the full power of social media without a serious, dedicated effort. This is where the Rule of Thirds comes in. [...]
Trust is the most important element of any relationship. Whether it's personal or professional, no partnership can exist without trust. And while the world of life science marketing may not be the most romantic field in the world, it's still crucial to establish and maintain trust with your audience. Sending positive trust signals can instill [...]
SEO problems can devastate your rankings and cause you to lose customers Many life science brands don't prioritize search engine optimization. Whether they're massive billion-dollar clinical research organizations or small, agile startups in their first year of business, one of the most common issues we've seen is the lack of knowledge about SEO. It's understandable. [...]
Online reputation management is a relatively new term for a decades-old approach to digital marketing. At its core, online reputation management is the purposeful monitoring, analyzing, and optimizing your digital reputation on the internet. This can apply to both individuals and brands. For example, a manager may perform an online search for a potential new [...]
All too often, we see brands who hesitate to dive into the world of video marketing. Whether they're unsure how to start, or skeptical about the benefits, it's clear that many life science companies are reluctant to commit to video initiatives. The truth is that video marketing and getting a press release jet service are [...]
Working remotely can spell trouble for your Google Analytics data. Flexjobs.com reports that there was a 159% increase in remote work between 2005 and 2017. Even before the Coronavirus pandemic of 2020, there had been a major upward trend in people working remotely in the US. While some employees have experience working from home, many [...]
When you’re undertaking a strategic marketing initiative, should you use your internal marketing team to handle the work, or should you hire an external marketing agency? This is an important question, as the results should last for years. This brief blog post will outline some of the factors to consider when making that choice. If [...]
Life science sales cycles can be long. For this and many other reasons (which I’ll summarize below), it is important that we nurture our prospects. While some life science organizations understand lead nurturing well, many don't understand the subtleties involved in creating a highly effective life science lead nurturing "ecosystem." In fact, there are eight distinct activities involved in life science lead nurturing. In this issue I'll describe each activity, and show how they all work together. It turns out that both lead nurturing and lead generation share many of the same activities, so I'll spend some time discussing both. If you're interested in understanding how lead nurturing works or how to improve your own lead nurturing activities, read this issue.
Image courtesy of jesadaphorn at FreeDigitalPhotos.net Did you play Go Fish growing up? It’s a great card game for kids because the rules are simple. The goal is to collect pairs of cards to lay down on the table. If you need an “8,” you ask for it, and the next player has [...]
"If you just want to read one book—and only one—to make your products or services more desirable, congratulations: you are holding it.” What began in 2008 as a monthly series of white papers extended into a full-length book. On the heels of its release last month, our CEO David Chapin will present “Learn How to Improve Your Life [...]
Todd Weeks has joined Forma Life Science Marketing as Director of Production. In addition to driving Forma’s operations and capabilities in marketing automation, analytics, and social media, Todd is responsible for managing workflow, project deliverables and budgeting. He has 20 years’ professional experience in team and project management, workflow development and training, and quality control, [...]
What role do social media play in your life science marketing mix? If you can’t shake the vision of Facebook and Twitter from your mind’s eye, read on. Many B2B companies – life science organizations among them – have created Facebook pages and tweeted a time or two and seen little value from their efforts. [...]
There is significant misunderstanding about how marketing works – that is, of the mechanism by which it affects people’s attitudes, beliefs and behaviors. In particular, many scientists believe that they are immune to marketing’s effects. But if scientists are immune to marketing’s effects, why do so many companies continue to spend significantly on marketing campaigns? The reason is simple: this supposed immunity is just a myth; marketing actually works. To understand how, let’s examine the marketing mechanism of action.
It’s a spin on the proverbial chicken-or-the-egg: Which comes first? Content or SEO? In a blog post this week on The Content Marketing Institute website, Jay Baer reiterates the value and true purpose of content. He calls it Youtility -- marketing that’s wanted by customers (as opposed to what marketers have traditionally provided: marketing we [...]
Inbound marketing, when done well, should result in a deeper relationship between your organization and your prospects, developing into a steady stream of well-qualified leads. In this issue, we attempt to strip away the hype surrounding inbound marketing and specify the approach needed for an effective inbound marketing effort in the life sciences. We’ll see how the various components of inbound marketing reinforce each other, interacting to drive effective results.
Marketing is getting more complex as buyers retreat into anonymity. To be effective, the Marketing function must shift from focusing on simple, outbound promotional activities to attracting prospects, and then converting them from visitors to leads to customers. Inbound marketing is more complex and is more synergistic than outbound marketing. For example, outbound marketing is designed to culminate in a single exchange of value, that is: products or services exchanged for money. Inbound marketing is designed to employ many small exchanges of value and this shift requires changing the way we think about marketing in the life sciences.
Inbound marketing, when done well, should result in a steady stream of well-qualified life science leads. In this issue, we begin our look at inbound marketing in the life sciences by considering the issue from the viewpoint of a prospect. What makes them consider you, rather than one of your competitors?
A seismic shift in marketing is happening right now. The Internet gives each and every company access to a stage with microphones on it. This is a tremendous advantage to small companies, because content marketing “levels the playing field” for these organizations. But unless these companies act quickly and begin to create compelling, unique content, [...]
The Council for Entrepreneurial Development (CED) is the southeast’s largest entrepreneurial support organization and based right next-door in the Research Triangle Park. Recently, I spent some time with CED's Jason H. Parker and he's chronicling our conversation in a series of posts on their Start Something Blog through the Winter Holidays. Check out his first [...]
It seems like everyone's talking about content marketing these days. Why? And what is it? The basic premise of content marketing is that, by readily and freely sharing information that an audience finds useful and relevant, they'll be encouraged to respond with trust by giving you the opportunity to engage in dialogue. All this enhances [...]
In the life sciences, particularly among CROs, poor differentiation is the cause of many common marketing ills. But once meaningful differentiation has been established, content marketing is the perfect vehicle to reach your target audience. David Chapin is taking this message and others to ExL Pharma's 4th Annual Business Development Strategies for Clinical Trials Service Providers Summit [...]
Social media provides numerous opportunities for life science companies to interact, engage and educate their audiences. With multiple platforms available, many companies don’t know where to start this process. Thus, many life science companies either avoid social media or spread themselves too thin trying to cover all of their media bases. Unfortunately, neither of these strategies will lead to successful content marketing and social media campaigns in the life sciences. A successful online marketing or content campaign must start with a thorough understanding of the audiences you are trying to reach.
In this issue, we continue our examination of social media in the life sciences. Improving exposure via social media can attract your target audiences and promote your marketing agenda. This month, we cover the techniques necessary for writing effectively for social media channels.
In this issue, we examine the hot topic of social media in the life sciences. While some sectors of the life sciences are slower to adopt social media as a tool for engagement than others, all sectors have opportunities to improve their social media marketing.
In this issue we continue our examination of the basics of SEO (search engine optimization) for life science and marketing companies. This issue will cover some of the important off-page factors in search engine optimization for life science and biotech marketing.
One of the first steps to tackling your social media strategy and ensuring success is a social media plan. Ask yourself these questions: Who will be responsible for monitoring our social media presence? How will we monitor our presence? Where are our audiences in the social media hemisphere? Who are our industry influencers? How do [...]
The biggest rule of social media is…there are no rules. Social media is a fluid process that is ever-evolving. The most important concept is to do what is best for your brand. Develop a strategy and stick to it. If your audience is not on Facebook, as is the case with many life science companies [...]
Many customers ask, how do we measure our ROI on our social media activities? This is a tough area, as social media is slow to yield a return. It can take months or more to build an effective social media campaign that yields positive results. But the most important rule of thumb here is don’t [...]
In this issue we’ll take a look at the basics of SEO (search engine optimization) for life science and marketing companies. This issue will cover some of the important on-page factors; we’ll cover off-page factors in a future issue.
In this issue we continue our examination of the ladder of marketing-based lead generation for life science, med-device and biotech companies. We pose questions that will help you get the most out of your ladder by optimizing your portfolio of lead-generating activities. We discuss how you can improve your lead generation by “climbing” the ladder over time.
Social media monitoring or listening in the life sciences can be an overwhelming and time consuming task due to the endless possibilities for user-generated content on the web and the urgency by which new information becomes available. With the help of new web-based tools, monitoring just got a little easier. These web-based tools, called social [...]
As I’ve discussed before, social media is the act of engaging your customers through interactive dialog. The key here is content. Think of social media applications as the vehicle and content as the driver. The vehicle is useless, and in some instances dangerous, unless there is a knowledgeable driver to operate it. Social media applications [...]
As I’ve discussed before, one third of your social media time should be spent listening or monitoring the web for relevant discussion and company or brand mentions. Content monitoring tools now make this seemingly overwhelming task easier and less time consuming. One of the best-known and widely used content monitoring tools is Google Alerts. As [...]
In this issue we examine in more depth the ladder of marketing-based lead generation for life science, med-device and biotech companies. We discuss the six uses for the ladder. We outline a process for creating your own ladder, and provide a link to a template you can customize for your own use. Next month we’ll finish our discussion on the ladder of lead generation by discussing some tactics you can use to improve your lead generating initiatives.
The ladder of lead generation is a useful tactical tool for understanding, assessing and managing lead-generation activities in life science, med-device and biotech companies. In this issue, we’ll take a closer look at the ladder of lead generation. We’ll review the foundation that is necessary for effective lead-generation initiatives and provide some specific suggestions for improving your lead-generating activities. Next month we’ll look at ways to use the ladder as a planning tool for creating your own lead generation initiatives.
When people responsible for sales and marketing in the biological sciences hear the words “lead generation,” an outbound call center is often the first thing that springs to mind. But outbound calling is just one way to generate leads. This article categorizes a wide variety of lead generation activities and puts these activities into context using “the ladder of lead generation.” By examining the different rungs on the ladder, we’ll compare the resulting quality of leads and the time to result, two important attributes to consider as you build your own lead generation initiatives. In the next issue, we’ll discuss how to craft an effective lead generating strategy.
The hype cycle of emerging technology implies that all new technologies pass through a “Peak of Inflated Expectations” on their way through a “Trough of Disillusionment,” eventually arriving at a “Plateau of Productivity.” See Gartner Research for a further understanding of this concept. I think Social Media in the B2B space is now at a [...]
Having worked in the life sciences for more than two decades, we have seen a number of marketing errors commonly made by life science companies. As a follow-up to last month’s article about strategic errors, this month we’ll discuss some widespread tactical errors and provide suggestions about how to both identify and address them.
Let’s be clear with our terminology. I’m speaking specifically about the need to differentiate between social media and content marketing. Social media is media, where media is defined as “the main means of communication.” Social media is the channel through which you spread the word. You need to spread the word, but you also need [...]