Monthly Archives: June 2011

SMM Isn’t Free

Carlton Hoyt 5:41 am , June 30, 2011

There is a common misconception, and not just in life science but in many industries, that social media marketing is free. This misconception arises because the platforms that social media marketing occurs on are free to use. However, while the platforms are free, SMM is not free. SMM campaigns may be relatively inexpensive but they still need to be resourced appropriately.

There is, effectively, a minimum threshold of effort that must be crossed in order to effectively make use of social media as a marketing tool. It requires a certain amount of content and interaction to effectively engage the audience, and also requires a certain amount of personal management in order to maintain a “social” and personal feel (without which you’re largely defeating the purpose) and make sure the audience stays relevant. Both of these things require time.

Because of this minimum threshold of effort, social media marketing is not infinitely scalable as is, say, search engine marketing or most kinds of pay-per-click or pay-per-impression marketing. While it is true that what you get our of SMM is related to what you put into it, the relationship is not a direct one. Put in too little and you won’t get anything meaningful out of it. Put in too much and you may be well beyond inefficiency (although SMM effort are very rarely resourced to the point of that being a problem).

Social media marketing can be effective even when resourced at a very small percentage of most life science companies’ marketing budgets, but it does need to be resourced. Don’t take SMM for granted – create defined goals, build a strategy that will be effective in achieving those goals, and resource the effort appropriately to successfully execute that strategy. Only then will your life science company realize the benefits of social media marketing.

"Wondering how your company can leverage social media marketing to create and benefit from high-value customer interactions? Are you unsure how much effort your company should devote to social media, or even if social media marketing is right for you? Don’t get caught up in the hype or be dazed by buzzwords and novelty. BioBM Consulting can help you determine if you should utilize SMM, how you can most effectively utilize SMM, and create results that are quantifiable and analyzable. Call us today or use the form below to see how your company can leverage social media marketing to truly connect with your customers."

Using a Website to Engage

Douglas E. Rogers 1:21 pm , June 29, 2011

A website can be an exceptionally powerful tool. It is, in essence, a block of clay – massively flexible and limited only by your creativity. For life science companies this flexibility can and should be leveraged as a key component of your internet marketing. When a scientist or other potential customer is on your website you have their attention, at least when they first arrive. Don’t squander that opportunity. Engage the customer, impress them, and you’ll be far more likely to generate a lead or create a sale. But how can a life science company go about doing that? Well, there are a few things we have to do before you get there…

Step 1: Know why people are going to your website. I’ve said it before and it’s worth repeating: Make friends with Google Analytics. Knowing where people are entering from, what search terms they are using, and how they are navigating your website can greatly help figure out why people are going to your site.

Step 2: Lead them to the information they want. We talked about this in a similar context before, so feel free to read our post “From Site to Sale” for more info on that.

Step 3: Make that information engaging! Is your technology complex? Use some interactive flash or a well-illustrated animation to show consumers why your technology is superior. Would customers want to know how to use your product? Make a demonstration video. Don’t just state your advantages – show them. Nothing is worse than a run-on page of text or a lack of information. Remember: showing is always more powerful than telling.

By escaping the paradigm of only having text and images on your website and using engaging media in meaningful and appropriate ways, you can not only improve customer engagement but also present information in ways that make it easier to understand for customers. Combine that with navigation that directs customers to relevant information and leads them into the sales process, and you’ll have a website that is a genuine sales machine.

"Who wouldn’t want to drive more sales or inquiries from their website? The issue is always “how”? BioBM has the answers. If you want to send your conversions through the roof, contact us and we’ll show you how we can design a website that will drive revenues and provide a great, measurable ROI, or simply improve your current website to the same result. If you’re not sure where and how you can improve, feel free to request a free site review and we’ll help you identify areas for improvement and discuss potential remedies."

Biocompare Survey Results

Carlton Hoyt 4:44 pm , June 28, 2011

A little under two weeks ago, we held a survey to gather life science manufacturer’s opinions of Biocompare as an advertising platform. We didn’t get a ton of feedback, but we certainly provoked some good discussion on LinkedIn. As promised, here are the results of the survey:

The sentiment expressed in comments was fairly split. The most common sentiments indicated a general appreciation of the exposure that Biocompare offers but dissatisfaction with the difficulty in determining the ROI of their advertising dollars spent on Biocompare. Sentiments such as “by advertising on Biocompare we have a lot of exposure [but] the direct relation to ROI is low or difficult to measure in the long term.” were common. Others spoke favorably of Biocompare, saying “I think they do a really good job overall for brand development (like advertising)” or “My company has advertised on Biocompare and I believe the MarCom group felt the exposure was good.” Others suggested other areas for improvement such as “the banners are dominated by couple of vendors which makes my eyes tired of looking at the same ad” and “more country-specific advertising options would be great such as country-specific promotions, languages, etc.” There were no highly negative comments.

To view all of the comments from the survey, as well as some anonymized comments from LinkedIn, click here.

Blog / Digital Marketing 4:44 pm , June 28, 2011

Escaping the Bench part 3

biobm 11:22 am , June 27, 2011

The third and final part in BioBM Principal Consultant Carlton Hoyt’s editorial on graduate students and post-docs moving outside science titled “A Flood of Life Scientists: The Practical Guide to Escaping the Crowd by Escaping the Bench” has been posted on PostDocsForum today. The editorial, which is broken up into multiple parts, frames the issue of the relative lack of quality life science jobs compared to the number of trainees then goes on to explain ways to build and execute a strategy for moving away from bench science. This final part focuses on gaining the relevant skills that scientists will need to transition into their new career path while still in their current roles. You can read the post in its entirety on PostDocsForum.

The first two part of the editorial series can be found here: Part 1 Part 2.

News 11:22 am , June 27, 2011

Distributor Selection

Carlton Hoyt 5:30 pm , June 23, 2011

Maximizing distributor performance allows bioscience companies to efficiently grow revenues. As promised in our post two weeks ago on improving distributor performance, we wanted to provide some information on life science distributor selection. After all, part of getting the best performance from your distributors is selecting the right ones in the first place.

Geographic Fit

The first and most obvious thing that gets considered when selecting a distributor is geographic fit and territory coverage. Just because a distributor serves a whole country or region doesn’t mean that they have good coverage of the territory. For example, some distributors perform inside sales to the entire territory but only have outside reps for some of the territory. Many times there is a trade-off between coverage and specialization and / or coverage and focus. The companies with more complete coverage, more reps, a greater reach, and a more powerful brand are often the largest companies which almost always have very large and broad product offerings. A company like VWR has hundreds of reps globally, but are those reps really going to be thinking about selling your product line, or will it just get lost in a sea of life science equipment and consumables? Also, remember that distributor territories don’t have to be synonymous with “countries” – you can have more than one distributor in a country and still maintain exclusivity, you just need to subdivide the country into smaller territories. Companies approaching large countries like China or the United States seem to forget this and instead get caught up in an often non-ideal situation of having one company be the sole representation for a large country.

Product Fit

So you know your territory, but do you know who has the capability to sell your product within that territory? For more technical products, you may need a distributor who has the experience and educational credentials to effectively sell such equipment – especially if you don’t have an office in roughly the same time zone to provide on-demand sales support. Will your equipment require demonstrations or installations? Better choose a distributor with a solid outside sales force, or at least one who is willing to travel to get the job done. You’re also likely to be faced with a choice of working with distributors who sell competing products and therefore are familiar with your market and applications and may have a reputation for selling products like yours, or working with a distributor with no competing products and therefore only has your products to offer as a solution. There is no simple answer for this – it needs to be determined on a case-by-case basis.

Other Considerations

Are certain products generating most of their revenues? If so, which ones? They may offer a wider variety of products than they actually sell. If they have a few key products that generate most of their revenues, they may be hesitant to divert effort into selling other products. Be sure that your product line doesn’t become a “me too” in their offering.
Does this distributor really want to sell your products? This may be the most important question, and the answer can be based on many factors including all those which we have already discussed. Even if a distributor seems like a great fit, if they’re not motivated to sell your products, they are likely to perform well below expectations. If a distributor is willing to take on your line but isn’t motivated to sell your products, should you work with them anyway? The easy answer is “no”, but this ignores one key question: could you make them motivated? There are tactics, including contractual terms and distributor management techniques, to do so.
Would there be a significant imbalance of power in the relationship? I always hesitate to recommend a much larger and more powerful distributor to my clients unless they are very motivated to sell their line and show it in the terms of the distribution agreement or they have a close contact in a relevant position at the larger company. If there is an imbalance, chances are that they’ll feel free asking you to give and give, but won’t feel obliged to return any favors.
Do you even need to work through a distributor? Could a partnership with another manufacturer, probably one selling complimentary products, serve you even better?

Regardless of the topic at hand or the region in question, there are good distributors and bad distributors. Some distributors will embellish their capabilities and you have to do your homework to make sure that they have the capabilities they state and that they’ll fulfill their promises. Don’t hesitate to ask to speak to a potential distributor contacts at other suppliers, or even reach out to other suppliers on your own in order to get feedback on their performance and / or validate their claims.

If you life science company sells through distributors, the performance of those distributors will be a large part of the success or failure of your company. By identifying and forming relationships with distributors who have the necessary capabilities and are committed to a mutually beneficial relationship, you’ll be well on your way to growing your international sales.

"Are your distributors performing the the level that they should be? Do you have holes in your distribution network and need them filled to grow your sales? You don’t have to pull your hair out over the details of distributor selection. BioBM Consulting offers life science companies like yours business development services which identify and connect you with distributors who are most likely to help lead your company to international success. BioBM also provides distributor management solutions which will help maintain great relationships with your best distributors and grow the performance of the others by implementing best practices. Don’t let a mediocre distribution network stunt your company’s growth. Contact BioBM Consulting and let us help your company thrive globally through optimized distribution."

Comment on Webinars

Carlton Hoyt 6:33 pm , June 22, 2011

I saw a post on one of the LinkedIn groups I’m a member of for a webinar that was of interest to me. Long story short: it was terrible. So you don’t make the same mistakes that this company did when you’re creating life science webinars, I thought I’d share a quick tip.

Remember that a webinar (or an in-person seminar for that matter) is a form of content marketing. The lure is the promise of information that is valuable to the user. In order for your webinar to be a success, you must deliver on that promise. The content that you provide needs to address the reason that people are attending your webinar – the topic of the webinar in the first place. If your title and abstract don’t match the presentation, you’re going to hurt your reputation, not help your marketing effort.

Also, you need to balance the amount of content with the marketing message as is appropriate for your webinar. It is possible to have a webinar strictly about a product or service, and there’s nothing wrong with that and such webinars can have value to individuals who are seeking more information about such products and services, but if that is going to be the focal point you need to be up front about it. If you’re creating a webinar on “best practices in high-throughput nucleic acid purification”, for example, attendees are going to expect to learn something of value about high-throughput nucleic acid purification. If you make too much of a marketing pitch and don’t provide enough valuable information on the topic, you’re going to hurt your reputation, not help your marketing effort.

Life science webinars can be useful tools to gather an audience and positively project your brand image and services, but you have to do it correctly. Align the webinar with the desires of the audience to create value and you’ll find success.

"Want to create high-impact webinars? Not satisfied with the quality of your marketing efforts or marketing materials? BioBM Consulting creates high-impact life science marketing campaigns for life science clients that drive sales and improve ROI. To start attracting and influencing more potential customers, call us today. We’re life scientists just like your customers, and boy do we love marketing."

Blog / Content Marketing 6:33 pm , June 22, 2011

Expansion of Services

biobm 12:45 pm , June 22, 2011

BioBM Consulting has announced the latest expansion of its life science business and marketing services with new distribution management and online reputation monitoring services.

Distribution management services are available as a consulting or outsourced solution and are aimed to improve global life science distributor performance by improving communication, distributor motivation, training, and support through implementation of best practices in distribution management. Online reputation monitoring services allowing a company to efficiently and inexpensively guard its reputation through alerts and tracking of online sentiment via active monitoring by BioBM’s Internet Services division.

Principal Consultant Carlton Hoyt gave the following statement to commemorate the additional services:

Statement from Principal Consultant Carlton Hoyt

The new distribution management and online reputation monitoring leverage BioBM’s existing skills and capabilities to further expand our service offerings to clients. By taking advantage of existing competencies, these valuable services will be able to executed efficiently and as such we will be able to offer them at relatively low costs to both new and existing clients.

BioBM Consulting maintains a strong focus on providing a broad portfolio of business and marketing services, delivered at low costs, to create unmatched value for our clients. Our distribution management and online reputation monitoring services strengthen that focus, and we remain committed to developing new service and consulting offerings that create high value opportunities for life science products manufacturers.

Both services are currently offered. To learn more about our distribution management services, please view our business services page. To learn more about our online reputation monitoring services, please view our internet services page.

News 12:45 pm , June 22, 2011

Escaping the Bench part 2

biobm 1:38 pm , June 20, 2011

BioBM Principal Consultant Carlton Hoyt has written an editorial for PostDocsForum on graduate students and post-docs moving outside science titled “A Flood of Life Scientists: The Practical Guide to Escaping the Crowd by Escaping the Bench”. The editorial, which is broken up into multiple parts, frames the issue of the relative lack of quality life science jobs compared to the number of trainees then goes on to explain ways to build and execute a strategy for moving away from bench science. The second part in the series has been posted today and you can read it in its entirely on PostDocsForum. This post focuses on figuring out if you will be successful as a scientist and how to choose an alternate but related career as well as determine what skills you will need in your new career path.

The first post, which frames the problem of there being too many aspiring life science PhDs and post-docs and the need for self-driven career mobility and professional development, can be found here.

The third part will be posted next week. We’ll let you know when it is.

News 1:38 pm , June 20, 2011

Opinions of Biocompare

Carlton Hoyt 12:38 pm , June 16, 2011

There was a bit of a heated discussion going on in one of the LinkedIn groups that I’m a part of where people, including a Biocompare founder, were debating the value of Biocompare as a life science marketing platform. For the moment, I’ll hold back the opinions that were expressed in those posts as well as my own and those I’ve heard from others. What I think is valuable to know is what the life science products community as a whole thinks about Biocompare. To that end, I’ve created this quick, 3-question survey. I encourage you to share your thoughts anonymously, and the results will be shared on BioBM.com.

I have also enabled comments below, so feel free to add your thoughts if you would like to air them out publicly!

Take the Biocompare survey

Blog / Digital Marketing 12:38 pm , June 16, 2011

Supreme Court: Bayh-Dole Act

Carlton Hoyt 10:35 pm , June 13, 2011

Maximizing distributor performance allows bioscience companies to efficiently grow revenues. Last week, the Supreme Court ruled in the case of Stanford vs. Roche Molecular Systems, which has implications for academic inventors who receive federal funding for their research. Stanford was suing Roche Molecular Systems, claiming saying RMS did not have the rights to a patent which described a test to quantify the HIV load in a patient’s blood, which is now commonly used. RMS had bought the rights from Cetus Corporation, a private company at which a Stanford fellow, Dr. Mark Holodniy, had been assigned by Stanford to conduct research and at which Dr. Holodniy had invented the HIV load test in question.

In their prosecution, Stanford used the Bayh-Dole Act to argue that the intellectual property was rightfully theirs. For those who may be unfamiliar with the act, the Bayh-Dole Act (also known as the Patent and Trademark Law Amendments Act) granted universities, non-profit institutions, and small businesses within the United States the rights to intellectual property resulting from U.S. government-funded research. In defense, Roche Molecular Systems argued a simple point of wording. Dr. Holodniy’s contract with Stanford stated that “I agree to assign” intellectual property resulting from his fellowship at Stanford to the university, while his contract from Cetus stated that “I will assign and do hereby assign” such IP.

Despite that the Bayh-Dole Act states (albeit extremely verbosely) that rights to government-funded inventions lie first with the funded firm, then with the United States government, and lastly with the individual inventor, the Supreme Court ruled 7-2 that Cetus indeed rightfully owned the IP that they sold to Roche Molecular Systems. Chief Justice John Roberts wrote for the majority that the Bayh-Dole act does not automatically strip employees of the rights to intellectual property and because of the weak wording of Stanford’s contract (saying “will assign” instead of “do assign”) that Stanford never actually held the rights to Dr. Holodniy’s invention in the first place. You can read the full case syllabus and opinions in this pdf on supremecourt.gov.

What is of significance here is that Justice Roberts affirmed in the court opinion “the general rule that rights in an invention belong to the inventor”. This would indicate that companies, universities, and other institutions may need to have a very clear and explicit agreement that the individuals turn over their intellectual property to their institutions or else the individual may actually retain the rights, especially when the work is federally funded.

Disclaimer

BioBM Consulting is not a law firm and does not provide legal advice. If you have any questions regarding the law, please refer them to an appropriate licensed legal professional. For questions related to patent law, especially as it pertains to life science or biomedical patents, we highly recommend Gordin IP.

"Are you a life science inventor and have a great idea that you would like to commercialize? BioBM may be able to help you. Our inventor services allow scientist-inventors to inexpensively commercialize and profit from their inventions. We can guide you through all the necessary steps to sell, licence, or build a company around your intellectual property. Feel free to contact us and confidentially discuss your idea and desires."

Blog 10:35 pm , June 13, 2011