Avoid Cheap Catch Phrases
Carlton Hoyt
I just was on a life science tools company’s website (not a clients’, and the company will remain anonymous) and this company seemed to describe every one of their products as an “industry standard” in the first sentence. This pains me.
Scientists aren’t stupid. Catch phrases like “industry standard” or “market leader” are readily identifiable and dismissed by a generally intelligent and analytically-minded scientific audience. Such statements also don’t provide any of the information that customers are looking for. If your product really is an industry standard or is a market leader, don’t just state it and expect them to take your word for it. Explain it. Say “more researchers use X than any other product for [purpose]”. It’s a stronger, more definitive statement that at least looks like you’re attempting to provide meaningful information. Just stay away from the cheap catch phrases, especially if you can’t back them up.
Replacing Distributors
Carlton Hoyt
In this edition of our blog mini-series on life science distribution, we’ll be discussing the use of contractual terms to help motivate distributors. Previous posts were on improving the performance of existing distributors, distributor selection, and using contractual terms to improve distributor performance.
Replacing distributors is often a difficult task. Similar to firing an employee, it’s something we often don’t want to do, but circumstances arise when the business case is clear – the distributor must be replaced. On the other hand, things can go the other way as well and you may find the relationship being terminated by the distributor. While replacing a life science distributor can be a difficult process, there are certainly many things you can do, both before and during the process, to make it easier on both you and your business.
The time to start planning for the potential need to replace a distributor is before an agreement is ever made. Before contracts are signed, or even before you begin to approach distributors, you should develop a contingency plan. Know in advance that the relationship may not work out and that you’ll may be in the position of needing to replace the distributor some day. When determining what life science distributor(s) you want to partner with in any particular region, identify your top 3 or 4 choices, not just your #1. Know who they are and maybe even who to contact in your second and third choices so you can make contact and initiate negotiations quickly if need be. If you have a distribution contract, make sure that the terms won’t prevent you from effectively transitioning between distributors, either. If you’re providing a distributor with exclusivity, it’s a good idea to have the exclusivity automatically revoked if they fall well below target sales and / or if they remain below target sales for an extended period of time. Non-exclusive distribution agreements are the best thing for life science suppliers when replacing a distributor, as you can transition while your original distributor is still in place.
If the time comes when you feel like you may have to replace a distributor, critically analyze the situation. If the issue is sales-related, make sure that replacement really is the best option. Are there other ways to motivate the distributor to increase sales? Is the drop in sales temporary, due to a factor beyond the distributor’s control, and / or due to a reason that may be unknown to you? A good distributor-supplier relationship should be open and honest, so talk to your distributor to get a better idea of what the problem may be. Lastly, identify the other life science distributors who would potentially replace the one in question. Assess their capabilities and be sure that they have sufficient reach, are a good fit, and would likely pay sufficient attention to your product lines. Even through a distributor is under-performing, if there are no other distributors who would be a good fit or can match the capabilities of your current distributor, it is wholly possible that replacing the distributor may actually result in lower sales.
If the situation cannot be reasonably rectified and there are better options available, then it is indeed time to make the transition to a new life science distributor. If the distributor had exclusivity which is now revoked and you will be engaging a new distributor while the old distributor is still under a non-exclusive agreement, be straightforward with them. It will be far better if you tell them that they’re going to have competition than if they find out themselves. If you don’t have the benefit of being able to sustain a non-exclusive distributor relationship, try to engage another distributor far in advance. This will give the new distributor time to prepare to market, sell, and support your product lines so they will be better able to hit the ground running, so to speak. This can be done by signing a distribution agreement that takes effect at the same time the existing distributor’s contract expires.
We all enter supplier-distributor relationships hoping they work out, but unfortunately that can’t always be the case. With sufficient planning, however, you can minimize the disruption to your business caused by a transition to a new life science distributor.
Acquisition vs. R&D
Carlton Hoyt
There is a recent article in Genetic Engineering & Biotechnology News discussing large life science tool companies and how recent growth (and by “recent” I mean the past half decade or so) of these large companies can be largely ascribed to acquisition. David Green, the president of Harvard Bioscience, was quoted as saying that “The average organic growth in the life science instrumentation industry, with the exception of sequencing-based businesses, remains a modest 3â6%.” I can only presume he’s speaking about public companies, which are generally much larger than the average company and therefore more constrained in terms of their potential growth.
This, I argue, is not surprising at all. Larger companies are simply better suited to buy than develop. Given that various granting agencies (for example, the NIH) pump billions upon billions of dollars a year into life science research, wouldn’t it be expected that the more common option for large companies would be to eat up the newly formed companies that are so often a product of that investment?
Now this is not the case in all fields. The technology that moves forward some sectors of the life science tools market are far less frequently products of grant-funded research. In these sectors, R&D spending is necessary and there will often be fewer start-ups to acquire. Companies in these sectors may be limited to the number of viable acquisitions possible or reasonable and therefore must find ways to grow organically.
Regardless of the sector, this is good news for small life science companies founded on solid, promising IP that are looking to get bought out. It seems there are plenty of behemoths with deep pockets who are willing to throw plenty of money around for the right opportunity. However, for those who don’t have that killer technology, whose product portfolio doesn’t fit excellently into that of a much larger company, or who simply wish to remain independent, you have no option but to grow organically. That, my friends, is a topic for another day.
Why Are You Marketing?
Carlton Hoyt
One of the worst things that you can do in life science marketing is not fully understand why you’re marketing. In other words, each time you publish an advertisement, change content on your website, post an article on twitter, or do anything else related to marketing communications, it should have a purpose and you should know what that purpose is ahead of time. Your message and marketing content should then be designed to successfully fulfill that purpose.
The reason I’m bringing this up is because of the disjoint between intention and execution that I so often see in life science marketing. I’m certainly not one to say what other people are thinking, but it seems that a lot of marketers get caught up in trying to be creative and / or make the marketing materials look pretty, or simply don’t ask themselves the right questions when designing their marketing. Some of the disjoint may also be ascribed to a lack of understanding of scientist behavior (or consumer behavior in general). Marketers often simply fail to think about how the audience will think of something rather than how they want them to think or what they want them to do. They ask themselves “does this contain the message we want to convey?” and forget to ask if the message as its presented will actually be effective. Simply adding a call to action to a marketing message, while a good idea in most situations, neither gives it purpose nor ensures effectiveness.
You should be able to answer: why is this marketing going to be effective? If you don’t have a concrete answer for that question, then you either didn’t care enough (surprisingly common) or you didn’t ask yourself the right questions (more common). If that is the case, ask yourself some of the following questions then revisit any marketing communications in question:
- What is the ultimate goal of this marketing communication? What do we want the customer to do or think?
- What is the message that we are trying to convey? How do we know that is the right message given our target audience?
- What will the customer be doing when they our marketing message? How will that affect their behavior and perception of the message? Given those things, are they likely to be receptive to this message?
- Does this marketing material engage the customer? Will it be compelling to them?
This is a small sampling of potential questions that could be asked to help ensure the execution of your marketing communications are in line with your intentions and will actually be effective. If you find a problem area or have difficulty answering one of these questions, let that lead you deeper to more questions until you have a better understanding of how to match purpose with function and / or have a better understanding of your audience. Retaining the lessons learned from asking these questions will help both current and future marketing campaigns, and the improvement in effectiveness and ROI will be well worth it.
As a general rule we don’t do this, but given the breadth of this topic I wanted you to be able to access me personally with any questions you may have. If you want to ask a question and fill out the contact form below it will go to my inbox and you’ll get an answer straight from me.
Distributors & Contract Terms
Carlton Hoyt
In this edition of our blog mini-series on life science distribution, we’ll be discussing the use of contractual terms to help motivate distributors. Previous posts were on improving the performance of existing distributors and distributor selection.
Distributor relationships start from the moment you first make contact with them, and the things you do in the process of signing a life science distributor are almost as important as the things you do after they are signed. A well designed distribution agreement alone doesn’t ensure that the relationship will be successful, but a poorly designed contract can single-handedly ensure the distributor-supplier partnership fails. The terms of your agreement can go a long way in motivating your distributors to perform and greatly help your sales in the process.
The first thing you need to do is understand why a distributor wants to sell your products. By understanding what their motivation is you’ll be able to create ways to motivate them further. Is your product a great fit for the distributor’s current line? Do they think the product would be an easy sell to their existing customers? Is your product a new and promising technology that they appreciate and are excited about? Perhaps they lost the distribution rights to a similar product and want to fill the gap in their product offering? On the other hand, maybe their motivations aren’t as ingenuous. Do they just want to scoop up as many products under exclusive agreements as they can, or simply have a huge catalog of products? Do they have a customer or two that have expressed interest and simply want to sign as fast as possible to get a discount so they can make a quick profit? Even if you have actively sought out a potential distribution partner, don’t be afraid to ask why they would potentially be interested in selling your products. The answer is important.
By definition, everyone is in business to make a profit. Before discussing other contractual terms which may motivate a life science distribution company, we need to consider what financial terms would motivate the distributor while being appropriate and fair to all parties, potentially including your other distributors. Think about what both of your financial goals are and how you can motivate the distributor to reach them. For example, tiered discounts based on performance can be a great motivator. For example, basing discount in the following period off sales figures in a previous period, or increasing the discount as sales targets are hit within a period. A similar discount system can be based on the order volume, although I’m personally not as big of a fan of this system since while it encourages the distributors to keep inventory, I don’t believe it to be as good a motivator in achieving higher sales overall. There are many other methods of offering financial incentives for performance as well. Despite which financial incentives you choose, they need to be explicit and achievable in order to effectively motivate the distributor.
Financial incentives are certainly not the only type of contractual considerations you can use to help motivate your life science distributors. Perhaps the best example of a non-financial motivator is exclusivity. Knowing that they are the only distribution company in their territory that will be able to offer your products is a great boon to the company. They will often put far more effort into marketing and sales if they know that they won’t have competition. However, giving away such benefits freely is often too kind, not to mention shortsighted. Exclusivity tied to performance is an excellent motivator. Marketing assistance can likewise be added to a contract and tied to performance. Guaranteed technical support, or even just the assertion of responsibility for tier 2 and / or tier 3 support, can make your products more attractive for distributors to sell. Again, figuring out exactly what is important to your distributors will be instrumental in determining what the best terms may be. Don’t lay all your cards on the table, so to speak, but don’t hesitate to ask questions and inquire as to what a distributor values in the supplier-distributor relationship.
The right contractual terms can go a long way in helping to motivate a life science distributor. Know their motivations, understand what is important to them in the relationship, and use that to craft appropriate terms that effectively motivate the distributor, financial and otherwise. By using the right terms, you’ll be moving towards a mutually beneficial relationship with your new distributor. Even if you already have a mature and / or complete distribution network, it’s never too late to renegotiate the terms to better incite performance.
SMM Isn’t Free
Carlton Hoyt
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.
Using a Website to Engage
Douglas E. Rogers
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.
Biocompare Survey Results
Carlton Hoyt
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.
Distributor Selection
Carlton Hoyt
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.
Comment on Webinars
Carlton Hoyt
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.