Reports

August 2011 (updated June 2024) | 13 Pages

Appropriate for start-ups or small companies with highly limited marketing budgets, this primer discusses low-cost, high-ROI marketing for small life science tools companies. The report focuses primarily on the execution of marketing campaigns in ways that minimize cost while maximizing returns in order to create revenue growth on a strictly limited budget. After mentioning strategic areas that should be addressed before executing marketing campaigns, it delves into various highly scalable marketing channels. The paper goes on to discuss which channels are most appropriate and why, considerations for each method, how to build and integrate your marketing channels to capture leads and sales, and finally discusses the costs involved in using the marketing channels discussed. The paper is supported by data and references from reputable external sources.

November 2015 | 16 Pages

Hyper-niche segments of customers are becoming ever more readily reachable. There are an incredible amount of channels and tools at our disposal to reach any particular target audience, so is it really necessary that life science companies spend their precious marketing and sales resources creating conference exhibits, flying staff around the world, and paying conferences for exhibition booths?

The costs are huge. Previous studies have found that B2B companies spend 20% of their marketing budgets on conferences. At the same time, conferences are ranked very highly for both generating leads and driving awareness and are also broadly viewed to be effective. Considering that lead generation is consistently ranked as the top marketing challenge perhaps conferences are still worth the cost after all.

Are conferences really still worth it? Are we over-investing in them at the expense of higher-ROI opportunities? Or perhaps they’re so effective that we almost can’t spend enough. With input from over 50 life science marketing professionals, these are the questions this study answers.

May 2014 | 4 Pages

Entrenched competition can be dug out. Beyond developing superior products, which is largely outside the scope of the marketer, there is one area where newcomers have a potentially sizable advantage over larger, established competition: customer experience. Through the provision of superior customer experiences, market entrants can build brand value at a superior rate to established companies, skewing the odds in their favor by realizing higher rates of customer acquisition and retention. This paper discusses how to create and execute strategies that focus on customer experience so YOU can create superior value for your brand and outpace your competition as well.

February 2014 | 6 Pages

The way in which purchasing decisions are being made in the life sciences is being fundamentally and irreversibly changed by an overwhelming and ever-increasing amount of choices and information. This is leading to an increase in decision paralysis and decreasing satisfaction with the ultimate selection. To date, an incredibly small fraction of life science companies have done anything to address the problem. This paper introduces the concept of decision engines – tools which are designed to streamline and simplify decisions by allowing a user to effectively select from a wide number of options as easily as they would select from a handful. We discuss how decision engines are already creating disruptive change in other industries, when decision engines are useful and their conditions for success, the process of designing decision engines, and opportunities for decision engines to be deployed within the life science tools and services sector. The paper contains numerous references to original scientific literature and other highly reputable sources in support of the ideas discussed.

May 2013 | 9 Pages

Research which we conducted in 2011 found that almost all scientists considering a purchase perform an internet search to find information at some point in their buying journey, and many of those use search as their first source of information. With so many scientists turning to search engines for product and service information, it is undeniably important for companies to be visible to those scientist-searchers. Search engine optimization (SEO), however, remains a mysterious topic to many life science marketers. While there are many aspects of SEO that should be reserved for experts, there are a number of things that every life science marketer should know about SEO such that they can readily improve search engine rankings through optimized web content. We discuss 9 things that we believe every life science marketer should know. Additionally, at the end of this paper is bonus content on how smaller or younger companies can compete with the big guys and achieve breakthrough SEO results. This goes beyond the more commonly understood on-site SEO into off-site SEO, which is a topic that should not be taken lightly but can provide results far beyond what would otherwise be possible.

March 2013 | 15 Pages

In this paper, we discuss many elements of marketing strategy for life science start-ups or for existing companies developing new product lines or services. Rather than being comprehensive we focus on areas that are most commonly problematic for small companies. We provide practical, do-it-yourself guidance that will help small life science tools and services companies better develop and implement marketing strategies.

August 2012 | 9 Pages

Online communities can be a powerful tool for life science marketers. Branded communities around a particular field can build or strengthen a company’s reputation as a leader within that field. However, building a community that is ultimately successful is a difficult task. In this paper, we discuss 10 key questions that life science tools companies should answer prior to undertaking the formation of an online community and also provide 5 powerful rules that companies should follow when building and managing such communities. Life science marketers who answer these questions and follow these rules will greatly increase their chances of building a thriving online community that creates value for both the users and their company.

May 2012 | 6 Pages

Life science marketing is traditionally geared towards pitching solutions or features and benefits to scientists. Even when these methods are properly targeted, however, they are ineffective to a vast amount of the target market. In this paper, we discuss why the traditional view of the buying cycle has life science marketers locked in an unproductive paradigm and present an amended view of the life science buying cycle that is more holistic. We then provide advise for undertaking marketing tactics that will leverage this new vision of the life science buying cycle to more effectively communicate with more of your target market, help build a stronger brand, and achieve long-term revenue growth.

November 2011 | 11 Pages

Distribution is critical to the success of many life science tools manufacturers. BioBM Consulting surveyed 47 manufacturers and 35 distributors of life science tools in order to gauge current opinions on life science distribution relationships. Key questions we set out to answer include:

• What are the most important factors in the success of manufacturer-distributor relationships?
• How do life science manufacturers and distributors view each other?
• How can life science distribution relationships be improved?
• What are common reasons for failure in life science distribution partnerships?

The results of this survey, which was performed in October 2011, provides independent insights into those questions from a wide range of industry participants and also presents some suggestions on how to improve distribution partnerships.