logo

Tag : decision simplicity

New Paper on Decision Engines

biobm 7:11 pm , February 24, 2014

BioBM Consulting has published a new paper which outlines the current problems facing scientists when attempting to make a purchasing decision, the negative impacts this is having on scientists, and how decision engines can be leveraged to create transformational change within life science markets. “How Decision Engines Will Reshape the Life Science Buying Journey” explains why information has become the enemy of purchasers and suppliers alike, explains what decision engines are and how they are already creating disruptive change in other markets, and outlines a general framework for creating decision engines.

All with all BioBM papers, “How Decision Engines Will Reshape the Life Science Buying Journey” is available free of charge to all those in the life science tools & services industry. To learn more about the new report, to preview it, or to request a copy, please visit: https://biobm.com/idea-farm/reports-papers/

News 7:11 pm , February 24, 2014

Adapt to Your Customers

Carlton Hoyt 7:51 am , September 6, 2012

Adapt your life science marketing to the customers.It’s no secret that traditional approaches to life science marketing are becoming less effective. Customer behavior is changing, and returns on advertising dollars are being hit hard. A recent Harvard Business Review article reaffirmed this point, stating:

[…] buyers are no longer paying much attention. Several studies have confirmed that in the “buyer’s decision journey,” traditional marketing communications just aren’t relevant. Buyers are checking out product and service information in their own way, often through the Internet, and often from sources outside the firm such as word-of-mouth or customer reviews.

The days of trying to tell your customers what to buy and why they should buy it are long gone. Replacing that paradigm must be one that respects the scientists’ freedom in their quest for information. Life science marketers must position themselves within the customers buying paths, not try to dictate the paths themselves. We must let the scientists make their own purchasing decisions and act as a courier rather than a candidate. However, in order to be an effective courier, your brand must be trusted by the customers.

How does a brand go about building trust? By providing value. For the purposes of this discussion we can segregate value into two categories: product-related value and product-unrelated value. Note that by related we don’t mean “having anything to do with” but rather “intrinsically linked to”. In this sense, product related value is something that by definition requires affiliation with the product. Examples could include technical or customer support, benefits realized by use of the product itself, or any communication of those benefits. Product-unrelated value is anything that can be completely removed from the context of your product while having its value to the scientist undiminished.

Product related value is somewhat of a catch-22. Unless a scientist has used your product or heard good things through word of mouth, there’s not much you as a marketer can do to build solid product-related value prior to a customer’s interaction with your company (and it’s difficult to get a customer to interact with your company prior to the building value for them). That leaves product-unrelated value.

How can we, as marketers of life science tools, provide value to scientists outside of manufacturing and delivering valuable life science tools? The answer is simple (even if the execution isn’t): look outside your core business. You may be a manufacturer or a service provider, but you need to find ways to deliver unique value that don’t intrinsically depend on your product or service. The most common way of doing so is by providing information and expertise (either novel or curated).

One of my favorite examples of delivering product-unrelated value is, ironically, within a product catalog. However, I’ve found it to be one of the most common product catalogs in life science laboratories specifically because of the product-unrelated value within it. It is the New England Biolabs “Catalog & Technical Reference”. Many molecular biologists keep this catalog – a CATALOG! – close at hand because of its very useful technical reference section with, as they put it, “up-to-date technical charts, protocols and troubleshooting tips to aid experimental design.” That technical reference acts as the courier and delivers their products alongside it. It makes the molecular biologists decision simple: New England Biolabs knows their stuff – after all, look at all these useful protocols and troubleshooting guides – so it’s reasonable to presume that they make quality products.

The combination of a leadership brand position and a courier / decision simplicity marketing style, along with quality products to back it up, is an incredibly powerful combination. The creation of such a combination by life science marketers will allow them to capture market share and, ultimately, dominate their segment.

"Finding ways to create and deliver product-unrelated value in order to build trust and brand leadership can be a very difficult task. Luckily, you have the experts at BioBM here to help you. Our life science marketing consultants help define truly unique strategies that deliver value in ways that differentiate you from your competition. Looking to take the next step in building your business? Talk to us. We’ll explain our process, learn about your situation, and guide you towards increasing market share."
Blog / Branding / Content Marketing / Demand Generation 7:51 am , September 6, 2012

Creating Balance in Marketing

Carlton Hoyt 12:20 pm , June 12, 2012

Creating Balance in Life Science MarketingLife science marketing requires a degree of balance between two opposing factors: information (content) and simplicity. On one hand, life science marketers want the scientist-customer to be able to access all of the information that they may need or want in order to make a purchasing decision. On the other hand, marketers and salespeople want to efficiently guide the customer to the point of making a purchasing decision, and want to create simplicity such that the customer is efficient in his or her own decision making. These needs are often in opposition: providing more information than any particular scientist wants can complicate the purchasing decision, lengthening the sales cycle and creating “stress points” in the campaign where scientists may lose interest, while oversimplifying their decision-making process may leave scientists without enough information and feeling as if they are being forced into a decision.

So how do we balance these two opposing forces? It is not simple. Any given scientist-customer may have different information demands. A single marketing flow will provide poor results in life science tools sectors where such demands may significantly differ (as is true in most sectors). The key lies in planning and foresight.

Through both internal knowledge and interviews with members of your target market, life science marketers should be able to gather all possible information requirements of a prospective customer, classify this information into “essential” and “non-essential” information, and determine what information may be needed at what point in their purchasing decision. Essential information will form the backbone of the marketing campaign architecture – the content designed to “touch” all prospective customers. Non-essential information should be offered but not placed directly in front of all customers. Consider these factors along with when certain pieces of content will be required or beneficial and draw out a content roadmap. The content roadmap should provide life science marketers with a clear view of the informational requirements and will implicitly guide marketers towards deciding the optimal channels for delivering any particular piece of content.

Through understanding the information requirements of the audience and development of a content roadmap, life science marketers can develop a marketing campaign architecture that balances content and decision simplicity to customize and self-optimize the campaign for each individual prospect.

"Looking to greatly improve demand for your products? BioBM develops marketing strategies for small and mid-sized life science tools companies that are both powerful and practical. In addition to leveraging the best practices in life science marketing, our smaller-company focus takes budget into strict consideration and delivers campaigns that perform at a big-company level while meeting small-company budgetary restrictions. Call us to learn more about our services."
Blog / Demand Generation / Digital Marketing / Marketing Communications 12:20 pm , June 12, 2012

Making Decisions Simple

Carlton Hoyt 12:03 pm , May 16, 2012

This is the second part in a two-part post on the importance of simplicity to the decision to purchase. For the first post, which explains why simplicity is important, see Make Purchasing Decisions Simple.
By simplifying the purchasing decision you can not only gain more customers, but create more satisfied customers as well.
As scientists are presented with ever increasing options and information, the traditional purchase funnel model is breaking. Research has shown that as consumers are overloaded with information and choice, more are adopting a dynamic buying cycle, adding and dropping products from consideration nearly continuously as they progress towards their decision. Others are focusing in on a single brand, excluding any others from consideration. Furthermore, overabundance of choice is decreasing consumers’ satisfaction with both the purchase process and their purchase. There is a way to benefit from this, however. In doing so, you’ll obtain more customers and increase their satisfaction: Make their purchasing decision simple. But how do you do this? The answer comes in three parts.

First, users must be able to easily navigate your product information. Independent of format, they must be lead to the information that they need easily and the information must be presented neatly. In many cases, this means that you’ll need to present information for many different applications, but finding the information for each application must be obvious. It should come as no surprise that the easiest format to provide such a broad amount of information is on your website. Users must be able to find as much information as they want without being overwhelmed. Good navigation will provide easy access to a lot of information with a lot of opportunity to move to the next step.

Secondly, users must be able to trust the information they find, which means that life science tools companies need to provide trustworthy information. Some level of trust will be built by validating your marketing messages with data and other proven information. Testimonials may help somewhat. Reviews and information from independent scientists on third-party websites will imbue even more trust. (Want to lead people to content on external websites then easily guide them back to your website? Ask us about our solutions.) However your company attempts to build trust, your marketing and sales teams need to take a proactive role in doing so.

Lastly, life science tools companies need to make it easy for customers to weigh their options. Note that weighing options does not mean comparing all the options that are out there – again, too much information and choice is often the problem and not the solution. However, over the course of providing customers with information, you’ve likely established many choices (even if they are all your own products, as may likely be the case). Now you must assist the customer in making the final decision. Does your product have multiple models? Help select the one that is best for them. Are there different feature sets available? Help guide customers through the process of choosing which features are right for them. This can be a hands-off or hands-on process, depending at what point you generally convert prospects into leads.

By providing easily navigable, trustworthy information, and helping customers weigh their options, life science marketers can make their purchasing decisions far simpler. By being the one that does so, you not only gain the opportunity to tilt the scales heavily in your favor, but you ultimately increase customer satisfaction by making your customers more certain that the decision to buy your product was the correct one.

"Does your life science marketing make scientists purchasing decisions simple? Are you getting a lot of visibility but not generating a lot of leads or sales? BioBM Consulting has develops custom solutions, specifically designed for small life science tools companies, that leverage the best practices in life science marketing without costing tens of thousands of dollars to implement. Contact us to learn more."
Blog / Customer Experience / Demand Generation / Digital Marketing 12:03 pm , May 16, 2012

Make Purchasing Decisions Simple

Carlton Hoyt 11:24 am , May 10, 2012

Scientists may be getting overwhelmed with too much information, having effects on how they make purchasing decisions
Researchers from the Corporate Executive Board analyzed results from multiple surveys that totaled over 7,000 consumers, as well as interview with hundreds of marketing experts and executives, trying to figure out what makes a product “stick”. They looked at over 40 variables, trying to figure out what is most important in the choice of one brand over others. The results, discussed in a recent Harvard Business Review article, may surprise you. The key wasn’t frequency of interaction with the brand, nor was it price, nor was it the consumer’s initial perception of the brand. In the end, the purchasing decisions are most influenced by which company makes the decision to purchase simple.

Just so this doesn’t get taken out of context, we’re not talking about making the purchase simple. Putting up big red flags that says “buy this here” isn’t going to help you. We’re talking about making the decision simple. As Spenner and Freeman describe it in the HBR article: “the ease with which consumers can gather trustworthy information about a product and confidently and efficiently weigh their purchase options.” The reason for this? In a new world of marketing flooded with choice, driven by content, and with staggering amounts of marketing messages, many customers are simply overloaded with information. They’ll reward the brand that best helps them make things simple again.

How great is this effect? Spenner and Freeman created a “decision simplicity index” that graded brands on how easy it is to gather, navigate, and assess information about them. Those that scored in the top 25th percentile were 86% more likely to be purchased and 115% more likely to be recommended to others than those in the bottom 25th percentile. That is awfully dramatic.

Now all of this requires our usual grain of salt (I’m a scientist by training as well and as such am a naturally skeptical creature). These are general-purpose consumers that were studied and analyzed. The scientist is not the average consumer. The scientist is more skeptical, more analytical, and more capable of dealing with large amounts of information. However, even scientists will have a threshold at which an abundance of information will become too much information and the effect that decision simplicity has on the purchase decision will be significant. As the growth in the life sciences in general leads to the growth in life science tools, an abundance of options may eventually lead to information overload for all scientists, and those who simplify the decision making process will be rewarded.

Even now, however, life science marketers stand to benefit from making decision processes simple. We’ll be following this post up with another on how to simplify the purchase decision. Be sure to check back for more information.

"If you’re following the traditional methods of life science marketing, you are likely not to get the desired results, or may be facing diminishing returns and decreasing marketing ROI. Don’t let that happen. BioBM Consulting has life science marketing solutions for small life science tools companies that transform their marketing based on the newest scientist-consumer trends and information, helping you to drive demand and accelerate your sales. Contact us to speak with one of our professionals about how we can help your life science company."
Blog / Customer Experience / Demand Generation 11:24 am , May 10, 2012