Tag : differentiation

Content Segmentation

Carlton Hoyt 12:52 pm , November 10, 2014

A common strategic issue involves trying to be all things to all people. In general, it doesn’t work. You need some degree of specialization in order to effectively create comparative value to your audience. Even if you have a very broad product or service offering, you need to be able to segment your audiences in order to effectively differentiate and avoid commoditization. You need to cut your market into segments.

The same is true for your content (which, after all, behaves like a product). Put simply: if your content is for everybody, it’s for nobody.

Is My Content Insufficiently Segmented?

Broad, unsegmented content has many weaknesses. It tends to be repeat already familiar themes. It is easily replaced. It is undifferentiated. It is low-value. Because of these problems, it simply won’t perform.

How can you tell if poor performance is due to poor segmentation or some other problem? Here are some key warning signs:

You have multiple distinct audiences or markets, but you send all your content to all of them.
You have a link on your website that says “blog” or “news” and most of your content is hosted there, regardless of topic.
When creating content, you rarely think about who will be consuming it
Most of the information within the content that you’re publishing can be readily found elsewhere
Your content could be described as superficial or lacking depth
Your audience wouldn’t care or notice if your content didn’t exist.

Any of the first three are very clear signs of poor content segmentation. The last three can also indicate segmentation problems, but could signal other content-related problems as well.

How to Properly Segment Content

Step 1: Determine your target markets, if you haven’t already done so. If you have a positioning statement, great! If not, you at least need to define and document your target customer and statement of need. Note that unless your company is laser-focused, these will likely change for each product line or service offering that you have, and you’ll want to have different content for each.

Step 2: Create audience / customer personas. If you’ve already done this for your product offerings, then you can use those as a solid starting point. They should include demographic information as well as behavioral information. Demographic information includes industry, job title, function, location, etc. Behavioral information may include what their goals and needs are, what their expectations may be, what concerns or problems might they have, what role they play in the purchasing process, how influential they are, etc.

Step 3: Determine what the purpose of your content is and, relatedly, what stage of the buying journey your content is targeting. Are you trying to stoke interest among people with a nascent need? Are you trying to persuade people who are actively considering options? These determinations will inform you what kind of content (educational, persuasive, etc.) that you should create. Dont try to do everything at once! Just as you shouldn’t try to speak to all of your audiences at once, you also shouldn’t try to say everything to a particular audience in a single piece of content or expect them to go from naive to purchasing in one shot.

Step 4: Determine what benefit you are offering the reader that holds special value for the audience you’ve just defined. This is key! It’s entirely possible to define a very specific audience but then go on to create non-specific, poorly targeted content. If you fail to create well-targeted and value-creating content, your efforts in directing it at a well-defined audience will be wasted.

Most life science companies need to speak to multiple audiences. That’s completely normal. It can become a problem, however, if you try to speak to them all at once. If your content isn’t properly segmented, it becomes watered down and less effective at influencing the audiences and affecting their behavior. By properly segmenting your content to specific audiences and needs, you’ll be a much more effective influencer.

"The rise in the importance of content is a natural result of customers taking more control of their buying journeys. As customers have less contact with sales, they look to other sources of information to educate them and validate their decisions. Unless you have a strong content program, you’ll simply be left behind by changing customer behavior. If you want to ensure that you thrive in this new reality, contact BioBM. Our content marketing expertise will help you increase your reach, influence your customers, and dominate your market."

Differentiation Through Content

Carlton Hoyt 5:36 pm , October 23, 2014

Your content is a product. Differentiate it. All of us life science marketers know that we need to differentiate our products and services. Nothing new there. It’s critical to demonstrate a unique value and avoid commoditization. But how often do you think about how well differentiated your content is? My experience has shown me that for most of you the answer will be: never.

Marketers often think of their content as something which is a carrot for the customer; something that is of benefit to them and for their own good. You’re providing them with knowledge so they should just eat it up and be grateful for it. Unfortunately that viewpoint is completely misaligned with reality.

Your Content is a Product

Your audiences are customers of your content. They are paying for your content with their time and, if you require them to fill out a form, paying for it with their contact information as well. All the same rules apply to your content as apply to your products. Your content has to be worth the “price”. You need to effectively “sell” it.

Your content also needs to be differentiated. Without differentiation, your content will be just one in a never-ending stream of content pieces being continuously created. And unlike with products, your content can’t compete on price. Your content either provides unique value or it won’t be consumed by your audience. Even worse, they might consume then resent you for wasting their time.

Ways to Differentiate Content

The best and most obvious way to differentiate your content is to say something different from what everyone else is saying. Take a stance on a topic and deliver content that has particular value for your target market segment. Demonstrate your existing position(s) through content. Not only will you be reinforcing your positioning, but so long as your position is unique your content will be inherently unique as well. Content which is differentiated in this manner will help drive your target market segment towards you while driving away the off-target audiences which would eat up time and resources but ultimately not become customers.

Some other ways to differentiate content include:

Find an area where you have knowledge that can’t readily be found elsewhere and share it. This can also help reinforce your positioning.
Forego traditional content and instead develop resources that help solve customer problems. There’s huge brand and customer experience advantages to be claimed in doing so.
Create content in different formats. If your competition are flooding the space with white papers, do a video or a webinar. Different people have different preferences for content.
Drill down or add a twist. If something has already been said, get even more specific or put a spin on it in order to tailor it to a particular market segment.

Never forget that your content is a product, and like any product it risks commoditization if it is not differentiated. By differentiating your content, not only will you increase its effective audience and create more engagement with it, but you can reinforce your positioning and branding as well. Differentiated content is better for both you and your audience.

"Content marketing is a resource-intensive, time-consuming endeavor. Don’t let all that go to waste. Ensure your content is as effective as possible. Content marketing from BioBM can provide your company with the influence and reputation you need to turn purchasing decisions in your favor. Provide meaningful value to your customers, and they’ll provide value to you. It’s a virtuous cycle. Start yours."

The Role Of Branding – Part 3

Carlton Hoyt 10:35 am , June 19, 2014

This is the final post in a three-part series on branding. For the first post, go here. For the second, go here

Last week, we discussed solving the above equation which tells us what the most powerful brand positioning opportunities are. Now we must translate the results of that equation into tangible elements that will align with that desired position. This includes some basic elements of messaging (such as the brand name itself, slogans, and core messaging) includes visual elements (logos, typography, and other elements) and also includes voice & tone, which provides guidance as to the overall “feel” of customer interaction and customer-facing communications.

Special focus should be given to the core messaging, as that is where the capability to captivate the audience really lies – especially early on. In order for the brand positioning to be effective, you need the audience to go along with it, and the core messaging is what will deliver the most impact. To be effective, the core messaging needs to do three things. First, you need to make a compelling “why”-type statement. In other words, you need to tell the audience why you’re doing what you’re doing rather than just what it is that you do. Secondly, you need to frame it as a statement that the audience can agree with. You want them to buy into it. Lastly, you need to make it emotionally powerful, such that they become engaged with your brand’s story. The logos and imagery will be important carriers of your brand, in other words they will trigger the association in the minds of the customers, but they actually play a relatively small role in the positioning of the brand. That’s far more about what you have to say and how you say it. The most common error made in initial brand development is focusing too heavily on imagery and visual elements to the detriment of the other aspects.

Once the core brand elements have been determined, it is useful to collect some feedback on them. This can be done via a primary market research study, or even with real-world data collected via a phased rollout. Certain brand elements may be able to be A/B tested to determine which are optionally effective, although you need to be careful not to put too much weight on short-term behavior as the brand is concerned most with long-term impact and the two are not always in alignment.

At this point, you understand your desired position and have formed your core brand elements. It takes a lot of thoughtful effort to get to this point, but this is only the foundation. Brand positioning is the platform upon which the brand is developed and truly built. Ultimately, the brand is created by experiences, and crafting positive experiences for the customers which align with the brand position are the key to making the brand position a reality. What those experiences will vary from brand to brand, but one thing always remains true: helping your customers solve problems is the most likely way to evoke positive emotions. Focus on identifying and solving your customers’ problems, especially in a way which doesn’t require a purchase, and you’ll be on track to develop positive brand value. Do this better than your competitors and you’ll create a competitive brand advantage for your company. (More information on providing superior customer experiences can be found in our latest paper: “Superior Experiences.”)

Whether you are actively shaping it or not, your brand is being developed every day, with every stakeholder interaction. It’s up to you to develop your brand into something that provides positive value for your company. Competitive advantage isn’t all about products and operations – brand plays a very significant role in determining winners and losers. Shape your brand into something valuable, develop it through positive customer experiences, and you’ll position your company to be the winner.

"Is your company taking an active role in shaping its own brand? Are you providing your customers with superior experiences which create lasting brand value – and competitive advantage? If your answer is “no”, then we should talk. Contact BioBM and we’ll help you develop your brand into a source of competitive advantage which drives the commercial success of your company. We’re happy to speak with you."

Blog / Branding 10:35 am , June 19, 2014

The Role Of Branding – Part 2

Carlton Hoyt 12:13 pm , June 12, 2014

This is the second in a three-part series on branding. For the first part, go here. The third part can be found here.

As mentioned last week, the ideal brand position can be thought of in formulaic terms; it is all the “valid” brand positions, less the positions that are occupied strongly by competitors, less those that are unimportant to your target market(s).

So how does one go about solving that equation?

Start with determining all of your company’s valid brand positions. To do this, you need to answer the question: “What are all the positions which we could validly claim?” The answer is dependent on a multitude of internal factors – everything from company vision and mission, company culture, down to the details of how you do business. This process therefore requires a holistic internal investigation, usually gathered via internal documents and from team members. It should be structured like a market research project with a qualitative and quantitative component and both primary and secondary research. Qualitative secondary research is a good place to start, where you can assess things like mission and vision as well as company processes that might give insight to potential differentiators. Qualitative primary research is generally next, with interviews of influential employees to get their opinions of what the company or brand means to them. A quantitative survey of a larger set of internal participants (presuming the organization is large enough to merit it) is helpful to validate and clarify the results of the qualitative research.

Next, look to see how your competitors are positioned. Start with analyzing how they are attempting to position themselves. At most basic, this could be done with an attribute analysis using their publicly available brand messaging. (More details on how to perform an attribute analysis can be found here.) If you want to dig even deeper, put yourself in the customers’ shoes and try to interact with your competitors to determine how they present themselves. This is difficult to do impartially by yourself, so it’s best to have neutral participants interact with the competitors on your behalf and report their experiences to you. Ask yourself: how does it feel to interact with the competing companies? What kind of experiences are they providing and directing customers towards?

After determining the competitors’ projected position, you also need to determine their actual position. This asks the question: “How are our competitors perceived by the target market?” If your market is large enough there may be data on the competitors in published market studies, but generally this requires your own primary market research. Qualitative interviews and quantitative surveys will provide the data to analyze your competitors’ actual positions.

Lastly, you need to determine which of the valid brand positions are actually relevant and important to the target market. Similarly to determining the actual competing brand position, this requires speaking with the target markets. To save on cost and time, these two questions can be answered simultaneously. As with any market research project, what questions you ask and how you ask them is extremely important such that you obtain unbiased answers.

With all the values on the right of the equation known, you can now complete the equation and determine your ideal brand position.

The next step is to translate the results of this equation into tangible elements which will align with the desired position. We’ll discuss this in our next post.

"Brand value may be intangible, but its effects on your business are not. A branding advantage may be the difference between customers choosing your product and them choosing your competitor’s – it’s not uncommon for a perceived demand generation problem to be rooted in the brand. To secure brand value, you need to ensure that your brand position is meaningful and that your brand experiences are positive and reinforce each other. That’s a big task, but it’s not one you have to do alone. Call BioBM. We’ve helped dozens of life science companies build their brands and generate more demand. We can help you, too."

Blog / Branding 12:13 pm , June 12, 2014

The Role Of Branding – Part 1

Carlton Hoyt 12:49 pm , June 5, 2014

This is the first in a three-part series on branding. The second part can be found here. The third part can be found here.

Branding is an abstract concept, and a lot of marketers have different ideas of what the act of branding really means from both a strategic and tactical perspective. At BioBM, we have a very clear vision of the role of corporate branding efforts, and we want to share that vision with you so you can move towards improving your own brands.

One quick note: For the purposes of this discussion we’ll refer to corporate brands only, with the understanding that divisions or product lines can have their own brands as well, and that everything we mention here applies to any such brand.

First, we need to understand what brands and brand value really are. A brand is basically the abstract notion that is your company. It is all of the things which the perceptions of your company are effectively attributed to. Brand value (which is distinct from brand equity – how much your brand is worth in money) is the collective opinions of your brand. It is the resulting sum of all the experiences which customers and / or other stakeholders have had with your brand. Given these definitions, we can see that on an individual level, the brand and brand value can differ from person to person. There can be no singular thing that is the brand in its entirety. It is therefore also useful, in various situations, to consider the brand or brand value from the standpoints of different groups of stakeholders. For instance, your target market may have a different perception of your brand than do your employees or the public. For the purposes of this conversation, we’ll assume that you, like most marketers, are primarily concerned with the perceptions of the target market.

Considering that the brand value is held externally, and that it is a matter of perceptions, marketers cannot create brands in the way that they create other marketing assets (a brochure, for example) or the way that your company might create a product. What we CAN do is try to influence those perceptions, and corporate branding efforts should be seen as an effort to do just that.

When marketers think about “creating” a brand, what they really need to do is think about brand positioning – aligning the brand for the maximum probability of success. Successful brand positioning requires two things. The first is differentiation. If your brand is not differentiated from competitors, then it will have a difficult time demonstrating comparative value and, therefore, outcompeting the competition. The second is alignment. Your brand needs to be aligned with your vision and values, and it also needs to be aligned with the customers’ values and goals. If your brand is not aligned with your own values, then you will have a difficult time staying true to the brand positioning and providing experiences that reinforce it. If it is not aligned with the customers’ values, then your claimed position will not contribute any perceived value to your brand.

To understand what your brand’s ideal position is, you need to understand three things. First you need to understand what brand position you would like to claim and could validly claim independent of any external considerations. This requires an understanding of your vision, your goals, your core competencies, and other company-centric factors. We then need to understand competitors’ brands: both their desired brand positions and ACTUAL brands. In other words, we want to understand both how they want their brand to be perceived and how it actually is perceived by the markets in question. Lastly, we want to understand the customers within your target markets. What are their goals and values? What do they value in a company?

Where your potential brand positions overlap with the customer values with minimum competition from other brands, you can identify your most opportune brand position!

Your brand, therefore, isn’t something that should simply be conjured up by locking a few creative types in a room for a few days. Your ideal brand positioning can be expressed as a [non-quantitative] mathematical equation! It’s a rational endeavor in addition to a creative one, but the rational elements of positioning are arguably more important, as they’ll inform you how you need to be positioned in the first place.

Next week, we’ll discuss how to determine the three necessary “variables” in order to to solve this equation.

"Brand value may be intangible, but its effects on your business are not. A branding advantage may be the difference between customers choosing your product and them choosing your competitor’s. To secure that value, you need to ensure that your brand position is meaningful and that your brand experiences are positive and reinforce each other. That’s a big task, but it’s not one you have to do alone. Call BioBM. We’ve helped dozens of life science companies build their brands and generate more demand since 2010. We can help you, too."

Blog / Branding 12:49 pm , June 5, 2014

Case: Content at a Small CRO

Carlton Hoyt 11:26 am , January 6, 2014

It feels like every week I see or learn something that reinforces just how valuable content is to life science companies. For instance, I was recently discussing some sales dilemmas with the founder of a young, small CRO. Let’s call him Greg. Greg’s CRO performs a well-differentiated and valuable research service. However, Greg was lamenting about the “commoditization” of contract research – how his firm can’t seem to compete on quality and all anyone cares about is price.

Knowing what his CRO does, I was a bit disturbed by this. There are such things as commodities, sure, but the whole reason commodities become commoditized is because there is no difference in quality. Even coal fetches different prices based on, among other things, how clean it burns. If someone can mine better coal and get a better price for it, surely his CRO should be able to get a better price for their superior service. … I dug deeper.

Greg used a current problem he was having to illustrate his larger problem. He had drafted a proposal for his contact at a pharma company. That person reviewed his proposal, along with a number of others, then handed it to his boss to make a decision. According to Greg, the boss would then just choose one of the cheap ones.

Now there are times when budgets are tight and price is simply the most important factor, but this was a recurring problem. So what was really the big problem?

Greg’s CRO is young and small. He has built a rapport with his contact. He has not, however, built a rapport with the decision maker, which he does not have access to. So the person making the decision only knows Greg’s CRO from the information that is available about them on their website and with a quick internet search. This wouldn’t necessarily be a problem, but Greg’s CRO has no educational content. Unless the decision maker happens to know Greg or someone on his team, there is no reason for him to believe that they are capable of producing the higher-quality output they claim to be able to. Compared to the more established and lower cost CROs, selecting Greg’s CRO would be a high-risk endeavor!

To lower the perceived risk, and therefore increase the likelihood that their proposal is selected, Greg’s CRO needs to demonstrate their knowledge through content. Content can, at least to some extent, mitigate the inability to demonstrate knowledge through person-to-person content. It could help provide the confidence that may lack if Greg’s CRO cannot provide many reputable customer references. Instead of only knowing Greg’s CRO as a proposal, at least they would be able to build some degree of positive brand image.

Content is an extremely multifunctional marketing tool that can assist organizations in numerous ways. Content can aid in sales support, as with the case of this CRO, it can generate leads, it can help drive inbound search traffic, it can improve your brand. There’s so much that content can do, and it contributes to so many aspects of marketing, that content marketing should really be a default. Especially in knowledge-intensive sectors like contract research and life science tools, content should be a centerpiece of the marketing effort for most companies. Content marketing is simply too valuable, and valuable in too many situations, to ignore.

What do you think?

What would you do if you were Greg? Would you invest in content marketing? Would you take another approach? Join the discussion on LinkedIn and share your thoughts.

"Is content the centerpiece of your marketing effort? If it’s not, or if you’re not sure what you need to do to craft high-value, multifunctional content, contact us. We’ll put you on the path to more leads, improved conversion, and more effective overall marketing – with content at the center."

Case Study / Content Marketing / Demand Generation 11:26 am , January 6, 2014

Differentiating Services

Carlton Hoyt 11:53 am , June 13, 2013

Some types of offerings can be especially difficult for life science companies to effectively market. Services, in particular, seem to cause companies problems. Services are intangible. Many services are customized and lack a fixed set of features. Because of this, marketers need to be especially careful or else marketing messages can quickly become uncompelling. While the default differentiators for products are their features, services often cannot be defined in such a way. In the hands of a novice marketer, this often causes the message to devolve into little other than benefit claims. The lack of anything tangible causes many companies to give up message validation almost in its entirety. Messages often revolve around the vague and facile claims of a company being “experienced,” “knowledgeable” or “leading” and its services being “valuable” and “effective,” among other claims which offer no comparative advantage and are largely meaningless to a skeptical audience.

So how does one effectively market a service-based life science business? Like any other offering, it starts with a meaningful differentiation. Since the differentiation won’t lie in anything tangible, we need to look at things such as processes, specialization or people along with more obvious things such as proprietary intellectual property. Attribute analyses can be important in helping to identify positioning opportunities, but there will ultimately be a limited amount of meaningful attributes which the scientist-customers truly care about. The life science marketer must ensure that any value propositions are extensively validated to combat the inherent ambiguity (and therefore increased utility risk) of the intangible service. Every time you make a claim, think about how you could best substantiate that claim, then do it. Standard tools such as case studies and testimonials help as well, but more direct validation techniques should be used when possible and applicable. As always, educational content should be a core component of your marketing. In order to trust you to perform a service for them, the scientist-customer will have to accept that you have the requisite knowledge and experience. Unless your brand is very well known to the customer, you should display your knowledge through educational content.

Service companies often have difficult time differentiating their services and validating their messages, and sub-par demand generation is often a direct result of this. By focusing on differentiators and strong validation of claims to reduce the perceived risk in purchasing the service, life science service companies can greatly improve their rate of lead generation.

"Is your life science service company failing to meet your lead generation expectations or quotas? If so, it may be time to call BioBM. We’re familiar with many of the pitfalls of marketing life science services and have the full-spectrum experience necessary to build your CRO or other service company into a growing, well-respected brand. Contact us today."

Blog / Demand Generation / Marketing Communications 11:53 am , June 13, 2013

Positioning Statements

Carlton Hoyt 9:51 am , October 25, 2012

Over the 2+ years that BioBM has now been in business, we’ve had the pleasure of working with a wonderful diversity of life science tools companies and contract research organizations. One thing that we’ve been consistently surprised about is how many small life science companies lack positioning statements for their product lines and services. Positioning statements should be central parts of any marketing strategy. Even for the more pragmatic life science marketers who may eschew strategies for every product line, positioning statements should still be central to their marketing. They not only help form the basis of marketing messages, but ensure consistency in the message. Without them, marketing messages often degrade into uncompelling feature / benefit statements.

Such that life science marketers can more effectively create positioning statements, we’re going to give a quick lesson and offer some tips to help make the statement more powerful and help marketers avoid common pitfalls.

How a Position is Stated:

I’ll use a close approximation of Geoffrey Moore’s version from his book Crossing the Chasm (a great read, by the way): For [target customer] who [statement of need], the [product name] is a [product offering] that [statement of key benefit]. Unlike [primary competitive alternative], our product [statement of primary differentiation]. As you notice, there are a number of “variables” in this.

The target customer should be defined specifically. Keep in mind the target customer is NOT a market. “The pharmaceutical industry” or “environmental labs” are not customers. People are your customers. People make purchasing decisions, and you should state what people you need to speak to. There should be at least one noun that represents people (for example: “scientists,” “lab managers,” “analytical chemists,” etc.)

The statement of need cuts through your target customer to get to your customer segment. Of your target customers, what need will identify which will see value in your product? Ensure that you’re realistic. No matter what the situation, you will never achieve 100% market share so don’t pretend that you will. If you define the need too broadly, your targeting will be weak, leading to your messages not reaching the right people (and not being as effective when they do) and therefore decreasing the efficiency of your marketing communications.

The product offering should be a factual description of your product. There’s no place for terms like “revolutionary” or “breakthrough” in your product description. If you have fluff here, you’ll end up with fluff in your marketing messages, so be honest, be specific, and avoid exaggeration and hyperbole.

The statement of key benefit addresses how your product meets the aforementioned need of your customers. This statement should be specific and factual. Descriptors like “best” “reliable” or “high quality” should not be used. Also, benefits and specifications are not always interchangeable. If you use a specification or feature in your statement of key benefit, be sure to ask yourself if the benefit that feature / spec conveys would be obvious from the perspective of your audience. Furthermore, the focus should be on the single most valuable benefit; this is not a laundry list. Choosing one benefit is often not simple, but you either need to make the tough decision or reconcile multiple benefits in order to present them as one unified benefit. Lastly, note that the key benefit does not have to be your primary differentiator. That comes later.

The primary competitive alternative is not necessarily another product or service (although it often is). You want to address how most of your audience with your stated need are currently fulfilling it.

The statement of primary differentiation should summarize how your product or service provides value in ways that no other competitor can claim. It may be related to your statement of key benefit, but does not have to be. Remember: the key benefit is what provides the greatest value to the customer. The primary differentiators are what distinguishes you from other competitors. (Side note: the best differentiator should be determined by market analysis.)

A strong positioning statement is something that life science marketers can and should refer to in order to develop messages that are consistent and on target. To keep your marketing focused and ensure you target the most opportune audiences, have a positioning statement for all your product lines and service categories.

"Positioning is an art, and the best positionings are not simply drawn up arbitrarily but have their basis in information about the product, the customer, and the competitive landscape. If you are launching a new product or service (or recently launched one) and would like to improve your success through positioning, contact BioBM. We’ll help you define a strong positioning that’s based on data and empowers your marketing team to deliver value – both to your customers and for your company."

Blog / Marketing Communications / Marketing Strategy 9:51 am , October 25, 2012

Don’t Just Tell, Show

Carlton Hoyt 9:32 am , January 4, 2012

In our last post, we discussed differentiating your life science marketing. In large part, we focused on the need to use unique marketing messages and make unique claims in order to convey the value that your products or services offer. Now it’s time to take the next step. Now that you’ve communicated your marketing message you need to validate it.

One great way of validating your marketing message is by actually showing it to your audience. Short of actually getting in front of them for a demonstration, you need to use your existing media channels to provide evidence to back up what you say. There are many creative ways to do this but for now let’s focus on one simple example that is relevant to just about anyone – data.

I’ll use a real example of a juxtaposition of two sequencing instruments (which shall remain anonymous). Now, how compelling is it if I simply tell you that sequencer X had an average predicted quality score of almost double that of sequencer Y over a 125-bp read. That sounds pretty good, but it’s easy to dismiss and I’m not really backing it up with anything – I’m making you take my word for it. On the other hand, I could show you the figure at right. Now you can see the very stark difference between the two. The message becomes more clear and tangible, and in the process become more believable as well. The customer will be more likely to accept, process, and act on this stronger, validated marketing message. (Disclaimer: it would have been better if the company compared actual quality scores rather than predicted quality scores, but it still serves as a useful example.)

One of my favorite examples of marketing claim validation, albeit outside the life sciences, comes from Blendtec. Blendtec is a manufacturer of high-end, high-powered kitchen blenders. They created a website, willitblend.com, where you can see the founder of Blendtec, garbed in a lab coat and safety glasses, blend all kinds of things – iPads, golf balls, and other things that you wouldn’t imagine would blend (nor would you want to find out on your own). This brilliant, highly entertaining form of marketing message validation actually went viral for a while some years back.

When you are making a claim in your marketing, be sure to ask yourself if you have sufficiently validated that claim. If not, figure out what you can do and what you need to do to provide the necessary validation. If you have, then you’re probably well on your way to crafting an effective marketing message.

"How effective is your life science marketing? Are you getting the ROI that you want? If you have doubts, now is the time to contact BioBM Consulting. We’ll help you build marketing campaigns that create customer demand, increase marketing ROI, and drive the success of your business."

Blog / Demand Generation / Marketing Communications 9:32 am , January 4, 2012

Differentiate Your Marketing

Carlton Hoyt 9:30 am , December 20, 2011

Your marketing message is what communicates the benefits of your products and services. It is the tool that life science companies must use to convey value. Just like you must differentiate your products and services to create potential value, you must also differentiate your marketing message in order to communicate and thereby realize that value.

Think about some common claims that are made by life science companies. I’m sure we’re all heard companies claim that their product or service is one or more of the following:

faster
better
an “industry standard”
high quality
reliable
high-value
more consistent
“the best _____ available”

You know what all of those claims say? Almost nothing. Those claims are virtually worthless because they’re not differentiated. Are your competitors not going to claim that they’re fast, or high quality, or reliable? In rare situations, maybe not, but otherwise you’re both saying the same thing and you’re gaining no advantage from making similar claims.

So what must you do to differentiate your message? Obviously any life science company has to make claims and convey benefits. What can you say? Well, you can say all of the above things – you just can’t say them in that way.

Let’s take the the first and perhaps the most simple example on that list – “faster”. “Product X is faster” in and of itself means nothing. It gives no indication as to how fast something is. To use it effectively, we need to at least put it into perspective. “X is faster than Y”. Getting better, but we still don’t know how much faster. “X is 50% faster than Y”. 50%? That’s far more impressive. Why didn’t we say that the first time? Let’s keep going… We’ve put things in perspective but I still don’t know how fast X is, at least not in absolute terms. “Product X performs this function in just 1 hour, half the time that it takes using product Y”. Now we’re starting to get fairly compelling. The prospective customer would have a good grasp on how fast the product is and knows how much it outperforms the competition in that regard. Because of this, assuming speed is in fact important to the target market, they’ll be much more likely to take action than if you simply said “Product X is faster”.

Through differentiation of your marketing message, you’ll be able to more clearly and effectively convey the value your products have to offer. The end result will be more leads and more sales.

"Have a great life science product or service that just isn’t selling like it should be? Your marketing message may be the culprit. Contact BioBM Consulting and we’ll help you analyze your marketing campaigns to determine what needs to be done to get your sales to where they should be."

Blog / Marketing Communications 9:30 am , December 20, 2011