logo

Tag : life science market research

Life Sci Tools Market Outlook

Carlton Hoyt 10:15 am , April 16, 2012

There’s been a lot of negativity in the life science tools market recently, at least with regards to the economic outlook. European government austerity, a possible US sequester, and cooling Asian economies have given a lot of people a sense of unease (or downright fear) about sector growth. Over the past two months, however, there’s a bunch of data that says things probably aren’t going to be so bad after all.

Back in late February, a MarketsandMarkets study projected the life science and chemical instrumentation market to grow at a compound annual growth rate (CAGR) of 8.4% from 2011 to 2016. Morgan Stanley analyst Daniel Brennan then noted in early March that commercial sales of publicly traded life science instrument companies had been stronger than expected and is less vulnerable to the economy than many had feared. A DeciBio study released last week projected that the life science tools market will grow by about 4% per year over the next 5 years. Sure, 4% isn’t a great growth rate, but it’s certainly enough to sustain the industry. Last Thursday, Goldman Sachs analyst Isaac Ro said that company performance in the life science tools industry for the first quarter of 2012 “appears to have trended better than initially expected” and noted that academic spending trends have improved.

While I wouldn’t go so far as to say that we’re in the clear, and there are certainly still hurdles the industry faces moving forward, we can all breathe a collective sigh of relief. The life science tools market isn’t in nearly as bad of shape as many had feared.

"Looking for growth in a challenging economy? Turn to BioBM Consulting. Our life science business and marketing experts can help your company develop and execute strategies that create demand and drive revenues regardless of external factors. Contact BioBM for more information."
Blog / Marketing Strategy 10:15 am , April 16, 2012

Market Research Using AdWords?

Carlton Hoyt 11:20 am , April 11, 2012

Life Science Market Research using AdWordsLife science market research can be a tricky, and often expensive, endeavor. You need to find a suitable population that meets your study requirements, recruit individuals to actually participate in the study, and building the survey. You have to worry about introducing bias, sufficiently powering your study, ensuring your population is representative, and many other factors. However, there is one tool that can, in many situations, make your research easier, faster, and cheaper: AdWords.

Yes, that AdWords. Pay-per-click Google Adwords.

AdWords has many desirable qualities that one would want in a market research platform. It has a huge audience, and our in-house research has shown that it is overwhelmingly the search engine of choice within the life sciences. Google is used by a billion unique individuals every month. The audience is easy to segregate (albeit in limited ways: by keyword or by geography). It’s easy to reduce both population bias and question bias. With market research via AdWords, you often don’t have to even ask a question – the question is implicit rather than explicit since the unwilling participants are looking for information, products, services, or content. While you’ll be limited by language, in most places English is the language of science and users select themselves by using relevant keywords.

That said, AdWords is obviously not designed for market research and its capabilities as a life science market research platform are understandably limited. You only get to “ask” each participant a single question. The types of information you can gather are relatively limited. You can’t segregate the audience by job title or other useful demographic information.

Still, you can get insights on a surprising amount of questions. For example, the following information can often be reasonably obtained using AdWords:
• The relative popularity of a basket of products or brands
• Which prospective name for a new product would be better
• What method are researchers using more often
• What nations are most frequently using a particular method or type of product
• An attractive price for a particular laboratory product
• A fair deal more…
Note that some of the above information would require the use of Google Analytics (or similar) in conjunction with AdWords.

While not a fully capable replacement for traditional market research studies, a lot can be done with Google AdWords for as little as $0.10 per participant ($0.10 is the minimum cost-per-click in AdWords). Next time you’re looking for market data, especially if the data you’re looking for isn’t terribly complex, you may be able to save your life science company a lot of time and money by turning to the reliable old pay-per-click advertising platform.

"If your company is looking for innovative ways to gather data on your markets that are easy to implement and don’t break your budgets, consider giving us a call. BioBM’s experienced life science marketing consultants are here to help you develop ways to meet your information needs and marketing goals in ways that are at the same time innovative and frugal."
Blog / Market Research 11:20 am , April 11, 2012

Acting With Confidence

Carlton Hoyt 1:01 pm , February 27, 2011

Life science market research will hep you understand your target market and reduce risk.Small life science companies are surrounded by uncertainty. How can we improve our service to customers? What new product would be of greatest interest to scientists? How can we be more certain that our strategic direction is in sync with future realities? What can we do to add value to our products? How can we attract new segments of the market? All of these are almost constant questions among all companies, but small companies are the most likely to leave them unanswered or do an insufficient amount of research to confidently answer them. Especially in rapidly changing markets such as the market for laboratory products and services, having solid information on which to base your company’s actions is highly important.

The Importance of Good Information

“I love talking about nothing. It is the only thing I know anything about.” – Oscar Wilde

All businesses need to understand the potential risks and rewards of any specific course of action. Beyond being a principal tenet of the practice of risk reduction, it is essentially a core business need. Businesses act on this basis. If the expected reward from a specific course of action will result in a return that justifies the amount of risk, then this action is taken. But how do you even know the risks or rewards of a hypothetical future action? … The answer? Market research. Market research provides the information that allows the quantification of uncertainty and risk.

For example, say a company that develops and sells cell lines for research purposes is considering which of a choice of new cell lines to commercialize. Without appropriate information, the choice would effectively be a poorly educated guess. Even if the company has the experience to “feel out” where the demand lies, they will be acting on a short-sighted intuition with little information to justify it. One cell line may be in more demand today, but the market for it may be shrinking while another is growing, and therefore another may have greater demand in the future and provide a better return over the lifetime of the product.

With a well-designed study, almost any question about the market can be answered, and the information discovered can be extremely valuable in reducing risk and uncertainty and maximizing returns.

Types of Market Research

“Be curious always, for knowledge will not acquire you; you must acquire it.” – Sudie Back

Market research can be segmented into two distinct types: secondary research, and primary research. Secondary research utilizes information that already exists. This may consist of mining databases, utilizing demographical data, analyzing existing research reports, etc. Primary market research involves reaching out directly to individuals within the target market. Primary market research can be in person, online, or via any other mode of communication, and may involve interviewing, surveying, questionnaires, etc. Either type may be quantitative or qualitative, although secondary market research is almost always quantitative.

Making Market Research Work for You

“Knowledge is of no value unless you put it into practice.” – Anton Chekhov

The first issue of importance when conducting life science market research, and one that you will have a large part in answering, is understanding what you want answered and who should be providing the answers. What information is it that you are looking to collect? Will this information answer the question you have in mind? Will answering that question help you reduce uncertainty in ways that are relevant to your business needs? Who should be answering this question to make the answer relevant? Would there be a subset of life scientists who would best answer the question, or maybe lab managers, or perhaps even distributors? These questions need to be answered to ensure the relevance of the market research study.

The next issue is the study design. How should the information be collected. Would secondary or primary research be most appropriate (or a combination of both)? How important is the question? Do you need a very thorough, and therefore more expensive, study or would a less thorough or less structured study be sufficient? How should the data be collected and analyzed?

The last and most important issue is using the data! No matter how much market research you do, it’s not going to help you unless you apply the information to help guide your decision-making.

The life sciences are rapidly evolving and in a near constant state of change, and uncertainty and risk are abound because of it. Utilizing properly designed and executed market research can give your life science company a more certain future, improved returns, and the ability to act with confidence.

"Is your company facing an important decision that you would like more information to make? Are you worried that too much uncertainty is clouding your view of the future? BioBM’s life science business and marketing consultants can design and execute a market research study to fit your needs and your budget and help you regain your confidence. We are experienced in small and large-scale studies and will tailor a custom solution to your life science company’s unique needs. Talk to us and we can discuss how we can leverage market research to help you remove uncertainty and minimize risk."
Blog / Market Research 1:01 pm , February 27, 2011