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Many biotech companies approach marketing as if it were something they do. field of dreamsA fantasy world of style where all dreams come true just by their science.
Unfortunately, the biotechnology industry, like most industries, is highly competitive and requires effective marketing to make scientific novelty visible to everyone.
Biotech founders and executives are often so focused on the science that they are misled about how deploying a digital marketing strategy can help them obtain funding to continue their research.
Therefore, here are the areas to consider when it comes to prioritizing your digital marketing efforts.
Ready to come out of stealth mode. So?
Now that you have some positive results in your clinical trials and have decided to promote your brand, your focus shifts to the biotech audience you want to attract: investors, partners, and healthcare providers (HCPs).
Each of these buyer personas has different buying habits, so your first focus is to identify the channels they use most so you can stay ahead of them. Here's a quick primer on how to create B2B buyer personas.
- Determine the decision makers associated with your service.
- Interview decision makers to gain insight into what goes into their purchasing decisions.
- Find out where they spend their time on digital platforms.
Once you have your information compiled, you can focus your digital marketing strategy to target one or two examples of your buyer personas, whether they are partners or investors.
Multichannel marketing opportunities in biotechnology
According to Gartner, B2B salespeople capture approximately 5% of a prospect's total purchase time on average. That's because buyers do most of their research prior to the initial inquiry. They collect information, observe you on social media, engage with you through various channels, and finally engage with you through contact forms.
Therefore, buyers, whether investors or partners, require multichannel contact to gain knowledge and trust in biotechnology.
The following four channel sets tend to work best in biotechnology.
1. Event → Email
Biotech conferences remain one of the most popular places for networking. Exchanging business cards goes a long way, but what you're really looking for is retaining and nurturing leads.
Once you've completed your direct interactions, add your contacts to your CRM and segment them. Next, create a monthly newsletter tailored to your target audience. This allows you to keep your brand top of mind, share the latest information about your company, and remind potential customers why they're involved with you.
For example, if your goal is to impress potential partners, regular updates about clinical trials, scientific advances, or influential team members may be relevant. Include a call to action in your newsletter to direct readers to her website. Those who click through will likely become your most engaged contacts.
2. Social engagement and thought leadership
Most of the people who follow you on LinkedIn, the best B2B social networking platform, will probably never engage with you. However, that doesn't mean they aren't interested in what you're sharing. LinkedIn frequently reminds you that you are an expert in your field, a thought leader, and a trusted figure in your industry.
The best advice for marketing your biotech on social media, whether it's LinkedIn or other platforms where your prospects hang out, is to focus on one central message. For example, I focus 100% of his LinkedIn posts on marketing his startup biotech. This will help you focus on the topic and attract your audience.
If you're using social media to talk to everyone, you're not talking to anyone.
3. Paid content distribution
Most brands these days need to take steps to get their content in front of the right audience. Distribution of paid content, whether via social media, Google search, or industry journals, can give you the boost you need to get noticed by your buyer personas.
To get the most attention, we recommend running native ads in industry journals.
Native content opportunities (where promoted content resides seamlessly within a media site) are offered by most industry publications. Because journals inherently have high prestige, native placements have the advantage of appearing more authoritative than if the content were on your own site.
4. Content marketing
Of all the options here, content marketing is probably the most likely to drive clicks. The best content marketing is backed by SEO-focused content. Keyword research revealed a high volume of monthly searches for the topic.
For example, McKesson's blog post about viral vector manufacturing ranked for nearly 300 keywords (according to Ahrefs software), took the top spot for primary keywords, and increased search engine traffic, engagement, and brand awareness. Masu.
This type of top-of-funnel content does two basic things very well:
- Introducing previously unknown visitors to McKesson.
- This provides a pathway for visitors to learn more about McKesson's services related to their topic and can help move prospects down the sales funnel more effectively than paid channels alone. .
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The biotech market is so difficult to navigate without considering marketing. Raising funding, conducting clinical trials, and developing new science each come with their own hurdles.
But given the core need to generate and increase revenue wherever possible, marketing can help biotech companies seize more opportunities than if they relied on science alone, and therefore on the fence. Masu.
Additional resources for technology and biotech marketing
New channels, better targeting: How B2B technology marketing is changing
How to improve your technology marketing videos with e-learning insights
How to beat trolls and misinformation: Monsanto's Janice Parson on marketing smarts [Podcast]
