It’s time to start life science marketing planning for the next year, and we’d like to help you get the most out of your budget with this guide. We’ll assume that the Mayans are wrong and that the world won’t end, at least not before Q4. We’ve updated our life science event planning calendar which has 2012 conference and relevant due dates to help you get abstracts and other items in on time, especially if you add the google calendar to yours so you’ll get reminders. In addition, we’ve added the official Twitter hashtag for each event (where available) so you can track them (see our guide to life science hashtags to learn more).

Life Science Event Listings

Below is our list of life science media kits and editorial calendars. Marketers use them to plan their tactical schedules, see our life science marketing plan series for more details. We’d hoped to find more of the 2012 versions of these schedules, but several are from 2011. We’ll try to update them as they become available, try poking around the websites and contacting the publications yourself to find them.

Our 2011 survey of life science marketers indicated an increase in spending on social media, we’ll repeat the survey for 2012 soon. What are your thoughts on the trends for spending and success in 2012?

Life Science Media Kits, Editorial Calendars & Contacts

To share this post easily, cut and paste: 2012 Life Science Marketing Planning Guide: Events, Media Kits & Contacts http://bit.ly/oVQ8e7

You’ve put together your overall life science social media strategy (if not, see Workshop 1 and our other social media training) and it includes third party applications such as Twitter, LinkedIn, Facebook, and YouTube. How do you use these applications to reach out to your customers effectively? The applications are all different, requiring individual strategies, tactics, and methods for determining metrics. Join us August 31st in San Diego or via the web to learn the ‘Rule of 3′s’ for third party social media, and you’ll start reaching out to your customers like never before (almost like a 3D movie, you could say).

In this four hour interactive workshop, offered in San Diego and via webinar, you will learn everything you need to know to implement campaigns on Twitter, LinkedIn, Facebook, and YouTube, including:

• Strategies
  • What strategies and themes work with life scientists?
  • Which third party social media applications are my customers using, and how do I target them there?
  • How do I fulfill corporate goals and provide value at the same time?
• Tactics
  • How can I get the most out of my time spent on 3rd party social media?
  • What are the best tips and tools for each application?
  • Where can I find the content I need?
  • How do I get direct leads from 3rd party applications?
  • How can I quickly understand the etiquette for each application?
• Metrics & ROI
  • How do I measure success using external and internal metrics?
  • My management still doesn’t understand the value of third party social media applications–how can I convince them?

As always, we’ll give you plenty of examples specific to life science to help you see things in context. As a Participant You Will Receive:

1. Printed workshop materials
2. A highly interactive presentation session from Mary Canady, customized to your needs and using real examples from life science and biotechnology
3. Worksheets designed to help you get social media launched at your company
4. Hands-on, online training and feedback from Comprendia during the session
5. Free follow-on session with Comprendia
   1. Review of workshop ‘homework’
   2. Guidance for next steps

This workshop is now available as an on demand webinar lasting 3.5 hours, see the workshops and training page for more details. Printed materials will be mailed to you, so there may be up to a one week waiting period. Register here and contact us with any questions.

A few months ago we did an analysis of life scientists’ utilization of social media applications, studied the applications ourselves, and published our findings. Based on this study, and our own experience, we’ve developed the STIR Social Media™ system which helps life science companies develop strategies and tactics which will both attract life scientists and maximize their return on investment (ROI). STIR is an acronym for the four attributes which social media applications and campaigns must achieve to succeed: Sticky, Transparent, Intuitive, and Resonating.

In our workshops and on this blog, we’ve pointed out that life science companies have been utilizing strategies and tactics that are similar to those behind social media for decades. Social media is about ‘paying it forward’ and providing resources which go beyond self-promotion, see this blog post for some examples of life science companies who have been doing this for years. Social media involves taking these resources to the next level, and using all the web 2.0 tools available to engage scientists in a two-way conversation rather than broadcasting messages to them. This can be tricky, and based on our studies and experience, we’ve developed the STIR Social Media system to help, its four attributes are described below.

Sticky. Create a site or application which has almost immediate attraction for scientists, providing reasons for them to visit, interact, and return. We’ve all heard about, then visited sites which we never return to again because they’re not sticky. My favorite example of a sticky website for life scientists is BiomedExperts. When you create an account and login, the application allows you to upload your publications, and you’re instantly connected to everyone you’ve ever published with. As such, they’ve circumvented the negative impact of the network effect that plagues many young social networking sites, a brilliant move by the developers of this application.

Transparent. Scientists are skeptical of anything that has the slightest hint of marketing or advertising in it. They love your products, and have lots of brand loyalty, but hate to be be marketed to. An example I like to use is UC Davis Professor Jonathan Eisen’s response to what he calls ‘Stimulus Spam‘ which refers to emails sent by companies eager to help (and profit from) researchers applying for ARRA/stimulus funding. Now, I do think some of the resources that companies provided were useful to scientists, but you can see that they were viewed otherwise by some in the community. As such, social media programs must be handled with complete transparency, as you can imagine campaigns in which the identity of the sponsoring company is not immediately known is a recipe for disaster. I have no examples of life science companies who’ve made this mistake, but read about the 3M social media debacle to help understand why it is so important. Being 100% transparent also means that ties to your products will be much more easily made. A good example in the life sciences is the Accelrys blog, which is completely transparent in its intentions and has great links to their products.

Intuitive. During our study of social media applications for life scientists, we were curious as to why BiomedExperts had so many more users than Scilink, when in essence they have the same premise, in other words connecting scientists via their publications. We surmised that part of it may be that the BiomedExperts interface is much more easy to navigate, or intuitive. Scilink appears to be gone now, so comparisons can no longer be made. This intuitiveness quality speaks to the way we have all been accustomed to the increased functionality of websites. We gravitate towards what is easy, gives us what we want, and what we understand quickly. Related to these expectations, intuitiveness also means that users need to know what’s expected of them in a given interface. For example, users come to LinkedIn to network and find business, and Facebook to share information and socialize, so any activities you plan for either application should match with these expectations. The Invitrogen Everydaycloning Facebook page is a good example of an intuitive application, as the content is useful, light, and social, and encourages fans to engage.

Resonating. Develop a theme that resonates with life scientists; one they can relate to and participate easily in. There are myriad places for scientists to spend time online, and your website or application must resonate with them in order for them to remember it and return. Sigma’s Wherebiobegins campaign is a good example of a resonating theme. They’ve asked scientists “where did your BIO begin?”, and have gotten great engagement on Facebook and other applications from them in the form of videos and comments.

The four STIR Social Media system attributes work together to define social media campaigns and applications that both attract scientists and achieve a favorable ROI. I’m not brave enough to call out those that don’t meet all four requirements, but you can check out our list of life science companies using social media and judge for yourself.

Want to learn how to become a STIR Social Media expert so that you can develop winning campaigns for your company? Attend our ‘on demand’ Social Media for Life Science and Biotechnology Workshop 1 webinar, a three hour workshop which will explain these concepts in more detail, and give you worksheets which will help you to jump start social media at your company. Additionally, we’re offering a series of workshops, with the second being held in San Diego June 22nd. We’ll be offering it as an interactive webinar and on demand as well soon. Sign up for email updates so you’ll always be on top of the developments.

To share this post easily, cut and paste: Attracting Life Scientists and Maximizing ROI: Comprendia’s STIR Social Media System http://bit.ly/cQUchT

Each post in our Life Science Marketing Plan series will help you piece together a ‘map’ that is representative of the analyses and learning process that will help you define your marketing strategies and tactics for the year. In the first part of this series, we provided and outline and described why marketing plans are needed for life science companies of all sizes to meet their goals. In this post, we’ll define the first half of the components in detail. Let’s get started!

1. Executive Summary. Even though this part of the marketing plan is at the beginning, it is written at the end. Writing a marketing plan is like a journey, and at the end of it you will have learned a lot and have a clear understanding of the strategies and tactics needed to help you reach your goals. Keep in mind that several people, especially senior management, will read only this part of your marketing plan, so summarize the report here and don’t worry about being a bit redundant. Feel free to reference figures and tables in the report for easy and quick analysis. Also, if there’s a point you’d like to make to senior management (e.g., I need a bigger marketing budget to meet my numbers!) this is a good place to make your case.
2. Situational Analysis. Before getting started on an in-depth analysis, you need to provide details about your products, internal factors, and external trends which will help explain where you’re starting from. Remember that the marketing plan is a tool to help you communicate to others, so this is a good place to step back and set the stage so that anyone in your company who reads the plan will understand it clearly. Be very literal and don’t worry about explaining things you think everyone knows, such as defining the products included in the marketing plan and that big acquisition that occurred 3 months ago (a safe bet you’ll need to include that these days). In this section you will describe broader issues such as the life cycle stage of your products and any history that is relevant such as trends in the industry and current attitudes about your company’s brand.
3. Sales History and Forecast. This is fairly self-explanatory, but sometimes a bit tricky depending on when you are writing your plan. Because you normally need to start your plan well before the year ends, having a full year of sales history is difficult. In my experience, projections are normally used to estimate sales for the current year, and remember that sales fluctuate from month to month (e.g., December is usually lower) so base the remaining months’ sales based on these changes. Sales forecasts for the year that the marketing plan describes may need to be done at the end of the report, as the complete analysis may be needed to make predictions. Consideration of the historical sales growth, the size of the marketing budget in comparison to yearly revenue, and other factors will be important. In addition, my experience has been that ‘top down’ forecasts are sometimes given to marketing and product managers, indicating the revenue growth they must achieve in the coming year. While this is sometimes disheartening, the marketing plan can be used to explain why a higher budget is needed if these growth figures are too ambitious. A general rule of thumb is that the marketing budget should be at least 10% of the annual sales for the products it supports. In practice, I’ve seen the budgets run much lower than this, perhaps because marketing is sometimes under-appreciated in life science companies. However, it’s a good number to shoot for, and a strong marketing plan will provide confidence to the management that you will meet your goals if given the appropriate budget (and be prepared to work hard to reach them if your wishes are granted!).
4. Market Research. One of the objectives of a marketing plan is to ensure that your company continues to be driven by the market. In other words, you need to know about your customers’ needs and about factors that are driving their purchases, and there is no substitute for getting this information straight from them. Market research can be done many ways–you can buy off-the-shelf reports (Price $3-10K), hire a company (broad price range, $5K minimally), or conduct research yourself (price varies greatly). The scale can be large or small, from online surveys of hundreds to phone interviews of 10. Larger and purchased surveys will give you estimates on the size and growth of the market and each company’s share of it, while smaller surveys help you understand your customers more on a personal level (which is very important as we’ve discussed). Another consideration is whether you want the survey to be blind, and whether it should focus on only your customers or more broadly. One of my fantastic mentors Michael Gonzales told me once at the start of a market research project to define very specifically what internal decisions you need to address before you begin, and write each question to definitively provide answers to them. There is no point in posing a question unless it will have an unambiguous effect on a decision that you will make. It is easy to get carried away designing questions related to your company or products, as you’re curious about so many aspects, but keeping your objectives clear helps to focus the effort. Questions should center around the customers’ needs and habits and how they relate to your product development and tactics. What are their daily struggles or ‘pains’ in the broad area of your products? What conferences are they attending this year, and which publications do they read? Perhaps most importantly, you should give customers a chance to give you any feedback they have for you in an open-ended format, as they’ll often have great ideas and opinions and appreciate being heard. Even with a focused effort, you’ll learn a lot about your customers and their needs, and can use the information all year for many different purposes.

   After you’ve completed these tasks, you’re well on your way towards completing your ‘journey’ towards defining your marketing strategy and tactics. The way the pieces fit together will become even more clear after the next post in our series, The Life Science Marketing Plan, Part 3: Components (Second Half). Sign up for updates so you won’t miss anything, and see the whole series here.

   To share this post easily, cut and paste: The Life Science Marketing Plan, Part 2: Components (First Half) http://bit.ly/c0uVdX

How can life science and biotechnology companies leverage social media to increase visibility, generate more leads, and ultimately improve sales or the value of the company? Comprendia is the recognized leader in understanding how to develop and implement social media strategies tailored to life science and biotechnology companies. Check out our Biotechnology Marketing 101 Blog for more details. There are myriad online social media resources and agencies, but this workshop is the only resource that will provide you with strategies backed by real examples and designed to help you launch campaigns that will work with your life science customers.

In this 4 hour hands-on workshop we’ll answer these questions, giving real examples and materials to help you jump start social media campaigns for your company:

• Which applications and themes work with scientists or biotech professionals?
• How do I integrate social media with existing marketing strategies and tactics?
• What is the return on investment (ROI) for social media, and how do I maximize it?
• How do I get buy-in from the management and motivate my team to participate?

We’ll have wifi so you can bring your computer, ask lots of questions, and head back to the office ready to get started.

Who Should Attend: Business Development and Marketing professionals who provide products or services in a non-regulated environment and are interested in using social media to increase sales, leads, or visibility. Examples: companies who sell research-only products or services to scientists or small to mid-size biotechnology companies that need more visibility. Contact us if you have questions.

As a Participant You Will Receive:

1. Printed workshop materials
2. A highly interactive presentation session from Mary Canady, customized to your needs and using real examples from life science and biotechnology
3. Worksheets designed to help you get social media launched at your company
4. Hands-on, online training and feedback from Comprendia during the session
5. Free follow-on session with Comprendia
1. Review of workshop ‘homework’
2. Guidance for next steps

This is our first in a series of quarterly Social Media for Life Science and Biotechnology Workshops. Sign up for updates to our blog and you’ll be the first to hear. We’re also considering ‘virtual’ workshops or roadshows–let us know if you’re interested.

Check out our Workshops and Training page to see when this workshop is offered next.

To share this post easily, cut and paste: Social Media for Life Science and Biotechnology Workshop, Part 1: Get Started With Industry-Specific Strategies and Tools http://comprendia.com/smworkshop1

We talk a lot about social media on this blog, and are of course strong proponents of its utilization for life science and biotech companies. One of the aspects we like about it is that the basics of traditional marketing planning are also the cornerstones of social media planning. For this series of posts, we’ll go back to basics and explore traditional marketing plans–beginning with their ‘raison d’etre’ to the details of developing one. We see marketing plans as a journey in which you learn along the way, and we’ll provide one ‘piece’ of the map in each of these posts, helping you to see the big picture by the end of this series.

What is a marketing plan? Marketing plans can be centered around a product, product line, brand, or small company. My experience has been that they are developed early in the fourth quarter preceding the fiscal year they describe. While they can be discussed by a team, normally I’ve seen one person taking the lead in writing the document–of course this is dependent on the scope of the plan. Input can come from anywhere, but the marketing group and the management should own them and have the research to back up the marketing plan’s claims. They can take the form of a text document with figures (e.g., Microsoft Word) and usually include a summary presentation (e.g., Microsoft PowerPoint). In theory, they should be considered living documents which can be modified by the owners (in practice this often proves too difficult for the busy marketing professional).

What are the components? Of course you can find marketing plan templates online, and you can certainly customize them to fit your needs. Here are what we consider to be the basics:

1. Executive Summary
2. Situational Analysis
3. Sales History & Forecast
4. Market Research
5. Competitive Analysis
6. Strategy
1. Messaging & Positioning
2. Overall Plan
7. Tactical Plan
1. Events (Conferences, Ad planning, Product Launches)
2. Budget

You’ll often hear the components referred to more generally as strategic and tactical marketing. Overall strategy is determined by the careful analysis of components 2-5 above, and it guides the tactical plan. We’ll go through each of these in detail in subsequent posts.

Why do I need a marketing plan? We all understand that having a plan makes everything work better, but I’ve worked in smaller companies in which it has been very difficult to justify taking time off to write a formal document. Let me give you a few examples for why it is so important, and why it will actually make your work easier.

Consistency. Working through a marketing plan will help you to see your path clearly for your product or product line and to quickly communicate it to others. For example, let’s say your objective is to be the leading provider of fast, high performance protein chromatography, and your target customers work mostly in pharma companies. This is all part of defining your positioning in the market, and will guide all of your marketing materials and actions. Every time you or your colleagues communicate with a customer, write a marketing piece, etc. you’ll be guided by this principle. This will result in a consistent message which will improve your brand perception.

Better product development. Successful companies are driven by the market. In a smaller biotech or life science company, the products (at least initially) are by nature driven by the market, because the company was likely founded based on strong need. However, as companies grow, there is a tendency for scientific companies to produce what they ‘can’ rather than what they ‘should.’ Developing a yearly marketing plan is a great way to get a reality check and to define your product line’s direction and be ready to give solid reasons to back your decisions. Additionally, having a document that can be forwarded to the R&D team is a powerful way to help everyone brainstorm about product development.

Time savings. Your colleague comes to you with a great conference at Cold Spring Harbor which he says is PERFECT for your company to attend. Your answer? Thank him, but point to the marketing plan and indicate that your target market won’t be in attendance, so it doesn’t make sense. Quick decision, no feelings hurt (hopefully), and you’ve pointed him in the right direction as to what conferences he should be looking for.

More bang for your buck. The strength of a good marketing plan is in the power to see how tactics can work together to be more powerful than they are individually. The tactical plan normally takes the form of a spreadsheet or table which list the months of the year and every major planned event, such as product launches and conferences. These can also be cross-referenced with editorial calendars (see our 2010 planning guide). Example? Let’s say your big product is launching in August, but you see that a relevant conference and editorial piece are available in July. By planning ahead, you may be able to work with R&D for an earlier launch, and come out with a bang in month of July with news about your product at the conference and in the editorial.

A marketing plan is a journey in which you step back and look at things more broadly, and spend the year prepared, making smarter decisions and being less reactionary. Of course, a marketing plan can be written any part of the year–there’s no time like the present. Next in our series will be The Elements of a Life Science Marketing Plan. Sign up for updates so you won’t miss anything, and see the whole series here.

To share this post easily, cut and paste: The Life Science Marketing Plan, Part 1: What Is It And Why Do I Need One? http://bit.ly/bX4Tok

If you’ve been following our Biotechnology Marketing 101 blog, you likely know that we are ‘in the know’ about social media. We’ve used it to grow our own company and the San Diego Biotechnology Network, and we’ll be featuring our work with other companies soon. Check out our Social Media Capabilities page to learn more and to get started!

While vacationing, visiting family in coastal New Jersey (nicer than it sounds), I spent some time on the beach. A plane with a trailing banner flew by, advertising a product I still don’t remember. Ever the marketer, and never being the type who likes to zone out for hours on the beach, I started to think about this flavor of ‘broadcast’ advertising.

The problems are multi-fold: 1. I didn’t have any clue what the product was 2. I had no idea how to follow up to learn more 3. Even if I did have a ‘burning desire’ to find out, I certainly forgot the name of the product by the time I got to the internet (ignore the fact that I had my blackberry and could have looked it up).

What’s interesting is that this company probably paid $1-3K for this promotion (maybe more, as I learned that flying a plane with a banner is quite an art). What did they get in return? I’m sure they don’t even know–hard to determine a return on investment (ROI) on a media has no way of tracking. Instead, I think they should have hired college students to visit 4-5 beaches, and hand out free samples and chat the beachgoers up. Now THAT I would have remembered, and they also would have gotten feedback on peoples’ reactions to the product.

Relevance to life sciences? If you’re like me, you ‘cut your teeth’ on this type of ‘broadcast’ advertising, mostly print Ads (although it would be cool to rent a plane). Even some online banner Ads and e-mail blasts can be forms of broadcast advertising (banner blindness is a well-known phenomenon where users learn to ignore such information). You got used to putting your message ‘out there’ without expecting many metrics and feedback. Now, however, there are myriad ways to promote your products in an engaging manner AND to get metrics that can be used to determine ROI and the next tactical (or even strategic) steps.

Examples? Set up Google Adwords, targeting those who are looking for your product, and learn what people are searching for. Start a blog or forum on your website, forming an interactive community that cares about your products and tells you want their needs are. Make sure your newsletter is about customer needs, and not just a listing of your products. These are just some ideas–by being resourceful, and ruthless about ROI, you’ll surely come up with more.

Should you abandon broadcast advertising? No, it has a place in your tactical marketing plan, reinforcing your brand. But, it is easy to fall into the ‘same old, same old’ and to rely on it too heavily. Contact us for a free consultation to learn how to get started engaging more and broadcasting less.

We’ve talked a lot about customer-facing marketing in the Biotechnology Marketing 101 Blog. As we’ve discussed, it is vital these days to understand who your customer is so that you can build a relationship with them, rather than relying on the old-school methods of broadcast marketing. This relationship will benefit more than just your bottom line–you’ll find that you will get much more feedback from customers who you engage.

The first step to building a relationship with your customer, so that you can meet their needs, is to truly understand who they are and what their daily challenges are. One way is to create a customer ‘persona’ which describes the age range, occupation, education level, and other qualities important for ‘putting yourself in their shoes’ to understand their needs. In addition, most social media strategies should start from the customers’ perspective, so it’s a good way to get started. You may also find that after you start, you’ll realize that more than one persona is needed.

We’ve created a template (.PPT file) to help you define your customer personas. The template will guide you through the process of defining each of your customer types, from their demographics to their daily challenges, including how your products fit. An important part of making the personas ‘come to life’ and easily referred to is assigning each a name such as ‘Suzy Scientist.’ In addition, a picture can be used (sites like this can help).

A fun and useful way to get everyone involved in thinking about your customers is to create custom avatars, or computer-generated graphical representations of them. Yahoo has probably the most relevant avatars, with the most scientific accessories, but you can also have some fun and create a Simpsons or South Park character (and if you want to go all out, you can even create 3D characters in Second Life and even interact with them ;). Some of the sites will let you print out a PDF, or you can simply create a screen capture and put it in the template we’re providing. I suggest creating the personas and avatars as a group so that you can brainstorm and hash out differences. Feedback from departments outside of marketing, such as customer service and sales, is also useful, and you can also conduct or refer to market research that you or others have done.

How can a persona/avatar be used? Everywhere from product development to marketing tactics. While developing products, the persona will help R&D to remember customer needs when developing products–how will Suzy Scientist use the product and will it meet her needs? Market drivers may also be gleaned during the process as you begin to look at the different groups represented. Also, tactics may change based on your results. For example, if most of your customers are younger, perhaps they are not relying at all on the tried and true print journals, using online sources instead. Also, the personas can help define the messaging of marketing materials by making sure they speak to the challenges or ‘pain’ and how your products will help. The whole organization can benefit and feel involved in the process when can talk in the ‘same language’ about the customers’ personas and think more about their needs.

Need help getting started? We know your customers both personally and as a whole and can guide you through the process. Contact us for a free consultation.