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As life science marketers, it’s safe to say everyone in the BioStrata team loves to geek out on the latest marketing trends (which also helps to ensure we incorporate them into our approach and continue to deliver awesome work for our clients). Even when the working day is over, chances are you’ll find members of the team tuning in to various podcasts and reading up on all things science and marketing. Many of these ideas are thrown around the office, triggering (lively) discussion. This month, we came across so many awesome marketing stories that we felt inspired to share them with you all. Each member of the team picked their favourite marketing blog of the month (trust us, this was difficult) and we narrowed it down to the top five that we feel are worthy of making it on your reading list this month.
Why you should publish on your website first, then amplify your reach
As well as reading, we love tuning into podcasts to stay on top of current trends, and one of our favourites is the “PNR: This Old Marketing Podcast” hosted by Joe Pulizzi and Robert Rose. As usual, this month’s episodes brought up some interesting topics, but the one that really caught our ear was in reference to an article by Dave Winer over at Scripting.com. Dave’s contention: stop posting exclusively on Medium.com. Now, we're a fan of Medium, but if you're a company creating content and publishing it only on platforms controlled by others, then you're taking a significant risk. This is even more true if you're solely relying on that platform to build an audience and reach your commercial targets.
Why? Because publishing platforms like Medium, LinkedIn, YouTube, Twitter and Facebook can move the goalposts any time they want to. For example, last year, YouTube cajoled top video producers into signing up for its new YouTube Red paid service... if they didn't, they'd face having their content hidden from view on both the ad-supported and ad-free tiers. Meanwhile, Facebook always seems to be tweaking its algorithm. The result: companies are continually scrambling to ensure their content will still have effective organic reach.
So what’s the lesson for life science companies using these and other platforms to publish their content? Put simply, make sure your first action is always to publish on the property you own (your website), not the property you rent (the websites and portals of others). Then you can share it across social media to drive traffic to your site, while also attracting traffic directly from search engines.
Importantly, this doesn’t mean that you shouldn’t leverage these other channels to widen your reach (both using earned and paid means). In fact, far from it – life science publishers and relevant social platforms like LinkedIn are an effective way to expose your content, expertise and offering to your target prospects and can help you to significantly increase your influence. We’d just recommend that you publish for yourself first, then remix and expand the story as you amplify its effectiveness across other channels.
Image: Vima/Shutterstock
‘It's not the ink, it's the think'
Described as 'The Father of Advertising', David Ogilvy provided us with many timeless snippets of wisdom. Ogilvy's advice, 'it's not the ink, it's the think' and 'if it doesn't sell, then it isn't creative', both make a great point about the need to think more deeply and strategically when we're developing creative materials. Though this is easier said than done, a good way to go about it is to keep the end goal in the back of your mind and never forget what it is that you're trying to accomplish. Even the most clever creative can miss the mark if its message isn’t targeted to the right audience demographic (something that is particularly true for the life sciences sector). That’s why this blog by the team over at HubSpot is so interesting: it stresses the importance of creativity, but employed thoughtfully as part of the wider marketing mix.
A more positive future for data collection?
The idea of data being collected without our knowledge may appear frightening on the surface, but really, the future of personal data collection is bright and could actually be used for the greater good of society. Not only does data collection aim to provide greater convenience and a more tailored consumer experience, it also opens up the door for data-driven innovation. One sector in particular that could benefit from this is the life sciences industry, where data is invaluable for many applications such as R&D, disease surveillance, clinical analytics and for developing evidence-based, personalised medicine approaches. The future of data driven insight is an exciting one and although lawmakers remain wary due to public concerns (and rightly so), it's a great time for brands to show the positive side of big data by using it to enhance the lives and experiences of their customers.
The trick to creating content that stands out
In an era where more and more businesses are adopting a content marketing approach, what is the trick to ensuring your content stands out? Put simply, do more, do better, be focussed and lastly, keep on doing. In saying that, while it's important to keep a steady flow of content, never forget that quality is still paramount. One of the most important takeaways from this blog published over at HubSpot is this: before you even begin, define your content marketing strategy and ensure all the content you are producing has a focused objective – after all, if you don't know why you're doing something, it's unlikely your audience will! If you are still to be convinced that content marketing is right for you, then check out our blog on why content marketing is a good fit for the life science sector.
Searching for inspiration? Maybe B2C can show the way...
If you are struggling to think of new and innovative ways to engage and connect with your audience, then it may be time to step outside the familiarities of B2B marketing, and venture over to see what the B2C folks are up to. It's true, the two are very different disciplines, but that's what makes the opportunity so valuable. B2C marketers are often graced with more creative freedom, and checking out some of their out-of-the-box ideas may be just what you need to create something truly fresh. This fantastic blog is a collection of 11 impressive B2C campaigns that seriously hit the mark and might help fuel your next marketing programme (be sure to bring your imagination to this one!).
So that’s it, there are our five favourite marketing blogs of the month. As always, we love to hear from you so if you’ve come across a cool blog, do share it in the comments below. Also, don’t forget to tell us which of our top five was your favourite (we love a good competition in the office, and we may or may not be keeping track of whose blog is the winner)! In the meantime, happy reading and don’t forget to look out for our top five blogs next month. If you loved this summary and want more great content delivered straight to your inbox every month, then don't forget to subscribe to our monthly newsletter.
