The major challenges faced by life science marketers and how to overcome them

Being a modern-day marketer is tough. Marketing teams are expected to have expertise in many different areas, and are required to deliver effective marketing strategies that consistently achieve results, often on a restricted budget. As a result, marketers face many challenges and are frequently looking for innovative solutions that can increase performance while making the most efficient use of internal and external resources. Luckily, help is at hand. By working with a specialist marketing agency who lives and breathes not only marketing strategy, but also your specific industry, most marketing challenges can be overcome.

Here are some of the most common challenges the modern-day marketer faces, particularly in the life science sector, as well as how outsourcing can help you to overcome them (download our free ebook for more info).

Prioritising budgets and tactics to maximise results

Many life science companies have limited marketing budgets, so there is often pressure on marketers to ensure the budget is used efficiently with maximum ‘bang for buck’. But what are the best marketing tactics to invest in, especially in the rapidly changing world of life science marketing? Bringing in external expertise can really help here, by providing an independent assessment of your plans and delivering insights into what is working for other companies in the life science sector.

Overcoming missing skillsets in-house

A modern-day marketing team working in the life science sector is expected to have a diverse range of expertise, encompassing everything from strategy and project management, through to writing, design, digital and social. Many teams do not possess this range of expertise (after all, you’d probably need a marketing team of 8 or more to have a chance). What’s more, some of these skillsets are only required transiently, so they don’t constitute a full-time position. While you could hire new employees or train existing staff to fill these gaps, both solutions can be rather expensive, not to mention time-consuming. This is where outsourcing can help.

Improving the quality (and number) of leads

Are the sales team putting increasing pressure on your marketing team to produce more high-quality leads? Are you struggling to keep up? Often poor lead generation and nurturing is due to unappreciated gaps in your marketing programme. A specialist marketing agency can work with you to identify these gaps, as well as help you find ways to overcome them, increasing the number and quality of the marketing–and sales–qualified leads you generate.

Leveraging modern technologies to improve marketing efforts

Thanks to the digital age, it is easier than ever to measure how different marketing tactics are performing and automate areas of the marketing mix to improve efficiency and budget usage. Modern marketing agencies will be up-to-date with the latest digital marketing software platforms, and can provide expert input on how best to use these at your company to boost results and reduce costs.

Optimising performance when current tactics are not working

Scientists are notoriously sceptical when it comes to more traditional marketing approaches like interruptive, “buy now” advertising. So how as a marketer are you meant to connect with such an audience? Life science marketing agencies who specialise in modern approaches such as inbound marketing can help you find new ways to reach your audience and stand out from your competitors, often for far less budget than you might currently be spending to raise awareness and generate leads.

Effectively using customer voice to provide third-party credibility

In an era where buyers thoroughly research their options before making a purchase, third-party testimonials are indispensable marketing tools. Specialist marketing agencies are experts at creating and leveraging customer case studies, application examples and opinions to create marketing gold dust.

Introducing savings without lowering marketing activity

When savings need to be introduced, reducing head-count or marketing budget are the solutions management often turn to. But how can you keep your marketing strategy running smoothly with less resource? And how can you increase your marketing efforts as and when needed, without having to invest in growing your marketing team? Outsourcing work to a specialist marketing agency can be a cost-effective way of ensuring you continue to deliver results whilst making those all-important savings.

Increasing results by better integrating sales and marketing teams

Companies sometimes find that two of their most important teams, sales and marketing, can find it hard to work effectively together. But these teams need to be highly integrated in order for leads to pass seamlessly between to deliver new customers. This is a challenge marketing agencies are often brought in to help solve. As such, they are experts in how best to approach and overcome any such disconnects.

Enhancing productivity when you only have a small marketing team

It is often the case in small to mid-size life science organisations that marketing is an add-on to an existing employee’s role. Therefore, employees with many other responsibilities in addition to marketing tend not to have the time to put together and execute a comprehensive marketing strategy that will get results. A specialist life science marketing agency can provide the necessary resource and expertise to better support your internal team.

Entering a new market segment

Sooner or later, growing businesses have to look at entering new markets. As you can imagine, extensive market research is vital to ensure you have the best chance against your new competitors, and to allow you to carve out a niche position in the market. Outsourcing expertise and knowledge from a life science marketing agency will likely save your company time and money by providing valuable industry insights and shortcuts to success.

Reviewing competitor activity and tactics to optimise your programme

Life science marketers need to be up-to-date with the latest scientific advances and marketing trends, in order to stay ahead of the competition. But finding the time to read all the necessary articles or attend the appropriate training courses is challenging when you are already tied up with a hundred other things. In this case, external suppliers can be an important conduit for this information, training and insight, infusing it into your marketing programmes and organisation as a whole.

Do some of these challenges sound familiar?

To read more about the challenges marketers commonly face, and how working with a specialist life science marketing agency can help, download our free ebook “Why work with an agency? 13 important challenges you can solve by working with a life science marketing specialist.”