February 2008, Issue 2
Welcome to the latest issue of the G2D newsletter!
Newsletter Contents
• Conference & Exhibit Strategies in the Life Sciences: What's Working Now
• Life Science Industry Awards: Are Your Customers Voting?
• Upcoming Webinars: Register Now
• Social Media and the Life Science Opportunity: Complimentary Report Available
• Methodology Spotlight: Results-On-Demand
• Blog Spotlight: A Few More Thoughts on Exhibiting
Exhibiting at conferences continues to be a vital and indispensable part of most vendors' marketing efforts. In fact, only 1% of scientists claim that they do not visit exhibit halls!
Conference & Exhibit Strategies in the Life Sciences: What's Working Now serves as a unique guide to effectively reaching life scientists through exhibits, sponsorships, and other conference activities. This report will present the perspective of 1,000 life scientists on what they look for in a scientific conference, what they like and dislike about exhibit booths, and how they define the "ideal conference." Additionally, the perspective of dozens of vendors is presented, allowing you to assess current best practices in the market and benchmark your exhibit activities against other leading suppliers.
Many vendors consider conferences to be valuable opportunities to interact with prospective and current customers in specific markets. We found that visits to exhibit halls have assisted in the purchases made by 76% of respondents in the past 12 months.
Conference & Exhibit Strategies in the Life Sciences: What's Working Now is designed to address key questions vendors may have with regard to deciding which shows are the best to attend and exhibit at, how to budget for shows, what booth elements appeal to visitors, and how to ensure the best return possible. It features the opinions of both scientists and vendors regarding scientific conferences and will enable marketing executives to better determine what role exhibiting should play in their marketing mix and how to maximize the promotional impact of their presence at scientific conferences.
For more information about Conference & Exhibit Strategies in the Life Sciences: What's Working Now, visit http://www.gene2drug.com/report/189/.
Are Your Customers Voting?Voting for The 2008 Life Science Industry Awards is starting soon! Now is your opportunity to make sure that your customers are among the voters.
Members of The Science Advisory Board have the opportunity to vote for their preferred suppliers in the Life Science Industry Awards. Encourage your customers to sign up for membership, and once their memberships are accepted, they will be invited to cast their ballots. Scientists who are employed full-time in an organization engaged in any aspect of life science research or clinical care are eligible for membership.
We'll be sending an email within the next few days with detailed instructions on where your customers should sign up, so be on the lookout!
Register Now
Webinar
Life Science Product Catalogs: Techniques to Increase Sales
Wednesday, March 12, 2008 at 1:00 p.m. EST (10:00 a.m. PST)
This webinar will present key findings from our report, Life Science Product Catalogs: Techniques to Increase Sales, which examines what attracts scientists to print and online catalogs, what information they need, their preferred formats, and what guides their buying decisions. For more information or to register for this webinar, please send an email with your contact information to webinars@gene2drug.com.
Webinar
Managing Customers in Changing Times: Effective Selling Through Mergers & Acquisitions
Wednesday, March 19, 2008 at 1:00 p.m. EST (10:00 a.m. PST)
Mergers and acquisitions are a fact of life in today's life science market and present tremendous opportunities for company growth and expansion. Yet every corporate change places customer relationships at risk and opens opportunities for your competition. This webinar will present key findings from our report Managing Customers in Changing Times: Effective Selling Through Mergers & Acquisitions. For more information or to register for this webinar, please send an email with your contact information to webinars@gene2drug.com.
Webinar
Supplier Switching Dynamics: Tips for Holding On and Breaking Through
Wednesday, March 26, 2008 at 1:00 p.m. EST (10:00 a.m. PST)
Our report Supplier Switching Dynamics: Tips for Holding On and Breaking Through examines what motivates buyers to switch brand allegiances. In this webinar, we present key findings on factors that create "customers for life" and those that enable you to take advantage of opportunities to secure new accounts. For more information or to register for this webinar, please send an email with your contact information to webinars@gene2drug.com.
For a complete listing of upcoming webinars, visit http://www.gene2drug.com/about/events.asp.
Complimentary Report AvailableBioInformatics and PJA Advertising + Marketing, an award-winning business-to-business advertising and marketing agency, co-sponsored a survey of over 1,500 scientists to measure their use of and opinions toward social media. Increasingly, professionals in a variety of fields are using social media -- blogs, podcasts, online communities, Wikis, and social networking sites -- to share experiences, opinions and advice.
Social media appeals to the most fundamental values of science -- communicating, contributing and collaborating. Scientists do not need to be convinced of social media's utility, they are just waiting for the conversation with their suppliers to begin. So far, there are very few examples of suppliers incorporating social media into their marketing and customer relationship programs.
The New Collaboration: Social Media and the Life Science Opportunity features topline findings outlining how scientists think about and interact with social media. To provide further context for the findings, the results were cross-tabbed by region -- North American, European and Rest of World -- and additional analysis was conducted by level of media engagement for respondents who also participated in BioInformatics' 2006 Marketing to Life Scientists study. Additionally, the report provides a short list of 10 steps that vendors should consider taking to make their sites more social media-friendly experiences.
Download The New Collaboration: Social Media and the Life Science Opportunity.
Results-On-DemandAre you looking for a simple, cost-effective and timely option in conducting online surveys? With Results-On-Demand, you're freed from many of the time-consuming tasks associated with conducting an online survey-including identifying an appropriate recruitment list, programming the survey and compiling the data. Simply submit the questionnaire you've developed and the number of respondents you need, and we'll take care of the rest. Working closely with you, we will program and test your survey, invite qualified respondents to participate, fulfill incentives and deliver results in an easy-to-use format-all in less than 10 business days.
Benefits of this Service
Fast -- The results of your survey are provided within days, not weeks.
Efficient -- You and your staff are not distracted by the many monotonous tasks that are associated with fielding a survey.
Instant access to your target audience -- We sponsor The Science Advisory Board, a global online community of over 35,000 scientific and medical professionals. Members convene regularly via the Web (www.scienceboard.net) to voice their opinions on a wide variety of issues relating to biomedical research and clinical technologies.
Guaranteed responses -- We guarantee that the number of respondents you require will complete your survey.
Increased accuracy -- Our experienced market researchers and statisticians review your survey and make appropriate recommendations.
Unbiased results -- As an independent third-party, we help you avoid injecting unintended bias into your survey, and by providing anonymity for both you and the respondents, they can answer more frankly.
No unforeseen costs -- You pay a flat fee based on your desired number of respondents and the complexity of your survey.
If you have questions to ask scientists or medical professionals, with Results-On-Demand, we can provide the answers you need, when you need them!
For more information on the Results-On-Demand service from BioInformatics, visit http://www.gene2drug.com/custom/ondemand.asp.
A Few More Thoughts on ExhibitingThe researchers at BioInformatics, LLC peer through the Looking Glass to report and comment on trends in the life science tools industry. The following is excerpted from http://marketanalysts.lifescienceexec.com/.
A Few More Thoughts on Exhibiting
Posted February 6, 2008 by Bill Kelly
As we all know, exhibiting at conferences has long been a common practice among life science vendors. Yet decisions on where to exhibit are often made with little more justification than the presence of competing vendors. Furthermore the nature of the promotional activities conducted at the conference are rarely tailored to the targeted audience. Whereas other elements of the marketing mix-sales representatives, advertising, direct mail and even the Website -are subjected to rigorous analysis and planning, the role of exhibiting is rarely considered in light of the company's overall positioning and branding strategy. Even more rare is the company that tactically plans the promotional activities it will employ at each and every conference. Instead we see the same booths, the same exhibits and often the same bored reps staring listlessly at the passing throng at every show we attend. Good thing most scientists only attend one or two conferences a year otherwise they may pick up on this fact!
Our research has shown that exhibiting at scientific conferences has unique advantages, many of which can't be duplicated by other media. To effectively determine what proportion of the marketing mix should be devoted to exhibiting, you've got to first understand the relative strengths of exhibiting versus other marketing techniques and devise programs that leverage these strengths.
Exhibiting provides exposure to prospective customers in an environment where they are looking for information and are receptive to one-on-one communication. Attendees are free from the normal distractions of their labs and, surrounded by their colleagues, they can devote themselves to getting the specific information they want and need.
Thus, the single most important advantage of conference exhibiting is that it enables the vendor to communicate and interact directly with customers at a moment when they are actively seeking information. In one of our surveys (soon to be updated with 2008 data) twenty-five percent of respondents ranked vendor exhibits as being "very" important in helping them learn about new products and services in their fields of interest, compared to only 2% who did not. Perhaps just as significant, many attendees are "thought leaders," decision-makers and other hard-to-reach prospects who are often difficult to contact through other direct marketing and sales techniques.
To read the rest of this entry or more thoughts from Bill Kelly, visit the blog at http://marketanalysts.lifescienceexec.com/.
Thank you for reading this issue of the G2D newsletter! As always, I welcome your feedback. Send me your complaints, comments, or compliments at a.donathen@gene2drug.com.
All the best,
Amanda
Amanda Donathen
Marketing Communications Manager
BioInformatics, LLC
2111 Wilson Boulevard
Suite 250
Arlington, VA 22201
TEL: (703) 778-3080 x 14
FAX: (703) 778-3081
a.donathen@gene2drug.com
http://www.gene2drug.com
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