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  I met Chris Walker, CEO of Refine Labs, through this LinkedIn post. I liked his take on long form content (surprise!) and asked him to join me on the podcast.He advocates an audience first approach to content – content that addresses customer concerns even when they aren’t related to your product. That same type of content can be used to educate the sales team on what’s important in the customer’s world. This is nothing new in content marketing but many companies are missing this opportunity.I think people use quality as an excuse not to do things that they don’t want to do anyway… I think that there is a minimum point of entry threshold that you need to cross and after that, there’s diminishing returns up to the highest production value you could find, if that makes sense… And so companies need to make a strategic choice. And so if you are the billion dollar brand, how much are you willing to invest to get this done? And the answer for most companies would be, “Not enough, so we’re not going to do it.”We both agree that for any new marketing initiative, there is a learning curve. But you have to start to get better. In my opinion, it’s another example of giving up a long term win for short term safety.In terms of distribution, Refine Labs is relying heavily on ads in social media to promote their content. The advantage is the ability to be ultra-specific with your targeting.Listen to the full episode to find out how Chris suggests you produce the content and what’s missing from most case studies.Subscribe in iTunes.Leave an iTunes Review.Listen on Stitcher.Chris on LinkedInRefine LabsWant the transcript? Sign up for the newsletter below this post. Intro Music stefsax / CC BY 2.5  About My Guest … Chris Walker is the CEO at Refine Labs where they help companies optimize their revenue model.   

  For most life science companies, I’m pretty sure the event budget makes up the biggest fraction of the total marcom budget. Sometimes it’s over half. If you are producing or hosting the event, such as a road show or user group meeting, you need to know where you can negotiate to save a bunch of moolah.There are hidden charges everywhere. Some of these you can get rid of and some you can’t. And not every city is the same.Bonni Scepkowski of Stellar Meetings and Events described some of the things you are likely spending too much on and what to do differently.Listen to this episode and learn about:Water and Coffee“Resort” FeesPower strips and extension cordsAttritionService charges and…The mysterious Plus Plus. -What the heck is that?Bonni on LinkedInTop Ten Reasons Your Marketing Budget Imploded (Plus a bonus tip!)  About My Guest … Bonni Scepkowski is the President and Chief Strategy Officer of Stellar Meetings and events. She specializes in events for life science companies. This is her second visit to LSMR. We previously talked about putting on outstanding customer loyalty events.   

  Successful marketing is based on strong branding and positioning. Then your creative communications must tie back to your strategy.Patricia Malone of Freshblood Group explains why it’s important to get everyone involved in the development of the strategy and why a branding and positioning workshop is not just a fluffy, feel good exercise.With many people presenting your companies work including executives and scientists it’s essential that everyone is on the same page and understands the boundaries of your brand narrative.Patricia says a strong positioning statement contains a singular idea that people can connect with. It’s not the kitchen sink. It’s the essential pot in the sink you use every day.We also discussed:How to develop a brand characterAdvantages of small companies over large andThe process of developing creative based on strategyShe has some fun ideas around developing creative so give this one a listen!Subscribe in iTunes.Leave an iTunes Review.Listen on Stitcher.Freshblood GroupFreshblood on TwitterIntro Music stefsax / CC BY 2.5  About My Guest … Patricia Malone is the Chief Creative Officer for Freshblood group, a consortium of senior-level industry experts providing a full suite of business and creative solutions for healthcare brands.   

  Creating great content does nothing if no one sees it. Sondra Hadden is responsible for audience development at Chemical and Engineering News (C&EN). C&EN creates editorial content for the weekly magazine of the American Chemical Society as well as sponsored content for brands through BrandLab.In this episode, Sondra talks about how they promote content from both sources through email, social media and retargeting campaigns.In the realm of social, she reminds us not to put all the eggs in one basket and be clear about the difference between platforms you own and those you don't.We talked a bit about retargeting campaigns. Sondra described a LinkedIn advertising campaign (expensive) that may only get a few leads for an email list, for example.By driving readers to the website tagged with a remarketing pixel, you can continue to show those people banners for other valuable content and increase the conversion rate, bringing cost/lead down.She also provided valuable advice about block lists for retargeting to ensure your ads don't show up on sites not compatible with your brand.Email is still very powerful. A/B tests of subject lines show that, at least for the C&EN audience, a question may not perform as well as a statement.Subscribe in iTunes.Leave an iTunes Review.Listen on Stitcher.CEN Media GroupIntro Music stefsax / CC BY 2.5  About My Guest … Sondra Hadden is a digital marketer for a DC based membership association, and focuses on both marketing solutions for advertisers of their weekly publication, Chemical & Engineering News (C&EN), as well as reader engagement and audience development for the magazine’s audience.   

  A new business has a lot of things to think about and choices of where to put their resources so it can start making sales and gaining traction.Lisa Thurston helps companies put some structure around those decisions. In this episode she shared her advice for biotech startups. Of course, market research and a business plan are essential.But there are also the less sexy things like accounting systems and legal documents. That includes things like terms and conditions, not just safeguards for your intellectual property.Once everything is set up, tapping into your personal network can make the first sales the easiest. Beyond that, LinkedIn and even the Tech Transfer office if you are at a university, can help you find customers and start generating revenue.The I-Corps program of the NSF operates through multiple universities and has been very successful getting startups up and running. Side note: You can learn more about the I-Corps in my interview with Stanley Maloy, Associate Vice President for Research and Innovation at San Diego State, on the SDBN Buzz podcast.Lisa shared her ideas about collaborations, either with customers or larger companies that might generate revenue and provide new opportunities.Don’t be afraid to ask for help. There are a lot of people who can help review your business plan and give advice.Subscribe in iTunes.Leave an iTunes Review.Listen on Stitcher.Cultivate Sales LLCIntro Music stefsax / CC BY 2.5  About My Guest … Lisa Thurston is the CEO of Cultivate Sales where she supports new biotechnology emerging product and services companies in a variety of operational areas. Her background is in developing business models and execution in sales, business development, marketing and operations.   

  We hear a lot about voice of customer in marketing. But we don’t hear a lot about “feeling of customer”. Kris Barnette joins me on this episode to describe two campaigns he worked on at Thermo Fisher. One was a phenomenal success. The other was never rolled out.Both campaigns were intended to create top of mind awareness in the customer. The first was an adult coloring book based on spectacular cell imaging. The other was a poster based on an individual’s research illustrated by a gig poster artist know for creating artwork for bands.Both creations were beautiful works of art. Kris will tell you why one worked and the other wouldn’t. The important takeaway is that his team took the risks to try both and then reviewed the failure as well as the success so they could learn and get better.Kris talked about:The importance of being at the top of the consideration setRisk taking balanced with researchLearning from mistakesHow scientists embrace nerd culture and how he used that for successSubscribe in iTunes.Leave an iTunes Review.Listen on Stitcher.All Good MKTGAxios NewsletterIntro Music stefsax / CC BY 2.5  About My Guest … Kris Barnette is the CEO of All Good Marketing in Akron Ohio (fun fact- the town where I was born) and also an adjunct professor of marketing at Kent State University..   

  Your customers are experiencing moments of pain. Sometimes those are nagging little problems. Others may be more urgent or even life changing.Each of those moments is an opportunity to apply content to help them solve the problem. Andrew Hanelly joined me for a conversation about how he approaches those opportunities.His suggestion is to pick just one of those moments in the customer journey and focus on that step with consistent editorial content. You get to pick whatever format you think is best. Then make sure the content has value. There needs to be a balance between content and marketing.Because a lot of that content that they’re producing is really just thinly veiled marketing. It’s taking an ad message or ad copy and turn it into a 500 word blog posts, making it look like content but not read or feel or connect with people like content… Consumers are saying, I don’t have time. I don’t have interest. You’ve got to earn your way into my life now. What are you going to do about that?Map the moments where customers might interact with your brand and figure out what questions they have. Andrew has a great example of using Google to find out what his client’s potential customers might be Googling for at 4am. What questions do they have?To avoid being overwhelmed, pick one moment that you can cover consistently with valuable content and then think like an editor. What can you produce around that topic regularly? Then what channels can you repurpose to?Don’t be afraid to experiment and have a plan for learning.I like this approach because there is value in creating a deep archive of content around a single topic. It’s good for search. It’s good for branding. It’s definitely a way to stand out in a noisy world.Subscribe in iTunes.Leave an iTunes Review.Listen on Stitcher.RevmadeAxios NewsletterLess is more. (Item 7 from the newsletter)Intro Music stefsax / CC BY 2.5  About My Guest … Andrew Hannely is a partner at Revmade, a digital agency. He has spent his career developing and executing publishing, audience growth and monetization strategies and experiments for Fortune 500 brands, world-renowned media companies, associations and non-profits. His work has been featured at SXSW, Content Marketing World, and AdAge.   

  Big announcements around product launches or other news are opportunities to drive significant interest in your company and traffic to your website. But sometimes search volume goes up and traffic to your site goes down. That traffic ends up going somewhere else.How does that happen?It’s nothing nefarious. News sites carry a lot of domain authority. So when they pick up your press release, they may displace you in search results right when you want people clicking through to yourawesomecompany.com.Hans Kaspersetz (CEO of Arteric and the unofficial data guru of LSMR) is back to explain the problem and what you can do to avoid the dip and maximize traffic following your big news.You won’t be surprised that content plays a role. Hans describes exactly what kind of content that should be and shares one other element that can keep the traffic flowing to your site.Subscribe in iTunes.Leave an iTunes Review.Listen on Stitcher.ArtericIntro Music stefsax / CC BY 2.5  About My Guest … Hans Kaspersetz is the founder and President of Arteric, a digital agency for biotech and pharma built on a foundation of state-of-the-art software engineering. A lifelong software developer, Hans builds and guides teams of world-class software developers that drive change in the life sciences and healthcare.A speaker and panelist at international technology meetings, Hans advises Fortune Global 500 firms on commercial web search technology and digital strategy.   

  How are you really going to describe what you’re talking about? Whether it’s the company, the technology, or the product. What lexicon are you using? What words are you choosing? What phrases are you using? And are those consistent from not just meeting to meeting or presentation to presentation, but from person to person. And that needs to be orchestrated. It just doesn’t happen organically. – Bob Finkel, CEO, Freshblood GroupIn the early life of a biotech startup, enthusiasm may overtake discipline when it comes to communicating a message about the product. Each of the principals may have their own way of explaining the value proposition. Compound that with passing your message through different thought leaders and the potential for confusion is high.Bob Finkel has a lot of experience helping companies develop that message discipline and communicate clearly and consistently to each of their diverse audiences. Those audiences can include investors, thought leaders, physicians and patients. You can probably add the press to that list.In this episode, he explains the value of a unified lexicon and a well thought out messaging platform. He also describes important aspects of building a brand, not just around a product, but around a tone, a voice and shared values.Subscribe in iTunes.Leave an iTunes Review.Listen on Stitcher.Freshblood GroupFreshblood on TwitterIntro Music stefsax / CC BY 2.5  About My Guest … Bob Finkel is the Founder and CEO of Freshblood Group, a consortium of senior-level industry experts providing a full suite of business and creative solutions for healthcare brands.   

  In large companies, product management is an important part of the marketing function, a bridge to R&D and many other functions. Smaller companies can also benefit from having an individual who owns the product roadmap and strategy. Because responsibilities vary, you may not be clear about what a product manager does, even if you know one.So let's clear that up.Jill Roughan explains:How a product manager is different from a project managerAt what point in its evolution a small biotech, for example, should consider hiring a product managerWhat it means to have a product strategy and visionWhat 3 skills to look for when hiring a product managerI learned that being a product manager is a great training ground for future CEOs because of the need to  develop strategy and handle changing situations.Subscribe in iTunes.Leave an iTunes Review.Listen on Stitcher.Sciencia ConsultingIntro Music stefsax / CC BY 2.5  About My Guest … Jill Roughan is the founder of Sciencia Consulting, specializing in providing life science product management for small and mid-size biotechs, large pharmaceutical and medical device companies.   

  I'm pretty sure your organization has a story to tell, whether about your brand, your mission, or a new technology. How those things came about can make for a powerful story, particularly in an audio format.This week, I'm sharing an episode I produced about an organization that raises funds for cancer research in about 20 major US cities. Swim Across America has a compelling mission and an interesting origin. I spoke to the leadership of Swim Across America and two of the doctors whose research and patient programs benefit from those funds.Listen to find out:Who inspired the founders of SAAHow it worksWhere the money goesWhat kind of impact it makesYour company may not have the resources for an ongoing podcast series, or it may not be a good fit.  But a short series or even a single audio story can be highly shareable content.Subscribe in iTunes.Leave an iTunes Review.Listen on Stitcher.Intro Music stefsax / CC BY 2.5  About My Guest … Hey, it's me. Your host, Chris Conner. In addition to publishing Life Science Marketing Radio and client podcasts, I have a podcast about people whose lives have been changed by swimming. It's called Flip Turns. This episode of LSMR joins those two worlds telling the story of how thousands of swimmers across the US are raising funds that go to scientists doing important research and clinical trials that result in new treatments for cancer.   

  Many life science brands are struggling to make the most of social media. There are however notable exceptions. We’ve talked about some of those before on this podcast.In this episode, Mary Canady shares her thoughts on how companies can be more successful and also how to avoid wasting money and effort on poor social media campaigns.We also talk about what is likely to be important in the future as new platforms arrive and old ones evolve or go away.Listen to find out:How scientists are engaging with social mediaWhat type of content is attractiveWhich activities yield long term resultsWhy building communities is importantSubscribe in iTunes.Leave an iTunes Review.Listen on Stitcher.Comprendia Social Media MarketingSan Diego Biotech NetworkPAG memesMillipore Sigma TwitterV&P ASMRASMR on WikipediaInsight Pharma Report: Marketing to Life ScientistsIntro Music stefsax / CC BY 2.5  About My Guest … Mary Canady is the founder of Comprendia, a digital and social media marketing firm servicing the biotechnology sector. Over the last 10 years she has also used her social media skills to build her own brand with 35,000 followers and a significant community as the founder of the the San Diego Biotech Network.   

  If you happen to be in the middle of a job search, this episode is for you.Mauri Schwartz was a key person in getting me to where I am today. After having worked in a lab for about 20 years, I left science for a while and spent six years as a sailing instructor and doing some consulting. She helped me get my resume together and figure out what jobs in the industry I should look at, having been in academia for most of my career.In this episode we talk about:Searching the job boards vs targeting specific companiesHow to stand out on LinkedInHow to get to the hiring managerPreparing for the interviewDealing with odd things in your resume (like sailing instructor)When to follow upSubscribe in iTunes.Leave an iTunes Review.Listen on Stitcher.Intro Music stefsax / CC BY 2.5  About My Guest … Mauri Schwartz is the founder of Career Insiders where she is both a recruiter and a career coach.   

  A listener asked me to do an episode on benchmarking campaigns. I happened to be at the ACP-LS meeting with Jim Breault and Alan Abery from Springer Nature publishing right at that moment so I asked them for their thoughts.Every campaign is different, but they have seen a lot of them. In this episode, they describe what works and what doesn’t.The days of a one-sided conversation where you are pushing your message out are over. Put the customer first, not the product.Jim and Allen describe how to get the most out of conversations with your media partners and the campaigns that result.Subscribe in iTunes.Leave an iTunes Review.Listen on Stitcher.Nature PartnershipsIntro Music stefsax / CC BY 2.5  About My Guests … Jim Breault is the US sales director at Springer Nature. Alan Abery is the senior marketing manager for partnerships at Springer Nature.   

  How is your executive presence? The way you speak has an impact whether you are an executive in a high stakes conversation or a manager leading your team.Scott Stiefvater is a public speaking coach at Slomoff Consulting Group. He joined me to talk about how the brain is meant to communicate (both speaking and listening) and the skills you can work on to achieve excellence as a speaker or communicator.The approach he described doesn’t lean on technique, but rather on awareness of two realities. There is the inner world of the speaker. (Do I have the right words? What is the message I want to get across?) But beyond that is the experience of the listener. This is affected by the sound of your voice, your body language and more.Scott explains 3 elements of improving “the swing” of your speaking, similar to a golf swing.The first is getting control of your sentences. We’ve all experienced, both speaking and listening, the sound of a sentence that is being composed on the fly and doesn’t land with the impact it could. This is a skill that can improve with practice.Next is your “pre-game” routine. Are your fully prepared with your content?Finally, what is happening in your inner world when you are successful? What did it feel like? What makes that happen and how can you replicate that feeling?Subscribe in iTunes.Leave an iTunes Review.Listen on Stitcher.Slomoff Consulting GroupIntro Music stefsax / CC BY 2.5  About My Guest … Scott Stiefvater is a public speaking coach at the Slomoff Consulting Group. He employs a brain-based approach to coach senior and emerging leaders to become masterful communicators on stage and in the boardroom.   

  2019 is the year of video marketing - again! It has been important and continues to be. But just making product or "About Us" videos and posting them to YouTube is unlikely to get the results you want without a clear video strategy. CJ Thomas of Wondertree media lays it all out for us in this episode.It's essential to think about the desired outcome. Product videos may have their place but we should always keep the needs of the customer in mind. Think about the problems they are trying to solve and make videos (entertaining, informative or inspiring) that help them do that.Because consistency and frequency are important for content marketing, you might even set up (with help) a DIY studio in house to create simple video content on a budget.For biotech startups, marketing, including video should be a part of your process from the start. Videos can be used to get customer feedback, persuade investors and recruit top talent.Listen to the interview to find out why CJ thinks it's best to start content marketing when you are busy. Subscribe in iTunes.Leave an iTunes Review.Listen on Stitcher.Wondertree MediaDownload the transcriptIntro Music stefsax / CC BY 2.5  About My Guest … CJ Thomas is the founder of Wondertree Media, a creative content studio producing video for life changing brands.   

  In this episode, I’m sharing my goals for this year along with what has helped me be successful achieving goals and mistakes I’ve made around goals that lead to failure. (I’ve had some of that too.)I’m a big believer in writing goals down and sharing them. That’s the single most important thing you can do to ensure success.On the flip side, I believe the biggest challenge is having too many goals. That can be as bad as having none. It’s the same really. Focus is important.For that reason, this year I have only three. One for my mind, one for the body, one for the wallet.You’ll have to listen to find  out what they are.Write down and share some of your personal goals in the comments below and have a great New Year!Subscribe in iTunes.Leave an iTunes Review.Listen on Stitcher.Intro Music stefsax / CC BY 2.5  

  I think this is the first time we've ever talked about media strategy on this podcast. I met Keith Betz at Digital Pharma West earlier this year and thought it was about time we covered it.Keith is the VP of Client Services at The Butler/Till Health Group. They serve mostly medical device, pharma and biotech companies, but the same principles apply. And a lot of what we talked about goes beyond media specifically.Keith emphasized that the first thing to do is to... (wait for it) think about your audience. Doing a good job of this pays off in every aspect of a campaign. All of your tactics depend on this understanding of where and how to reach your audience. And the messaging needs to match the channel. For example, no one wants a call to action to call their doctor while scrolling through Instagram.These days, data is so available that there is no excuse for not monitoring and making adjustments to your activities frequently based on what's working and what's not.Measurement is arguably the most important piece of this, because if you can't with confidence understand what the impact is of your efforts then you have to kind of call in the question of why you're doing it in the first place. -Keith Betz, Butler/Till Health GroupFinally, and again this is something we probably don't do enough in Life Science, it's important to have an idea about Customer Lifetime Value so you can make smart decisions about how much you should or can spend on a campaign. Subscribe in iTunes.Leave an iTunes Review.Listen on Stitcher.Intro Music stefsax / CC BY 2.5  About My Guest … Keith Betz is Vice President of Client Services at Butler/Till Health Group.   

  Cell Signaling Technology (CST) recently won a Life Science Industry Award for Best Digital Advertising. I asked Rebecca Reppucci, Director of Marketing Communications, how they achieved that.When Rebecca started at CST in 2013, more than 63% of the marketing budget was dedicated to print advertising. There were no webinars, no SEO or PPC strategy. All they had in terms of digital was a small, unsegmented email list.She knew things had to change. In 2018 they spent no money on print advertising, 25% is dedicated to webinars and 75% to other digital efforts, including a heavy focus on video and social media.Change is hard and persuading others to make big shifts takes planning and persistence. In this episode, Rebecca talks about the tough choices she made, moving away from the “peanut butter – spread it everywhere” approach toward a more focused strategy.Surprisingly, or maybe not, it started with changes in IT so they could get better analytics and measure what they were doing. And every activity has a goal.I hadn’t heard much about Pragmatic Marketing, but this is the approach she embraced wholeheartedly. Now everyone is speaking the same language.Recently, we aligned product marketing, marketing communications, digital, development and IT by educating the entire team on the pragmatic marketing approach so we all speak the same language. – Rebecca ReppucciFinally this approach has had a huge impact on their messaging. They no longer try to reach every basic researcher. Each asset has a defined persona it is tended for. It may reach a broader audience but it works really well on the people they want to attract. Subscribe in iTunes.Leave an iTunes Review.Listen on Stitcher.Intro Music stefsax / CC BY 2.5  About My Guest … Rebecca Reppucci is accountable for driving integrated marketing campaigns to raise the brand awareness of Cell Signaling Technology with full ownership of CST inbound/outbound communications.   

  Mike Collins started CEM Corporation in a garage, took it public and then bought it back. And the garage wasn’t even his…Most companies talk to their customers as some part of their product development process. It’s helpful to understand their problems and what they are looking for. But the problem with that, Mike told me, is that customers typically are thinking of incremental improvements – the things that will solve the problems in front of them right now.To be truly disruptive, you need to look at a much bigger picture. That might mean talking to customers in different industries whose problems aren’t related. Then you begin to see how they could do things entirely differently.I would come back and talk to our engineers and scientists and I knew what the initial response was going to be and it was always the same. “That’s impossible. That can’t be done. And that’s why it was never done before.”And what you then do is challenge your people, your engineers, and all of a sudden they start thinking about it. It’s amazing how in three or four weeks or a month, they’ll come back with an idea on how it can be done and all of a sudden they start to believe that maybe it is possible. And that’s where it starts. – Mike Collins, CEM CorporationWhen Mike started looking at sample preparation, he was shocked. Some of the techniques were over 100 years old, used to prepare samples destined to be analyzed using 21st century technology. He described how the K-Cup coffee maker inspired a product that reduced a 5-hour process to a 5-minute one.Finally, we talked about taking his company private years after going public and what that means for the culture of the company. He learned a lot from his time in a public company. But as a private entity he can make decisions faster. And there is a bonus in employee motivation. Employees feel more attached to their work and the products they produce. As a result,  retention is high and the culture is strong enough to sustain itself.Subscribe in iTunes.Leave an iTunes Review.Listen on Stitcher.Read the transcript.Intro Music stefsax / CC BY 2.5  About My Guest … Mike Collins Ph. D. is the founder, owner, president and CEO of CEM Corporation, the leading provider of microwave solutions for the laboratory and life sciences marketplace.