One of the most common apprehensions many scientists have about commercialising their research is that bit where they know they’re going to have to sell their service, product or process. Indeed, many hire another person to do it at the earliest possibility so they don’t have to do it, posting Business Development Manager job descriptions all over the internet within seconds of receiving that funding. Others simply wait patiently and politely for their name to organically “get out there” and for that line of customers to start queuing at the door – all in the spirit of avoiding the hard sell. And that’s understandable because not many people want to turn into that pushy person that others want to avoid. Plus, it’s difficult to take the emotion out of persuading another person to buy something that comes from your life’s work.
It’s quite right to avoid the hard sell – but there is another way.
A way that is more proactive and more cost effective if you don’t have that funding for a sales team.
It’s a marketing practice called Inbound Marketing
Attract vs Assert
Inbound Marketing is all about attracting people to your website rather than asserting your product and messages onto other people. It recognises that people spend many weeks, months and searches on the internet as part of the process of outsourcing and engaging new suppliers and it aligns your activities to contributing to this. Through Inbound Marketing you get to build a reputation and thought leadership that naturally motivates people to find out more.
Serve vs Sell
At the heart of Inbound is the publication of useful content that is relevant to the people you want to attract. The golden rule is to be generous with your insight and experience and to shift the focus to serving this community. So much so, it can be incredibly empowering to adjust your commercial objectives to a much higher goal of making a difference to a community. By focussing on how you can help people with knowledge and insight rather than who you can sell to, the whole purpose and atmosphere of your marketing changes immediately. No promotion, no selling, just contribution.
Faith vs Force
And yes, you are absolutely right, this requires conviction in the process. And no, nobody can tell you what specific results you will get from it. But those of us who have practised Inbound Marketing for years with many different products (and yes, all in life sciences) have never gone back to the hard sell. That’s because sales is a numbers game – there will always be attrition from the number of people aware of a product to the ones who buy. So, the starting point is to have enough people aware and attracted to your website so that, by the time the inevitable conversion rates are applied, there are enough customers at the end of the process. This is where Inbound comes in.
There are stats out there too – effective content marketing can generate 3 times as many leads as traditional methods and yet costs an average of 62% less. But no matter what the specific increase in website visitors and leads happens for you, you’ll know that every day you are serving a community and helping the people you want to work with. And that has a funny way of getting you jumping out of bed in the morning.
Care vs Close
To create an Inbound Marketing strategy – to know what insights and education you are going to share – you need to know what your customers care about at this moment in time. This goes way beyond the anonymised market data and the dehumanised markets you want to “close”. It brings real people into the picture. Real people who are feeling a bit stressed at work, who need to get things moving in a certain way, who need to demonstrate to the bosses or the board that they have a plan that’s well thought out. Real people who, like us, want to make sound decisions and just be good at their job. Real people who love outsourcing to or partnering with people they like and respect.
And then, on your website you can fill your boots with your value proposition, product information, case examples and testimonials. You can do this because you’ve earned the right to do this. You’ve added value to another person through sharing relevant insight and information – likely more than once – and they’re getting to know you. And they’re getting to respect you and they’re getting to like you…
…just like what happens in the real world with real people.