Moving from the lab bench into marketing
3rd May 2022 - Last modified 19th October 2023
By David Robinson, Managing Director.
For many early-stage scientific marketeers, the hardest part of the transition from the lab is learning the jargon, and without experience or training, sometimes even basic terms can be misunderstood.
Having worked with life science and healthcare companies for over 25 years, occasionally I’ve been talking with a client about various marketing communications tactics, and they might say “advertising” when what they really mean is “editorial” or any form of promotional activity.
Actually, this is not as surprising as it seems, since many scientists move into a marketing role from the lab, or from sales, without any background in marketing. And if the company is small, they often have to learn on the job without an experienced manager to ask for help.
In these instances, it is good to have an external partner, such as Alto Marketing, to support them.
So, for any early-stage science marketeers, I thought it would be helpful to provide short descriptions for three of the most commonly used terms/activities in scientific marketing.
Advertising (paid media)
This umbrella term covers many activities, from traditional print advertisements and online banner ads in the trade media (magazines, journals and websites that serve the science sector), to pay-per-click (PPC) advertising with search engines or social media platforms, and pay-per-lead (PPL) advertising with some online portals.
Other forms of paid promotions that come under the general definition of advertising include:
• Sponsorships – financial support of eg conferences, exhibitions, magazine supplements etc in return for some form of promotion
• Advertorial – articles in the trade media that involve payment and are often marked as sponsored content to differentiate from editorial (see below). This can be the only way to get your content published in some publications
• Email marketing through a third party provider
All advertising involves payment for display of your messages in whatever form – text, visual or audio – and generally you have control over the timing of when your ads will be shown, within any constraints due to availability.
Of course, you can always show advertisements on your own website and social media channels (owned media).
Editorial (earned media)
Editorial covers all forms of content that are published on a media platform or in a publication without payment. This includes press releases (see our blog “Getting the most from your life science and healthcare PR”) and more in-depth articles and interviews.
You don’t pay for editorial coverage, so it’s a good way of promoting your product/service without eating into your marketing budget. However because you are not paying, you don’t have precise control over timing and, in some cases, what is actually published. That said, you – or your marketing partner such as Alto Marketing – can plan your editorial activities to coincide with your marketing campaigns.
Events (paid/earned)
Worth mentioning here as attendance at industry events continues to be a mainstay of most scientific marketing in a (hopefully) post COVID-affected world. Events can take the form of congresses, trade exhibitions, seminars and webinars, and can be in-person, online or, more commonly now, a hybrid of the two.
As well as booking and paying for stand/booth space at an exhibition, other promotional opportunities at events include:
• Speaking at conferences, either as part of the main conference programme or in satellite events
• Poster presentations
• Sponsorship
• Meeting with the media to enhance editorial interest
Of course, I can’t cover every earned, owned and paid media option or channel available to scientific marketers in one blog. However, for scientists who have recently made the move into a marketing role, I hope it will help to clarify the meaning of these widely used scientific marketing terms.
To promote a product or service successfully, you need to understand the benefits to the user, which, in a scientific context, means you need a good grasp of the science. And scientists can easily make the jump from the bench to a marketing role – for which their analytical training is very useful. Because of this, here at Alto Marketing, we regularly recruit scientists and train them up in all aspects of marketing, so if you are looking for a change in roles, please get in contact.
