Location, Location, Location: Delivering Your Messaging Where Your Customers and Prospects Are

It used to be pretty easy. If you wanted to open a general store in the 19th century or first half of the 20th century, you would rent, buy or maybe build a space within the downtown area of your town. Everyone had to come into town to shop and....there you were.

I am sure if we could have a conversation with a 19th century merchant, he would tell us it was not quite that easy to make a living. But, given the highly sophisticated site selection processes large retailers and restaurants use today, our 19th century entrepreneur faced far fewer decisions and variables. He had a market that all came to the same place, he just had to figure out what they wanted to buy, offer great service and fair prices.

Today, consumers can buy similar goods in many different places so retailers and restaurant chains know that while site selection may not be quite everything, it is critically important.

A similar trend has happened in the media industry. It used to be pretty straightforward. Even in B2B media, entire industries were served by three or four magazines and a few trade shows/conferences. This is obviously no longer the case, which makes it challenging to “be where you customers are.” Or, since you can’t be everywhere, to have a meaningful voice in an effective assortment of communications outlets.

Although I cannot wave my magic wand a design a media plan for you, what I can say is if you are solely using print vehicles, or if you are solely using digital vehicles, or if you spend your entire marketing budget on trade shows, you are missing the opportunity to communicate with a very big portion of your customer and prospect base.

In decades past we knew that marketing communications were good for us - sort of like eating broccoli. Today, they are critical as customers and prospects are much further along the buying cycle by the time they talk to you than used to be the case. So if you are not communicating with them, your competitors are.

At Pharmaceutical Manufacturing we have been studying and surveying our audience in a disciplined fashion as our audience’s needs are change and as new technologies emerge and mature. In a recent audience survey completed by 110 pharmaceutical industry members, we learned that 79.44% regularly read pharmaceutical industry websites and e-newsletters and 69.17% regularly read pharmaceutical industry print magazines.

It should not come as a shock to us that 79.44% are consuming information online. What may be surprising to you is that so many (69.17%) regularly read pharmaceutical industry trade magazines.

I hear every day, multiple times per day that “digital is where it is at,” or “print is dead, right?” Digital media is incredibly important. It is extremely challenging, but incredibly important. However, 69.17% of your customers and prospects read industry print publications…doesn’t it make sense to be there with your messaging?

I understand that it is difficult to measure the effectiveness of print media, but I submit to you that it is incredibly difficult to measure the effectiveness of digital as well. Yes, digital media offers us click and other conversion data that can be incredible useful. However, the goal of marketing is to alter human perception, preferences and behavior.

Given our complexity as human beings, it really sells us short as a species to completely measure our attitudes and emotions in terms of clicks and downloads. If we were in highly transactional, low engagement businesses like selling movie tickets online my position would likely be different. But, most of you are selling high investment, high risk, high engagement solutions to a highly regulated industry.

Those marketers who determine ways to measure a fuller range of customer and prospect behavior will have an enormous competitive advantage. More specifically, marketers who communicate effectively with their customers and prospects where they are – in print, online and at trade shows – will have an enormous competitive advantage.


**If you are interested in seeing a pdf report of Pharmaceutical Manufacturing’s most recent audience survey, please e-mail me at tbecker@putman.net.

What’s Working? High Performing PharmaManufacturing.com Website Campaign

Solid digital thinking and best practices have been utilized by Silverson and their advertising agency for a website campaign currently running on PharmaManufacturing.com. Click thru rates for the campaign have to date been 46% higher than average PharmaManufacturing.com website ad click thru rates.

Why? Reviewing the 4-panel ad below, you will notice:

1. Solution words that address industry pain points – “ uniquely hygienic,” “supremely efficient,” “double-certified.”
2. High-impact solution – “Reduce Mixing Times by up to 90%”
3. Video demonstration call to action that follows effective solution and pain point language within the ad's first three panels
   
4. Eye-catching graphic presentation

In addition to an ad that effectively addresses pain points and offers a meaningful call to action, the ad’s landing page is quite well done. The page is easy to navigate, provides ample information for someone at early stages of interest and the “Ask the Expert” function offers a non-threatening, customer centric opportunity for lead capture & conversion.

Pharmaceutical Manufacturing Magazine Wins Gold ASBPE Awards

Itasca, Illinois (PRWEB) August 22, 2011

Putman Media's Pharmaceutical Manufacturing has won one gold 2011 National award and two gold Midwest/South regional awards from the American Society of Business Publication Editors (ASBPE). These prestigious annual awards recognize the best in B2B magazine editorial, design and Web and digital content development strategy and implementation.

Read Full Press Release

Join Me in Congratulating Pharmaceutical Manufacturing’s Editorial Team

Over the years many of you have regularly read, watched and listened to articles, special reports, webcasts, podcasts and columns labored into existence by Agnes Shanley, Editor-in-Chief, Paul Thomas, Sr. Editor and Michele Vaccarello Wagner, Sr. Digital Editor.

Others of you have worked in partnership with them to collaboratively create pieces to support Pharmaceutical Manufacturing’s mission of being a key catalyst for the pharmaceutical and biopharmaceutical industries’ drive to improve manufacturing and operations, enhance the quality of products and minimize risk with a passionate dedication to public health.

Agnes, Paul and Michele are dedicated to delivering content both in print and online that supports the needs of our readers and industry on topics of interest and within the now wide-range of information delivery formats that are a part of today’s media landscape.

They work hard and are constantly striving to do things just a little bit better. It is my utmost honor to work with them in chartering the course of Pharmaceutical Manufacturing’s present and future.

Please join me in congratulating Agnes, Paul and Michele on winning three Gold AZBEE Awards – honors bestowed by the American Society of Business Publication Editors (ASBPE) to reward journalistic excellence.

National Gold Award
"Best Use of Social Media"

Midwest-South Region Gold Award
"Editorial/Editor’s Letter"

Midwest-South Region Gold Award
"Regular Column, Staff Written"

Congratulations and continued success Agnes, Paul and Michele!

Honored,

Tonia Becker, Publisher
Pharmaceutical Manufacturing, PharmaManufacturing.com and PharmaQbD.com

P.S. If you would like to congratulate Agnes, Paul and Michele please comment below.

A Brief History of Content Marketing

Photo credit: Whitejacket

This is a fun piece on Marketing Profs and there are a couple of profound points contained within it. The fun and the challenge of today's marketing landscape is that there are dozens and dozens of messaging delivery options. The fun part is that there is a lot of room for creativity and innovation. The challenge, of course, is that breaking through the noise is not easy.

However, my take away from this piece was a reminder of what we all need to do if we expect our messaging to be relevant and to break through the clutter. Peeling back the layers of the glitz and glamour of technologically advanced delivery mechanisms, there are three retro examples within this piece that give us profound insights on the directions we should be taking.

1. Michelin Guide produced by the Michelin Tire Company. This guide was free until 1920 and is still in production today. It was/is a guide to assist with car maintenance and travel. The genius??? The more Michelin helped their customers to travel in their cars, the more tires they needed!

Take Away: Don't try to sell people more of your product, help them to need more of it.

2. In 1904 Jello-O's sales volume was so low that the brand was almost written off. As a last ditch effort Frank Woodward, the brand's owner, sent his sales force out to distribute free recipe books. By 1906, Jell-O's sales reached $1 million.

Take Away: People did not know how to use Jell-O. Women needed affordable desserts for their families, Jell-O gave them a solution. Do you customers understand where your solutions fit with their needs? Have you facilitated a true understanding of your solutions?

3. GI Joe only succeeded only because GI Joe told a story. Hasbro allowed young boys to get to know him, connect with him, respect him and ultimately love him (in a mini-man love kind of way).

Take Away: We should not spend our time in B2B marketing making up fanciful stories about our products and companies. But, human beings (and our customers are human) relate to stories. In fact, story telling and connecting with stories is a core part of our humanity. This is why well done case studies can have such high impact. I realize case studies, particularly in the pharmaceutical industry are difficult. There are other ways; however, to tell application stories that your customers will be able to connect with. The key is to focus on the needs of your customer, not the features of your products.

View the Slide Show: A Brief History of Content Marketing

Stick ‘Em Up. Now, Let’s Build a Business Partnership.

"Stick ‘em up."
"Let me steal your contact data."
"Now, let’s talk about building a business partnership based on mutual trust and respect."

This is ludicrous chain of logic, but it is exactly what is going on out there far too often. B2B lead generation activities, as discussed in my May 5, 2011 post, should be permission-based. “I agree to give you my contact information knowing that you will contact me in a respectful manner, in exchange for value-rich information that might help me to solve challenges I am wrestling with.”

Way too often, I see pieces of content gated with a registration form that should not be gated. Product spec sheets, marketing pieces and other documents of this nature should not be gated.

For most of us, buying a new car is probably one of the most “technical” purchases we make in our personal lives, so I believe it is a fair comparison to many B2B marketing activities for selling complex products.

I am absolutely not willing to fill out a registration form to access features & spec information for a new car. However, I would be willing to fill out a form knowing that my local dealer will likely contact me, to access objective technology and performance comparisons of hybrid, electric and traditional engine cars. If I filled out a form in good faith and end up being given access to a mere marketing piece, I will be much less likely to buy that brand of car - after being dupped once, why would I believe that my dealer or the car company will be honest as we have other conversations?

The other highly concerning activity, is publishers giving their advertisers full contact information for one of their audience members who clicked on the advertiser’s e-newsletter ad. As described in our Digital Pledge, a click is not a lead. There are interesting things that can be done with click data to serve an audience, but giving full contact information to an advertiser is not on the list. It is really data theft as I am confident that a typical audience member in our industry does not know that a click on an e-newsletter ad can result in full contact information being given to the advertiser.

The challenge is, generating value-rich content that can be gated with a registration form is not entirely simple. My next two posts will address our criteria for gateable content and ways we can help you to cost effectively generate content for your lead generation efforts.

The Silent Conversation of Lead Generation Content Marketing

Permission-based content marketing is built on a foundation of trust and reciprocity. The silent conversation goes something like this.

Potential Customer: I have a challenge for which I need to find a solution. Based on the description of your content, you seem to understand at least part of my challenge and it seems as though via your research, expertise and/or technology development you might be able to help me to solve at least part of my problem. I am going to trust that our exchange will be equitable, so I going to give you my contact information and answer your question or two. In exchange, I trust that I will be granted access to a rich piece of content that is inline with the quantity and value of the information I gave you.

Solution Provider: I ultimately need to sell my product or service and I believe that a great way to begin creating opportunities is to share my expertise and solutions-oriented information with customers and potential customers who have a problem I can help to solve. If I can solve a problem, I will have a solid opportunity to build or further develop a mutually beneficial client relationship. Because I understand that this opportunity creation tactic is built on mutual trust and respect, I will under promise and over deliver. The content I provide will be even more valuable than my customer or potential customer believes that it will be
prior to registering to access my content.

Potential Customer: I also trust that this solutions provider will respect my by providing information that is in-line with my needs, not spamming me and not sharing my contact information with other people without my permission. If that trust is broken, it does not bode will for our potential relationship.


I have a great number of concerns relating to this issue with the pharmaceutical manufacturing space of the b2b media industry. Trust is being broken; short cuts are being taken that ultimately are not good for anyone within the marketing value chain.

A series of three to five posts sharing thoughts, best practices and ultimately solutions on this topic will be posted during the next few weeks. Stay tuned!