Zoomedia Blog
Our clients know that the litany of negative headlines from the financial sector in the past month has not escaped the eyes and minds of marketing departments budget crunchers throughout the life sciences. In response to the economic uncertainty, many biotech and pharma companies are cutting non-core spending to maintain internal stability. Reduced budgets present the proverbial challenge that "tools are needed to build a ship." Yet marketers are charged with delivering the corporate or product message out, building sales and partnerships, and developing brand awareness. In this catch-22, how can the industry best stretch its marketing dollars?
Casting a wide marketing net is the best approach in difficult financial times. In doing so, decision makers must look for “long tail” opportunities to reach its audience – those activities that individually may reach a small group, but implemented repeatedly at a low cost can have a similar impact of a larger more media-intensive campaign for far lower cost.
The internet is full of opportunities to reach audiences in low-cost ways. With little setup, a long tail campaign can be developed to deliver messages even when budgets are reduced. When budgets return to normal, these campaigns will be in place to compliment traditional media avenues. Below, I have outlined just a few low-cost marketing opportunities:
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Leverage the power of Really Simple Syndication (RSS)
RSS is a technology that allows information of nearly any kind to be quickly and easily distributed to web portals (ie Google and Yahoo, for starters, and an infinite number of specialty health websites as well as individuals who opt in to receive that information). RSS has gained popularity recently as an efficient manner to send out press releases and commentary such as blogs, but these broadcasts (called “feeds”) can contain any information. Applied carefully, an advertising campaign could be wrapped into an educational series written by your staff, being picked up and displayed across the internet for essentially zero ongoing cost. -
Guarantee ROI through a Search Engine Marketing (SEM) campaign
Google, Yahoo, and MSN are the leading players in the SEM industry, where advertisers bid on placement of text or graphical ads. These ads appear in a style similar to newspaper Classifieds, but unlike advertising in a newspaper, online ads appear only to relevant groups (defined by parameters such as matching keyword searches or geography). Most importantly, advertisers only pay for these ads when internet visitors click on the links to go to the advertiser’s website. ROI is guaranteed. Advertisers – including marketing departments in the Life Sciences – can start working with these services for as little as fifty dollars. -
Jump on the Web 2.0 bandwagon
Loyal readers know this is Zoomedia’s swan song: my colleagues have repeatedly addressed ways that the Life Sciences industry can best leverage technologies such as Twitter, Facebook, LinkedIn, and YouTube. These free services reach tremendous audiences each day and are all actively growing. Tapping into these resources provides the greatest opportunity to expand a campaign, and with minimal setup costs, should be a mandatory aspect of any strategic marketing plan.
If your budget is crunched, drop me an email or call me at 901-333-1356 so we can discuss ways to develop a low-cost, long tail approach to stretch your marketing dollars.
Tags: SEM, RSS, Online Marketing, Viral Marketing, Product Strategy, Investor Strategy, Clinical Trial Strategy