Scientists Are People Too

Our research in the life science market leads us to believe that consumer behavior is fairly consistent. That is, there are a few simple behaviors that appear to be true across all demographics. In particular, corporate reputations are hard to change, which is good if customers like you, but terrible if they don’t. Likewise, as long as a particular product continues to perform at an expected level, it is unlikely that the average scientist will give much thought to competing products. This may spell disaster for marketers of those competing products unless they can promote them in a way that gets the attention of an otherwise satisfied customer.

Marketing to life scientists is often viewed as being completely different from marketing to other audiences. While few doubt the unique challenges faced by scientific suppliers, we can’t forget that scientists are, after all, people too. As such, our pursuit of better marketing activities cannot ignore the basic truths of consumer behavior. For example, we still market using the same basic tools as other industries. We may use them differently, but the reasoning behind their use is basically the same. Where we must be innovative is in tailoring and targeting these tools to a market that at least overtly ignores many common marketing approaches.

In the life science market, getting the edge, so to speak, involves isolating a small group of consumers who are interested from the much larger group of those who are not.