Life science content marketing requires a keen analytical approach. Distilling very technical content down into web-ready marketing collateral that will rank well, engage the desired audience, and ultimately generate sales leads is a challenge for many life sciences companies.
At AZoNetwork we have been in the business of sharing science, medical, and technology stories for over twenty years. So, this approach is second-nature to us.
This article discusses three key tactics all life science marketing teams should be using when developing a content strategy.
Create life science application content
Creating application-focused content is not a new concept for scientific companies. Part of proving your credentials requires a demonstration of your product or techniques in the intended application. However, few businesses successfully communicate this message. Far too often, they are drawn into product comparison wars with their competition and forget about what might resonate with their target audience.
Creating compelling, well-optimized application content on a website blog is critical to driving relevant traffic to your website and converting them into sales leads.
Figure 1. Google Micro-Moments
Consider your life science equipment sales cycle: the likelihood is, it’s a long one. The truth is that B2B customers are not like B2C consumers where a one-click buying process removes most of the friction from the buyer journey. Life science marketing companies must consider application content to address the 97% of people not yet in the buying stage.
AZoTopTip
Write a list of all the industries you serve. Next, note down all the problems your solutions solve in those industries. This will give you the two main sections to a series of titles with a specific application focus.
In Figure 2. you can see how this tip works in practice. The industry is pharmaceuticals and the problems are the expensive and time-consuming process for screening drug candidates. All you need to do is match your solution, which in this case is NMR, and there you have it: a full application title ready to go. Notice, there is no mention of the product in the title. Instead, the title focuses on the problem and solution to address the questions asked by people not yet ready to buy.
In 2015, Google identified just four categories of intent that could underlie a search query at every stage in the digital consumer journey: I want to know, I want to do, I want to go, or I want to buy (see figure 1.)
Well, optimized application content on your website blog is a great way to address individuals still researching a solution to their problem. This is especially true when talking about technical products where detail is a key component of the eventual sale.
Figure 2. Application content examples on News-Medical.net
Engage in video for life science content marketing
Video content covers much more than those dry YouTube channels talking about how to set up X & Y or the features of product Z. Video offers technical industries the opportunity to tell their story in an engaging manner.
What types of videos exist for modern life science content marketing managers?
Here are just a few key types you should consider:
- Thought-leadership videos
- Testimonial videos
- Process videos
- Infographic 2D animation videos
- Product videos.
Two videos every life science company should have or aim to produce are thought-leadership videos and testimonial videos.
Thought-Leader Videos
Thought-leadership aims to establish your business and people as thought-leaders in your industry. We all have people that we would identify as leading the way in our industry. The question becomes, how can a company translate thought-leadership into usable content? The answer is people.
It’s no surprise that life science companies have many experts working on product development. The key is to get those experts sharing their knowledge about the industry problems, challenges, and how they can be solved.
This can be achieved with a simple interview with key personnel discussing how your underlying technology can address the wider industry problems.
SKYSCAN 2214 from AZoNetwork on Vimeo.
Testimonial Videos
The second source of valuable thought-leadership is your customers.
Identify your most valued customers. Ask yourself why they chose you to solve their problem?
Most of your customers will jump at the opportunity to talk about their work. This is especially true if your customers work in R&D or Labs. Asking your customers to talk about their research and how your system is supporting that research is a great way to position yourself as a thought-leader in the industry.
Toxicology of Novel Opioids from AZoNetwork on Vimeo.
Life science content marketing is not immune to SEO
Search engine marketing is your single biggest opportunity to connect with your audience. This is a fact all marketing teams are facing and is the reason why life science marketing teams cannot ignore the importance SEO plays in their content strategy.
Internal linking
A lot of the company websites in the science industry are sitting on a wealth of valuable content. The problem is how accessible it is to visitors and Google.
They are often locked away in PDFs or hidden behind gated forms. Although there is a place for gated content in terms of a lead generation strategy, it is worth breaking out some of the value here to help increase your rankings and support already strong keywords. Doing this will only help serve a long-term lead generation strategy by continuing to foster quality engagement on your website.
Figure 3. AZoNetwork’s Internal Linking Framework
Figure 3. is an infographic of our Internal Linking Framework which should help explain the basic process of link building around your website. It is designed to demonstrate how an optimized linking structure should work with your website content.
When trying to improve or maintain your target keyword pages, it is critical you provide relevant internal links from related content. Each piece of content should flow to the next most relevant piece and back to the target keyword landing page itself.
This internal linking structure will help Google understand there are more relevant pieces of content that support that main landing page and improve the overall UX of your website. Google uses these as ranking factors when deciding how relevant a page is to any given search inquiry.
A well-optimized linking strategy for your life science content marketing is particularly important when you consider that most life science content is of a technical nature. Taking this approach will help maximize your opportunity to convert sales leads and foster more valuable conversations.
