Open the print version of a scientific journal and you’ll see that the page advertising is dominated by companies that already have huge installed bases and commanding market shares. Agilent. Thermo. Life Technologies. For these companies, traditional journal advertising makes sense. They’re playing defense.
Entrenched market leaders don’t have to make surprising performance claims about their products, or rush to incorporate the latest technologies, or use viral, social, or guerrilla marketing tactics. They can just continue to spend big money on high-frequency ad campaigns that remind and reassure their early-and-late majority customers that they’re still there, still big, and still the default choice in the product categories they dominate.
Now, Agilent is doing the same thing with online advertising. For several weeks now, this ad has been hitting my screen almost daily:
Let’s have a look. Agilent has defined their audience as ad readers who have been waiting forever to finally harness the potential of next-gen sequencing, and they’re offering a 50% off deal to encourage click-throughs.
On the landing page, clickers-through are reminded of Agilent’s market leadership, and presented with a really long form to fill out. Note the complete absence of technical performance claims on the landing page (click to go large):
Dubious market definition. Only vague performance claims in the ad, and none on the landing page. An insanely long form to fill out. Could this campaign actually work for Agilent? Yep.
Could it work for you? No. Even if you could afford to match Agilent’s insertion frequency with comparable ads for your newer, better product, you would very likely be disappointed by the results from your just-like-Agilent campaign. People would definitely see your ad because it would be in their faces every day. But even if your ad copy were better targeted and more convincing, and your landing page didn’t look like such a hassle, your clicks and conversions would be much lower, on account of your newcomer status and the absolutely critical element of social proof in scientific product marketing.
So if traditional interrupt-the-reader advertising doesn’t work for the market newcomer with superior technology, what does work? Fortunately, there are a variety of useful strategies, and they can be used in combination. Some depend on attracting an audience using something more useful, relevant, and engaging than ad copy. Others make use of social media and new web services. And they all depend on disciplined market definition, a product that solves a problem (other than monetizing its own technology), and continuous participation over time using media that’s already familiar to the majority of individuals you’re targeting.
For new-school marketing strategies, contact Matthew Wygant by calling 408 905 7630 or by sending e-mail to matthew@wygant.net.
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