Seth Godin, one of my favorite writers, essentially echoed my post from a few days back about crappy graphs in marketing material.
Check it out! Click Here
Its seems bad graphs are everywhere! Please dont use them, tell your marketing team they make you look bad too.
Holiday Short Blog
Tuesday, December 29, 2009
Wednesday, December 23, 2009
Search Engines on Life Science Websites
For the past 6 months, I have been building my new website gatcat.com. During that process, I have surfed and analyzed hundreds, perhaps thousands, of Life Science Vendors' websites looking for product information. Some are great, but the sad truth is most are ridiculously bad. As a part of this column, I plan to review some specific sites on a regular basis and to try and offer some suggestions for those looking to improve things.
For this article, I want to focus on your internal search engine. The internal search engine is a critical tool for your company and you as a sales person. Why? Because when you get a scientist to your website, you want them to easily find the right product for the right experiment. The one you just worked so hard to tell them a story about.
Its such a simple tool. You might get a minute or less of our attention span at a conference or in the lab. If you can say, "We have a great deal going on this kit, just go to our website and type this in the search box." Then you have a good chance that a week or month later, I might do so.
It must work though! It must return exactly the results needed to go to the product page or sale information.
So I challenge you, stop reading this article and go to your companies' website. Search for 5 products you sell, not the exact product name of course. Search like a customer, the way you do on Amazon.com or other product websites. Better still, ask a colleague or your significant other to perform the same search.
Are the returned results correct? Is it easy to figure out what is returned? Is there way to much clutter to easily see where to click through to the product?
If not, change it. You are losing business. The vast majority of sites have searched fail this test.
Happy Holidays
For this article, I want to focus on your internal search engine. The internal search engine is a critical tool for your company and you as a sales person. Why? Because when you get a scientist to your website, you want them to easily find the right product for the right experiment. The one you just worked so hard to tell them a story about.
Its such a simple tool. You might get a minute or less of our attention span at a conference or in the lab. If you can say, "We have a great deal going on this kit, just go to our website and type this in the search box." Then you have a good chance that a week or month later, I might do so.
It must work though! It must return exactly the results needed to go to the product page or sale information.
So I challenge you, stop reading this article and go to your companies' website. Search for 5 products you sell, not the exact product name of course. Search like a customer, the way you do on Amazon.com or other product websites. Better still, ask a colleague or your significant other to perform the same search.
Are the returned results correct? Is it easy to figure out what is returned? Is there way to much clutter to easily see where to click through to the product?
If not, change it. You are losing business. The vast majority of sites have searched fail this test.
Happy Holidays
Tuesday, December 22, 2009
Holiday Offers from Life Science Companies
Yesterday a rep came through the lab from a rather large antibody company. I was pretty surprised since campus was closed and, the lab was a ghost town (its Christmas Week after all). We chatted for a bit about this and that, which was good start. Friendly, good story about working through the holidays when he was in the lab. I'm engaged.
The deal his company is running is a 4 for the price of 3 on antibodies from now until the New Year. I almost laughed in his face. Seriously? What marketing person drew that idea up. As far as I know, I have never bought 4 antibodies at one time. I seriously doubt many life scientists have. In fact, after he left, I looked through our online ordering system and only once in our lab's history has anyone ordered 4 antibodies at one time. ONCE.
Opportunity lost. Know your customer. Sure there are some labs that do a lot of FACS and IFA that might buy multiple antibodies at once. The vast majority of us buy 3-4 a year.
The deal his company is running is a 4 for the price of 3 on antibodies from now until the New Year. I almost laughed in his face. Seriously? What marketing person drew that idea up. As far as I know, I have never bought 4 antibodies at one time. I seriously doubt many life scientists have. In fact, after he left, I looked through our online ordering system and only once in our lab's history has anyone ordered 4 antibodies at one time. ONCE.
Opportunity lost. Know your customer. Sure there are some labs that do a lot of FACS and IFA that might buy multiple antibodies at once. The vast majority of us buy 3-4 a year.
Thursday, December 17, 2009
Scientists believe they are changing the world. Are you listening?
At one of my talks recently, the head of marketing for a major Life Science Company asked me in the most serious of tones, "What do scientists do for fun?" I've gotten similar questions in the past, so it is clear to me that you might not know.
Scientists are like everyone else. Despite what the movies tell you, we are normal people with normal lives. We play soccer, drink beer, take the kids on vacation, and play fantasy football. I play in rock band and my best lab mate is married to an actress. We are just like you.....
...the only difference is there is no one in our lives that can or wants to understand what we do for a living.
This includes for the most part our colleagues and co-workers and you Mr. Rep.
Neither my mom or my wife could tell you one thing I have researched and why it is important. It could be that they don't love me, but I doubt it. What we work on is really difficult to understand. Each scientist even the first year graduate student or technician is arguably the world expert in their tiny realm. The ideas we struggle with are too elusive to even make a textbook.
You can exploit this to sell me products. We want to believe you care. If you can show us you do, we will buy your products and tell our friends how great it is.
We are buying you, not your kit.
Scientists are like everyone else. Despite what the movies tell you, we are normal people with normal lives. We play soccer, drink beer, take the kids on vacation, and play fantasy football. I play in rock band and my best lab mate is married to an actress. We are just like you.....
...the only difference is there is no one in our lives that can or wants to understand what we do for a living.
This includes for the most part our colleagues and co-workers and you Mr. Rep.
Neither my mom or my wife could tell you one thing I have researched and why it is important. It could be that they don't love me, but I doubt it. What we work on is really difficult to understand. Each scientist even the first year graduate student or technician is arguably the world expert in their tiny realm. The ideas we struggle with are too elusive to even make a textbook.
You can exploit this to sell me products. We want to believe you care. If you can show us you do, we will buy your products and tell our friends how great it is.
We are buying you, not your kit.
Wednesday, December 16, 2009
PRINT IS DEAD!
No reason to belabor the point. Take a walk through any lab in world and find me 5 scientists that have read an article directly from the pages of a bound Scientific Journal in the last week, month, year, or ever for that matter.
There is now way your cost per lead from a print ad can justify what you spent, but the model you hired to be in it sure looks fine. It is your hard earned marketing dollars that are lining their pockets to print journals that sit on shelves in libraries unvisited by scientists.
Scientists do read a lot of journal articles, though. I can't argue that point. I read thousands of them myself after I downloaded the pdfs from Journal's websites.
I know you don't want to believe me... you just know I'm wrong... but admit it to yourself... you know I'm right.
Repeat after me - PRINT IS DEAD!
There is now way your cost per lead from a print ad can justify what you spent, but the model you hired to be in it sure looks fine. It is your hard earned marketing dollars that are lining their pockets to print journals that sit on shelves in libraries unvisited by scientists.
Scientists do read a lot of journal articles, though. I can't argue that point. I read thousands of them myself after I downloaded the pdfs from Journal's websites.
I know you don't want to believe me... you just know I'm wrong... but admit it to yourself... you know I'm right.
Repeat after me - PRINT IS DEAD!
Monday, December 14, 2009
Female Models Selling Flow Cytometers - I Love America!
Thanks Applied Biosyst... errr, Invitrog.....uhhhh.....Life Technologies! You provided the funniest moment of ASCB 2009.
For those that did attend this year's ASCB in San Diego and those that didn't make it into the exhibit all on Sunday, Applied Biosystems debuted its new acoustic flow cytometer, the Attune Acoustic Focusing Cytometer. I suppose this is a major break through in the world of flow cytometery. You can learn more about it here. Or you can read all the "press releases" about it on sites like Genome Web. I have no idea whether it is a break through or not. The best part about the whole thing was the "intrigue" in their booth on Sunday.
Let me paint the scene for you...... In the far back corner of the Exhibit Hall, there was a gigantic LED TV screen like you might see in Vegas or in Times Square with words like CHAOS and ORDER flowing across it. This thing is probably two stories tall and 20 yards wide. The booth is filled with exactly nothing except 5 white leather stools and long white satin drapes hanging from the ceiling. The real eye popper was the troop of absolutely BEAUTIFUL people in white shirts and pants. Now, I've been to a few science conferences in my day and, I'm here to tell you these were not the usual reps and scientists. Models in no uncertain terms were in the house.
Of course, they got me, along with every other guy in the building. When I entered the club... errr booth, I met two lovely blond women bearing name tags that listed To Be Determined as the company. Ok now Im hooked. So I asked one of the models what they were selling, she replied she couldn't tell me and then asked me if I wanted to join them for a reception with free cocktails and food to hear about their product. I heard, "Do you wanna have a drink with me?" Of course! Sign me up!
With that I got a R.S.V.P. to their party at the Hilton next door and they got my "email".
The party turned out to be a full on press release for the cytometer including a latin band, camera crews, Life Technologies logo flashing across the wall, sushi, liquor bar, and of course one lonely flow cytometer sitting on stage surrounded by Invitrog... Life Technologies folks all cooing to one another. I felt like Steve Jobs had just introduced the iphone. However, not one person even asked who I was or whether I was interested in a flow cytometer. At least the models were still around to look at. Oh yeah I did meet a few scientists that were completely baffled by the whole affair, yet appreciate of the free drinks none the less. One was a physicist that was extremely curious about what exactly flow even is!
Thank you Life Technologies for the booze, sushi, and models. Good luck with the flow cytometer!
For those that did attend this year's ASCB in San Diego and those that didn't make it into the exhibit all on Sunday, Applied Biosystems debuted its new acoustic flow cytometer, the Attune Acoustic Focusing Cytometer. I suppose this is a major break through in the world of flow cytometery. You can learn more about it here. Or you can read all the "press releases" about it on sites like Genome Web. I have no idea whether it is a break through or not. The best part about the whole thing was the "intrigue" in their booth on Sunday.
Let me paint the scene for you...... In the far back corner of the Exhibit Hall, there was a gigantic LED TV screen like you might see in Vegas or in Times Square with words like CHAOS and ORDER flowing across it. This thing is probably two stories tall and 20 yards wide. The booth is filled with exactly nothing except 5 white leather stools and long white satin drapes hanging from the ceiling. The real eye popper was the troop of absolutely BEAUTIFUL people in white shirts and pants. Now, I've been to a few science conferences in my day and, I'm here to tell you these were not the usual reps and scientists. Models in no uncertain terms were in the house.
Of course, they got me, along with every other guy in the building. When I entered the club... errr booth, I met two lovely blond women bearing name tags that listed To Be Determined as the company. Ok now Im hooked. So I asked one of the models what they were selling, she replied she couldn't tell me and then asked me if I wanted to join them for a reception with free cocktails and food to hear about their product. I heard, "Do you wanna have a drink with me?" Of course! Sign me up!
With that I got a R.S.V.P. to their party at the Hilton next door and they got my "email".
The party turned out to be a full on press release for the cytometer including a latin band, camera crews, Life Technologies logo flashing across the wall, sushi, liquor bar, and of course one lonely flow cytometer sitting on stage surrounded by Invitrog... Life Technologies folks all cooing to one another. I felt like Steve Jobs had just introduced the iphone. However, not one person even asked who I was or whether I was interested in a flow cytometer. At least the models were still around to look at. Oh yeah I did meet a few scientists that were completely baffled by the whole affair, yet appreciate of the free drinks none the less. One was a physicist that was extremely curious about what exactly flow even is!
Thank you Life Technologies for the booze, sushi, and models. Good luck with the flow cytometer!
Friday, December 11, 2009
Please no crappy graphs!
Almost every piece of product literature I picked up at the American Society for Cell Biology Meeting this year has a graph on it. Inevitably, the graph shows how much better the product performed against "random competitor A and B's" product. Not one of them has error bars.
Hello, in case you didn't notice? I'm a scientist. Every graph in every science paper has error bars because that means the scientists performed the experiment enough times to achieve statistical significance.
Life Science Marketers - you are selling products to scientists, go down to the basement where they are building new products and ask them why they buy the product vs. your competition.
Answers may include
1. My buddy in another lab/company told me it works great.
2. I saw it in a manuscript that other scientists were successfully using the product for my...experiment, cell line, organism, technique, gene, etc.
3. I talked with a scientist at a meeting/seminar about the product and they said it worked.
I seriously doubt the graph with no error bars will make the list.
Hello, in case you didn't notice? I'm a scientist. Every graph in every science paper has error bars because that means the scientists performed the experiment enough times to achieve statistical significance.
Life Science Marketers - you are selling products to scientists, go down to the basement where they are building new products and ask them why they buy the product vs. your competition.
Answers may include
1. My buddy in another lab/company told me it works great.
2. I saw it in a manuscript that other scientists were successfully using the product for my...experiment, cell line, organism, technique, gene, etc.
3. I talked with a scientist at a meeting/seminar about the product and they said it worked.
I seriously doubt the graph with no error bars will make the list.
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