Building Sales Through Social Media Part III – LinkedIn Power

Generating Leads and Networking via LinkedIn

Welcome back to our ongoing series with Ken Schmitt, LinkedIn Coach.

In Part 1, we discussed why social media space for your brand is important. So very important.  From reaching customers, to building reputation don’t miss out on this chance to increase the “shelf space” of your brand.  And in Part 2 we identified the value of LinkedIn for sales reps and marketers and then found some quick ways to find your audience and generate leads using LinkedIn.

Great you found them! Now what?

The key to all of this, of course, is building your personal network in LinkedIn to allow for more connections and “links.”

Building Sales through Social Media Part II – Why LinkedIn

Generating Leads via LinkedIn

Part 2 of our sessions with Ken Schmitt, LinkedIn Coach. If you missed part 1, start there.

As a small business or individual sales rep, how much value do you place on customer loyalty?
If you could engage your customers (scientists) by providing true value, offering real-time data and introducing them to your connections, do you think they’ll buy from you when the time is right? You’d better believe it.

In Part I of this series, we talked about the importance of securing “social media shelf space” – leveraging multiple social media tools – Facebook, Twitter, corporate websites, blogs and LinkedIn – to build a broad-based web presence that speaks to multiple audiences across a variety of demographics. Failing to incorporate these channels into your sales & marketing campaign will allow your competition to connect with your customers. A recent study of 2,100 businesses by the Harvard Business Review revealed that 79% are using social media.

Which social media channel is right for sales reps and marketers?

While there are a number of reasons to consider Facebook with 500m users, a $50b valuation and one of the most recognized brands in the world, it is not necessarily the best platform for your business. Likewise, while Twitter now boasts 110m tweets per day, star power including everyone from Anderson Cooper to Ashton Kutcher and a $10b valuation, there is a great deal of noise in this particular channel – Sysomos claims that 71% of tweets are ignored, 23% garner a reply and only 6% secure a retweet.

The key to this question – “which channel is right for me” – is determining where your customers and prospects hang out online!

My guess is that a quick analysis of your top 20 prospects will reveal that the greatest presence, and easiest access, is on LinkedIn. After launching in 2002, LinkedIn now boasts over 90m worldwide users, representation from every Fortune 500 Company, a total of 1,000,000 company profiles and over 600,000 specialized groups – oh yeah, and a valuation of $2b with only $100m in revenues! LinkedIn has become so prominent, that a new user joins every second…. That means approximately 8 users joined while you were reading the last sentence!

So how do you know if your customers have a presence on LinkedIn? And more importantly, how can you determine whether or not the specific person who will buy your services has a presence on LinkedIn?

Luckily, LinkedIn makes it very easy to find companies, people, titles, events, jobs , and of course, connections. That sound like good old fashioned lead prospecting?

LinkedIn Magic

LinkedIn has done an amazing job of integrating an easy-to-use interface with in-depth and relevant content. Are you interested in building a list of prospects in the pharmaceutical industry? Click on the “companies” tab at the top of the page, go to “browse industries”, click on the “Pharmaceuticals” link, and peruse the 9,586 different businesses in this category.

Here’s an example of how you might find a scientist on LinkedIn who currently works at Novartis, doing immunology research:

1. Set the search at the top of the page to “People” then click on the Advanced link
2. Enter “immunology” in the Title field, and “Novartis” in the company field, and select “Current” in the dropdown box
3. Get leads

Give it a try! We bet you find all kinds of new leads.

More great LinkedIn tips will be in Part 3 of this series coming soon!

About Ken Schmitt:

Ken C. Schmitt is an Executive Recruiter, Career Coach, Expert Resume-Writer, Master networker and LinkedIn trainer. He has been training, coaching and placing mid-senior level professionals for 13 years with a particular focus on leveraging social media for career management. Having presented to nearly 1000 professionals and written more than 50 career-related articles, Ken is well positioned to provide valuable information about social media, recruiting and career management. For more career management advice visit- Turning Point Search

Secret Scientist Meeting Found – Lead Generation Gold Mine for Reps

by Rusty Bishop

Dear Life Science Sales Reps and Managers Here’s a Secret

If I were to tell you about a place you could go once per week for 1 hr to generate new leads, meet PIs, meet post-docs, learn how scientists are using your products, and develop a better friend base at your accounts…

would you go, sales reps?

What if I told you this 1hr meeting is happening on every scientific campus in the world…

would you skip it for a coffee break?

Further, the person leading the 1 hr meeting is virtually guaranteed to be working in Pharma or be an influencer at their next academic science post.

Would that help your sales?

Finally and most important, this meeting is 100% OPEN TO THE PUBLIC.

Yep, it’s called a thesis defense. They happen all the time at your accounts and they are open to the public.

Science Sales Gold Mine

On Monday I had the privilege of going to the thesis defense of an old friend. As I listened to Chris talk about his 6 years of academic torture, it dawned on me that thesis defenses are an absolute gold mine for a local life science rep.

Here are my actual notes from his defense

1. Support your best clients and meet new ones.
2. There are 7 PIs- one is a National Academy member another is world renowned for the discovery of the link between cholesterol and heart disease!
3. 62 Scientists in attendance (5 relatives)
4. Learn about what frustrates scientists and creates sales questions that lead to your products.
5. Social Media (Twitter, LinkedIn) potential contacts are everywhere.
6. Learn about how scientists are using your products.
7. He’s going to work at a huge Pharma company! Winner!

Here is a running list of scientific assays and reagents mentioned (bold added for multiple mentions)

Ifa, staining, microscopes, hplc, tissue staining,
Pngasef, antibodies, western blots, mice, histology, flow cytometry,
endothelial markers, cells, tumor models, knockout mice,
biotinylation, culture, seras human, elisas, recombinant proteins,
complement systems induction, immunizations, diets for mice, metabolic
cages, fplc

Sell any of those? I bet you do.

All that in a 1hr thesis defense. In my mind it’s a rep’s dream come true.

The Sales Rep Approach

1. I suggest attending a few of these and listening first. Take a lot of notes.

2. If you know the scientist who is defending their thesis, BRING A GIFT. Amazon gift cards are great (so is booze, but you gotta know the scientist.)

3. Attend the after party, but do not under any circumstances talk work or try to sell something. That comes later.

4. Bring business cards. Pass them out if asked only.

5. Make friends. The party will be stuffed with people that buy your products from PIs to purchasing to post-docs. Once again don’t try to sell them. Be interested in their research. Remember their names. Next time you walk through the lab things will go much smoother.

Next time you’re on campus

Keep your eye out for fliers that say “Thesis Defense.”  I bet there is at least one at the campus you visited today!

Good luck out there and as always leave us any comments or suggestions for new blogs.

How to engage and connect with scientists at trade shows

The Sales Question that Engages Scientists and Qualifies Leads in Less than a Minute

by Rusty Bishop

Those who read this blog regularly know I am student of sales and marketing with 17 years of experience in the lab.   I question, I observe, I test, and I report my findings to you to help you sell better, because I believe you have the products to make scientists’ lives easier and better.

Last week I spent 4 straight days in the Exhibit Hall of the Neuroscience 2010 Meeting here in San Diego.

It was and is a golden opportunity to crush your numbers and generate hot leads.  Where else in the world do you have the chance to meet 35,000 potential customers?

35,000 potential sales and repeat sales!                          

How to Sell More Products and Services to Pharmaceutical Scientists – Assay Depot’s Marketplace.

How to Sell More Products and Services to Pharmaceutical Scientists – Assay Depot’s Marketplace

by Rusty Bishop, PhD

One question we consistently get here at Red Funnel is, “How do we reach more scientists in Pharma/Biotech?”

It seems every sales representative or marketer we meet wants to penetrate that marketplace. And for good reason, there’s a lot of money there.

Big obstacles for marketers and sales reps are that the doors to labs are most definitely locked, emails are filtered, information restricted, and when they do order products, its often through complicated systems with major gatekeepers. So what to do?

There are companies that provide channels into specific marketplaces that you can use to your advantage. Similar to deciding whether to use a distributor to sell your products or not, do you spend your time and effort to penetrate a market yourself or do you work with other companies that have had more success in that effort? Finding complementary businesses or non-competitors that already have that channel is a great way of jumpstarting your efforts.

For the pharma market, enter Assay Depot.com.

What is Assay Depot?

Assay Depot is a marketplace for research services (assaydepot.com) that uniquely enables you to communicate directly with thousands of global research vendors to ask technical questions, create custom services, get price quotes and place orders  through their public website. The site is broken down into 5 main stores:

I bet your products fit in one of these categories!

• Biology – from antibody conjugation to anti-microbial screening
• Chemistry – from compound libraries to API synthesis
• DMPK – from Caco 2 cells to rat PK/PD studies
• Pharmacology – pretty much any animal disease model you can think of
• Toxicology – from Comet Assays to In vivo Tox studies

Within each category are 1000′s of individual assays, services, and research materials for sale. Each one has its own description accompanied by a list of companies offering the product or service. The site also provides easy links in which to contact the company or request information from Assay Depot’s team of experts.

That’s right. I said easy links to companies. (Links equal good stuff for search engine optimization.)

The Ask an Expert feature on each page is one of my favorite parts of the site. All a scientist has to do is request information on a particular assay or service and the experts at Assay Depot will seek out companies to do the work for them. What I wouldn’t have given for that when I was in the lab.

According to Kevin Lustig, Founder and CEO, “Assay Depot gets hundreds of requests per month with most of them coming from pharmaceutical companies.” (emphasis is mine)

They pass along quotes and have contact information for these scientists to get their experiments done by companies just like yours. For example, you can read about the $80,000 antibody order from a mid-sized pharma.

Of course, you will never see this posted on the site because the Pharma scientists generally are restricted from posting research-related questions on the internet.

The Inside Scoop

Here’s an insider tip – Assay Depot has done a superb job of building SEO into their site to specifically target Pharma, Biotech, and CRO scientists. (Full disclosure, Assay Depot is a client – I admit that we helped them a little.)

Red Funnel spent the last 6 months buried deep inside the web analytics of Assay Depot. One of the things that jumped out to us was all the visits from domains like pfizer.com, gsk.com, and novartis.com. Yep, scientists at Pharma companies were discovering assays and services at Assay Depot.com. In fact, they were spending a lot of time on the site investigating the range of services.

Why? Because it saves them time and money. It’s much easier to search a single site then the entire web, the information about services is organized so you can scan and compare, and it’s simple to make a quote requests that are forwarded to multiple CROs.

For more information on how to get involved with Assay Depot, visit their BackOffice Website.

Red Funnel digs the Assay Depot and benefits from giving you the inside scoop.  It’s hard to find those pesky pharma scientists who buy online!

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Web Tactics That Propel Antibody Suppliers to the Top, a study by Red Funnel

Web Tactics of the Top Antibody Suppliers

by Rusty Bishop

A few weeks back, I wrote an article about the “Top Antibody Supplier” study that was released by BioInformatics, LLC.  I got some great comments from readers Jack and Mark about Abcam, one of the top suppliers. Everyone seemed to be in awe of Abcam’s web presence. It was noted that they do an excellent job of appearing in the top Google Search Results.

We decided to use our knowledge and tool set to determine whether there was a correlation between the Top Companies in the Bioinformatics survey and those that appeared most often in Google Search Results (SERP) when scientists searched.

Correlation

After just a few searches for common gene-specific antibodies like actin, p53, and caspases, we began to see a trend that certain companies (Abcam, Santa Cruz, Cell Signaling) were almost always on the first page.  The very same companies that were on top of the Bioinformatics survey.

So we decided to put the Red Funnel research team into action to dig deeper and determine what separates these few companies consistently from the rest from a search/optimization perspective.

Results

The result is our first white paper – Web Tactics That Propel Antibody Vendors to the Top. Which is available for free to our subscribers.

Here’s some examples of the results in the report

• 385,000 annual searches for the top 44 gene specific antibodies entered into Google last year.
• 19 suppliers appeared on the first page of Google results in total for the top 44 antibodies.
• 4 important site code optimizations of the top ranking suppliers were uncovered.
• 100% correlation to page one ranking for one of the factors we examined.

Although the results are directed to marketers for antibodies, we believe they are applicable to those marketing any life science products online to scientists. These principles hold true whether you are selling kits, antibodies, or microscopes.

How the study was conducted

Red Funnel used tools freely available to the public online and…

1. Determined the most searched specific antibodies by scientists in Google.
2. Determined the “best phrase” used by scientists most often in their Google Search bars. For example – “actin antibody” vs “anti-actin”.  For more on this see ‘Learning to Speak Scientist.‘.
3. Determined which companies rank on the first page of Google for the top antibodies.
4. Examined 30 different suppliers to determine whether they sold the top 44 antibodies.
5. Ranked suppliers by percentage of products appearing on page 1 based solely on the products they sold.
6. Compared the web tactics of the companies that appeared often to those that rarely or never appeared to determine why.

How to Get a Copy

The article is available to our subscribers for free download.  Just follow a few simple steps to confirm your email address so our email provider knows that you requested it and it’s not spam. Once you confirm, you will receive an email with a link to download your free copy.

If you are already a subscriber, check your inbox for the download link in our latest newsletter or fill in your name and email and you will automatically be redirected to the download page.

Advertising Directly on Journal PDF Printouts = Branding

Advertising Directly on Scientific Journal PDF Printouts

by Rusty Bishop

As you all know, I’m always on the look out for new and interesting ways to inform scientists about products, be it Jove, tradeshows, or web tactics.  In this week’s article, let’s see why advertising directly on scientific journal PDF article downloads is a great way to target and brand products for life science marketers.

Why PDFs matter to scientists

In the world of iPads and personal laptops, it may be hard to imagine that people still print PDFs and read them offline.  However, it is extremely common for scientists to print journal articles and read them at the coffee shop, take methods sections to their bench as marked-up protocols, and pass along to other scientists.

Consider the ubiquitous Journal Clubs that are present in every academic science department (sometimes with multiple focuses – Genetics, Immunology, Parasitology).  Scientists are required to participate by reading the article and discussing it in a round table format or in large auditoriums.  If you were to visit one, you’d see scientists with dog-eared copies of articles they printed from PDF files.

Many older articles are only available as PDFs, so when a scientist browses to their webpage the PDF automatically downloads.  You could put all the banners on the page you like, but no one would see it once printed.

So the bottom line is scientists download PDF files of journal articles to read and often print them.

Advertising Directly on Scientific Article PDFs

One of the things Red Funnel does for clients is help uncover interesting citations and methods using their products published in the scientific literature to post on their websites or include in marketing material.  (See the comments on Digging into Scientists and Social Media for some thoughts on this)

Last week, I downloaded a PDF from the Journal of Immunology to review and noticed a banner ad on the cover page for the antibody company, BioLegend.

Red Arrow Shows the Biolegend Ad on My PDF

I thought, “Man, that is clever. An antibody company that focuses on Immunology inserting their product advertisement directly onto a PDF article about Immunology!”

That is targeting at its finest.

Think about all those immunologists downloading Journal of Immunology PDFs and seeing the BioLegend banner. Even if they don’t buy the product, branding is accomplished.

BioLegend = Immunology Antibodies.

Who else might benefit?  ELISA companies, recombinant cytokine manufacturers, FACs companies, animal suppliers to name a few.

Furthermore, when I scrolled over the banner, I noticed you could even click through to the BioLegend website. Of course, this does nothing when you print the PDF, but what if I emailed the article out to the 30 scientists in my Immunology Journal Club? One ad view becomes 30! I like that math, don’t you?

I downloaded the Journal of Immunology 2010 Media Kit to try and figure out what “on-PDF advertising” costs.  Oddly, this type of advertising is buried deep on page 8 of the kit and says “call to inquire.”

Regardless, “on-PDF advertising” is a pretty interesting tactic for life science marketers. I’d be curious to hear from the readers if you’ve had successes or failures with this type of branding.  Also, any other Journals that offer “on-PDF advertising” and a cost estimate.

Rusty is not an immunologist, but he does know a pack of them. Red Funnel is not associated with the Journal of Immunology and doesn’t receive any payments or kickbacks from the publisher. We DO get paid to help life science companies DISTINGUISH their products from the competition!

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What You Should Love about Jove Videos

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• Aug, 04 2010
• By Rusty Bishop
• Lead Generation, Online Marketing
• 11 comments

What you should love about “opening” Jove videos

By Rusty Bishop, PhD

As a long time lab rat, I still get asked questions by former lab mates and PI’s about experiments and techniques. Monday, an old friend emailed me about “speeding up” genotyping mice. Having managed a large mouse colony for years, I felt his pain. Genotyping is my personal all-time least favorite experimental technique. Repetitive, repetitive, repetitive…….boring. But, absolutely critical to experimental success.

So I Googled – “genotyping mice rapid”.

The first link that appeared in the SERP (Search Engine Results Presentation) was a JOVE video. After that, there were a bunch of science journal articles listed. No good.

When I looked at that search string, I thought, “Man, that’s not even English!”.

So I Googled “Rapid genotyping mouse” (better English!)

Didn’t matter a bit, once again the JOVE video came up on top.

If Google thought this video was so important, I needed to check it out.

Here’s the link so you can too. Rapid Genotyping of Mouse Tissue Using Sigma’s Extract-N-Amp Tissue PCR Kit

I watched about 1 min of the video, which featured a pleasant scientist in a real lab performing rapid genotyping of mice. Nice, that is rapid! Exactly what my buddy was seeking. Without thinking much more I forwarded the video to him and went back to work. My guess is that’s what 95% of other scientists would do as well.  ”I’m in a hurry… this looks good… copy… send.”

After some thought, it hit me that I’d better go back and look at the Jove video a bit more closely…

The power of “opening” Jove articles to the public

After watching the entire video, I looked carefully at the web page and realized what an amazing branding and marketing tool this video represents. The scientists in the video are actually publishing an article that happens to use Sigma’s kit. Just like thousands of scientific manuscripts published every year. Like most scientific manuscripts, the article requires a subscription to JOVE to view. However, Sigma paid JOVE to make the article open access. For me that was a real “A-HA” moment.

Sigma paid to “open the video” to the public, they did not pay to have it produced.

5 things Marketers Should Love About Jove

Here’s my list of what life science marketers should love about “opening” JOVE videos

1) Science - The video manuscripts are really publications by lab scientists, just like any journal. In the case of the Sigma video – the techniques employed are scientifically sound and extremely useful for genotyping rapidly.  Thus, the JOVE article is a great third party validation of Sigma’s product.

That is a trust symbol! You need trust symbols for your products.

2) Video production – The video is extremely well-edited and shot.  The commentary isn’t too dry. And I could easily visualize myself performing the experiment. These JOVE guys can shoot some video! The resolution is of sufficient quality to show the  video in high res on a large screen at a conference.

3) Branding – This article has been viewed 30,000 times. That’s more people than live in my hometown. Some entire websites don’t get that many views, much less one product page!

I like the way JOVE states that the video is made available without subscription by Sigma-Aldrich.  That’s the “opening” opportunity again. Although we all know this is advertising and branding, it makes Sigma seem like it cares about scientists enough  to “free” the video for those not fortunate enough to work at a place with a subscription to JOVE.  Plus, there’s the sponsor link on the top right in a highly visible spot.  Sigma = genotyping. Branding check!

4) Social Media – The web page also features a Post a Comment section.  A quick look shows that concerned scientists are asking some valid questions about the technique and the kit.  You couldn’t ask for a better Social Media opportunity.  Customers seeking help!

It’s too bad Sigma tech support isn’t answering these questions. If you think Social Media is tweeting your latest product release, think again. For scientists in the lab, this is where it’s at.

5) Traffic Generation – Your website is like a mall. The more entrances the better. That’s why the parking lot goes all the way around the complex! The protocol section of the JOVE article features a direct link to Sigma’s protocol on their website. This produces a portal to Sigma’s website and a validation link for search engines. The more portals and links you can create the better! Traffic equals dollars.

ROI of “opening” a video

I called up JOVE and inquired about the cost of “opening” an article like this one. I agreed not state the price here, but let’s say its very reasonable.

To put that in perspective, $XXXX buys you 30,000 views of a video featuring your product in action helping solve a major problem for scientists.

I estimate Sigma’s cost at a quarter per video view. If you can find advertising that costs less please call me today because I want to buy some. A quarter?  Are you kidding me?

If I were a life science company, Id be combing through JOVE videos to find scientists using my products.

To be clear – You don’t have to make a video. Sponsor one that is already published!

Red Funnel likes JOVE videos but is not associated with JOVE nor do we receive a kickback for singing their praises.  It’s hard to find good advertising for a quarter.


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Did you grab your .co yet?

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• Jul, 27 2010
• By Rusty Bishop
• Online Marketing, Science Sales, Science Web Design
• One comment

Time to grab your .co extension

by Rusty Bishop

July 20th marked the public release of a new web extension for businesses, the .co.

No, thats not a typo its .co not .com.

If you are an established company building a microsite or a new CRO that doesn’t want to use some crazy acronym now is the time to act.

For example as of this writing, Westernblot.co is still available for $30!

To put it in perspective there are 9 million websites registered with .com extensions and as of this morning there are only 330,000 .co extensions.

More reasons to get a .co

1. Prevent competitors from pulling traffic from you by registering your business name.

2. More doors equals more opportunities.  Add a new portal to your website.  How about invitrogenantibodies.co with a 301 redirect to the Invitrogen antibody page?  The possibilities for SEO and Search presentation are endless!

The price is small!

Happy selling.

Rusty is passionate about sellingtoscientists.co! Get his advice regularly by Twitter here. Also, become a fan.

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