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!                          

Conversation with Pharma Purchasing Reveals the Power of Repeat Customers

Conversation with Pharma Purchasing Reveals the Power of Repeat Customers

by Rusty Bishop

Last week I had the opportunity to talk with head of purchasing at a major Pharmaceutical Company in San Francisco. What I learned is having a major impact on your long term success.

I asked her about her interactions with the scientists in her firm, and we discussed the inherit difficulties of her job. She talked passionately about her problems getting scientists to switch to the products she worked so hard to get discounted for her company.

She even gave an example of one group practically rebelling against company directives to keep a more expensive product in their division. For her, it’s was a major point of frustration and embarrassment with management, but one she accepted as part of scientists’ “idiosyncrasies”.

Based on my own 17 years in the lab, I can tell you that once you provide me with a product that works in my experiment I will rarely switch to competitive product. Protocols for these experiments are typed, printed, and passed down in labs for years. For example, my lab has used Qiagen Hot Start Taq Polymerase since 1998. I visited the lab a few weeks back and saw a post-doc still using it. That’s 13 years of loyally purchasing $1,000.00 worth of kits every other week.

Furthermore, scientists carry the protocols onto their next position in academia or Pharma/Biotech.

Thus, the power of one single sale to a scientist is worth thousands of dollars in repeat buys over the long haul if the experiment works. Scientists are immensely loyal to the products they know and will defend them despite all evidence to the contrary.

The question is what are you doing to get that sale?

Here are a few ideas that can help, picked up from talking to successful sales reps in the last month:

• Be proactive at upcoming Conferences and Tradeshows  - get those Pharma scientists talking.
• Know every product in your catalog – you never know what a scientist needs.
• Join professional scientists networks online and in your area.  Not one in your area?  Then start one!

Google is Your Homepage – Fix your Search Presentation

Google is your homepage.

by Rusty Bishop

Google is your homepage. Of that there is little doubt.

Mark and I have now analyzed over 20 life science websites from design to content to code to product search rank through our free QuickCheck Service.

Several companies have granted us full Analytics access in order to serve them better.  In every case, Google sends the most visitors to these sites. In fact, its not even close.

This means your customers are searching Google to find your products, not your homepage, not Science magazine’s full page ads.

If you want to prove it to yourself, just ask your webmaster to print out or show you the Traffic Sources Readout from your analytics program (I’m digging into Webtrends right now, crazy!). If I’m wrong then your company is named Facebook.com or something is really wrong, e.g. you have no traffic.

What Google Is Your Homepage Means

Most scientists are not familiar with all your products even if they are very familiar with your brand. Researchers ready to buy are searching for very specific products and services for a specific diagnostic or experiment.

If Google really is the vehicle by which >70% of site visits come from, you must carefully plan every page to present key information when a scientist see’s your offering in the organic results.

If they can’t determine from the presentation of your offering in Google’s Search Results, why would they click through to you?

What You Can Control

You absolutely have control over what Google and other search engines present to potential customers. Web marketers call this Search Presentation.

There are three elements that appear in Search Presentation. I’m sure your familiar with them, you just don’t know it.

1. Page Title

2. Snippet

3. URL (web address)

Each one of these are entirely within your control to dictate what is seen by searchers.

Take the example above, where I searched for “multiparametric immunoassays systems”.  Which gave me Biomerioux’s VIDAS instrument. Let’s break it down.

1. Page Title – “VIDAS/minVIDAS:Healthcare”.

The title tag helps searchers make a more informed decision about the results they click on. A descriptive title tag can help pop out a result better for searchers.

Constructing Great Title Tags

You have 60 characters to write a great title tag, that means you gotta seriously think about the keywords. Google suggests you imagine the Title tag is the only thing you have to tell searchers what the page is about.

So what’s this page about?  Vidas is an automated, multiparametric immunoassay system for clinical diagnostics.  That’s 83 characters with spaces so we’re close.

How about – “Vidas-Automated Mulitparametic Clinical Immunoassay System”

That’s a pretty solid page Title. It contains keywords that describe the product and it pre-qualifies searchers that are interested in Clinical products.

How do I change the Page Title?

This is a pretty common question from marketers and sales.  The page title is part of the code that underlies every page on your website.

To see the page title, you browse to your product page , then select View > Source from your browser’s tool bar.

The page title will be designated with the code <title>Your Title</title>.  If you’re having difficulty finding it just perform a find on the source code (Command F) and search “title” that should bring it up for you.

In the above example, Biomerioux’s title code is on line 154 – <title>VIDAS®/miniVIDAS®: Healthcare</title>.

To change, you need to add the new text you want into your source code via the backend or server and you’re done.  Or just ask your webmaster to take care of it, since that’s what you pay them for!

In the next article, I’ll dig into methodology for crafting the meta description for a scientist Searcher Presentation. So please bookmark us or subscribe to learn more.

Google on Pre-Qualified Web Traffic – Quick Thought for Science Marketers

by Rusty Bishop

I was just watching Matt Cutts of Google, Inc break down websites. Something I absolutely love to do personally.

33 minutes in a statement caught my attention so much I had to rewind 3 times,

then I decided to pass it along.  so simple yet so powerful

“You don’t want really want traffic…

You want conversions…

So you really want interested users that are kind of pre-qualified.”

I really can’t say it any better than that. The question is what are you doing to pre-qualify scientists and clinicians?

If you are in charge web design or marketing or SEO at your company, Id recommend printing that putting on the wall behind your desk.

Writing Proper Scientific alt Text

by Rusty Bishop, PhD

Many companies spend thousands on Google Adwords campaigns to attract scientists, but only pennies on making their site attract scientists via organic search. However , if you sit back and think about how many times you actually click on a paid search link?  (I bet the answer is not very often.) That money should be headed the other way.

Today’s article is about writing proper alt text, a great way to punch towards that first page in Organic Results.

Why alt text?

Previously I wrote about  alt tags and  why its critical to use them to describe your scientific products on your website to capture Google searchers. In that article I described a typical scientist performing a highly targeted search string,

“antibody human Akt1 Western blot”

This search is highly targeted and the searcher is pre-qualified to buy. People entering 4 and 5 word search strings are looking for a specific product.  In this example, I am looking for an antibody to akt1 that works in a Western blot experiment. Most likely I need to do that experiment in the next few days, so I’m not browsing, looking for random antibodies for fun.

Think about your own searching…

If you are looking for a “great Italian restaurant in downtown San Diego”  would you enter that complete search string or would you enter “restaurant”. Obviously the former would return the exact results you want, while the latter wouldn’t be in the same zip code of what you want.

For this reason, you need to be thinking what does my product accomplish for a scientist and what would they be searching for. Then use that well thought out search string for your product image alt text.

A simple example of alt text or the lack thereof…

If you enter the string above in Google, you get a ton of results that are relevant, yet not a single image in the organic results.  Go ahead, try it now. Then, click on images in the upper left hand corner of the page. It should look like this:

Do you see all those panels with black lines in them?  Those are images of Western blots.  In this case, the first 2 are actually images of Western blots using an Akt1 anti-human antibody.  How many companies make this antibody?  I bet its at least 30.  Why aren’t their images here?  They either dont have them or they didn’t name them properly. They definitely didn’t use alt text.

The blot images above are on the websites of Cell Signaling and Abcam.  Both have the word “western blot” underneath indicating Google knows this is a Western blot just like I did.

However if you click on these images – both lead to antibodies for Phospho-Akt1. Bummer I wanted Akt1, not Phospho-Akt1.  With proper alt text associated with these images, Google would have shown me what these blots really were.

Writing alt text

The alt text on these images should be something like…

“phospho-Akt1 western blot with anti-human antibody” or “western blot with phospho-Akt1 antibody”

…this would distinguish these blots from those performed with “human Akt1 antibody”, which both Cell Signaling and Abcam both sell.

For some basic rules on Alt text, check out this article – “Alt Attributes: Describing Your Images for Better Web Accessibility.”

Attracting qualified leads online requires constant vigil.  If you have questions about how to create alt text, request a free consultation from Red Funnel. Our team is here to help.

A Scientific View of Alt Tags – Qualified Leads Up

By now you know exactly, why its critical to title images correctly online. In this article, Im going to help you supercharge your organic search engine clicks and qualify those searchers before they visit.

How?

Alt tags!

Is this some kind of black hat SEO?  Nope, its even recommended by the search engine wizard Google herself.

Thou shalt ….

…..Create great alt text

In all seriousness, if Google took the time to make an entire web page about image alt tags and a YouTube Video about how to write them, perhaps we should pay attention.

Here’s why.

Scientists use Search Engines to find exact reagents and equipment for experiments. For example, I would search “antibody human Akt1 Western blot” to find that antibody. In this example, I am an extremely qualified buyer. You’ll notice that I know exactly what I’m looking for an antibody for Akt1 that reacts to human samples by Western blot.

Scientists smart enough to know that more terms you add to your search string the better your chance of FAST success. Admittedly, this is due to Google’s indexing of scientific full-text and thereby the methods sections where reagents are discussed in context.  But companies can get in the game!

The reason I know not one single antibody company is using alt tags correctly is no images came up when I searched.

No Title + No Alt tags = No Clicks

Yet by clicking on the images link in the upper left shows me hundreds of Western blots on Antibody company’s websites like Cell Signaling, Abcam, Santa Cruz, etc.  Pretty much all the companies spending money on Google Adwords for Akt antibodies (green $ above).

Why didn’t they appear in the organic results above?  The answer is they lack alt tags and proper titles for Google to understand exactly what they are even though they know the images are on a webpage about Akt antibodies.

Don’t make Google guess! Improve those alt tags and get more qualified leads today by getting your product into the organic results.

Attracting qualified leads online requires constant vigil.  If you have questions about how to use alt tags, request a free consultation from Red Funnel. Our team is here to help.

Tag Your Web Images So Scientists Can Buy Your Products

by Rusty Bishop aka ‘the Scientist’

I just spent 2 hrs searching for a replacement clinical centrifuge for my lab.  The crazy thing is I knew exactly what I was looking for since I used the old one everyday however, I just didn’t know what to call it! This led directly to the following article…..

Scientists spend far too much time searching for the correct products. Life Science companies have spent millions to brand products with great memorable boxes and colorful logos, yet the vast majority of companies fail to title images correctly on their website.

Don’t neglect those beautiful images enhance them and let them help you sell more efficiently and  pre-qualify scientists searching for your products!

The Image Title Tag – Please put your name tag on

One of the key items our team looks for when consulting for Life Science Companies to improve web conversions is properly titled images.

Here’s why:  Search engines (Google, Bing, Yahoo) cannot possibly know what an image is unless it is labeled correctly, these are programs not people with eyes after all.  A proper image title is like a name tag for a blind program.

Here’s how to do it: An image title should be short and informative. Multiple words should be separated by dashes (-). So labeling the above image “Clinical-Centrifuge.jpg” is a lot more informative title than “img45334546.jpg”

Here’s what happens: The search engine will now index the page the image is housed on separately as well as the product page under the correct index.  In this case – “Clinical Centrifuge” will be indexed as  www.companyname.com/clinical-centrifuge.jpg.

A picture gets a thousand clicks

Thoughtful titling or re-titling all the images on your website may seem a like costly endeavor, so let me show you why its critical.

This morning I was looking for new Clinical Centrifuge, so I searched that in Google (green circle). The red arrow show the shopping results with some familiar names there like Cole-Palmer and Phoenix Equipment followed by the images circled in red.

Google especially loves images.  When you search for a phrase Google perceives to be a product, the indexed image results are the third or fourth line of the organic results.

This morning my eyes were instantly drawn to the two old school centrifgues (left center) that look just like the one I replaced. Sadly, clicking on these two lead to websites that aren’t even e-commerce sites.

So if you wanted to sell me a clinical centrifuge this morning and I had seen an image of my old one looking all nice on your website, it would have been super easy to find what I wanted and click through to your product page.  What you did with me once I got there is a question for another day.

But wait your job is not over!  Tomorrow we’ll pick back up this article with image alt tags and how they are used.

Your Website as Field Sales Tool – Sightings at the AACR Meeting

by Rusty Bishop

One great tactic I saw while walking the Exhibit Booths of AACR this week was the display of company’s websites in the booth.  Mark has written about training your sales staff to use the website as selling tool and I’ve written about your web site being your public face. So I was excited to see these two concepts in action.

Website on chocolate = love!

For example, in Sigma’s booth the marketing, literature, in booth mini-talks and conference swag all prominently featured their new “Where Bio Begins” web portal. That’s branding and traffic pushing in one fell swoop!

And the kind ladies in the Affymetrix booth walked me through their new Gene Atlas desk top array on their website and used it to invite me to an awesome party!  In order to get the invite, I had to sign up on their website, so they captured my information and qualified me as a lead (albeit a poor one).

Here’s two ideas to that may help you decide if your website display in the booth is a good idea

In Person Feedback

One of the most difficult things about web design is getting a real read on your customer’s reactions. Let’s face it most feedback online is banal and friendly, because scientists are non-combative and shy and people don’t really have time to give you feedback.  However, making your website available in your booth with a mouse and keyboard is the perfect chance to watch them interact with it and great time to ask them questions about it.

For example,

• Are they easily finding products?
• Do they fret about the long lead registration form?
• Are you lacking key images that drive conversions?
• Did your Call to Action button get their attention or was it ignored?

Staff training in the Real World

Your website really is your face, but it can also be powerful sales tool in the field. Its not often that Sales Staff, Product Managers, Technical Support and Marketers get the chance to work together in front of customers.Why not use the meeting to perfect your sales pitch with the use of your website.

Try this at the next meeting,

• Train staff on the website features in a non-threatening environment
• Watch, listen, and give feedback on how your team uses the site tools and features in front of customers
• Try different entry points such as the search engine or catalog browsing to test effectiveness in sales

Sales tips for selling to scientists can be hard to find. Find more by following us on Twitter here. Also, become a fan of Red Funnel Consulting on Facebook today!