Advertising Directly on Journal PDF Printouts = Branding
- Aug, 25 2010
- By Rusty
- Lead Generation, Online Marketing
- 3 comments
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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Update PDFs to your iPad using Dropbox without iTunes
- May, 19 2010
- By Rusty Bishop
- Science Sales
- 3 comments
by Rusty Bishop, PhD
I’ve been using the iPad for a little over a week now and, I must say this device is incredible. It is going to revolutionize the way you sell and market products. I plan on seeing a lot of you all using it in the near future.
One of the strengths of the iPad is the ability to interact directly with a potential client via the tablet interface. For example, you might load brochures with key product information in PDF format onto the device prior to a large conference or sales run. Using the pad you can walk a potential client through your offering, or better yet; let them walk through themselves while “playing” with the pad.
This article details how we use Dropbox to quickly load files onto the iPad remotely in sales situation.
Quick Summary of the steps needed to load files onto the ipad fast on the go.
- Get free Dropbox account at Dropbox.com
- Create a folder to share with your colleagues for “Dropping” files
- Upload or save your marketing material to the file (PDF’s, jpegs, etc.)
- Get the free Dropbox application from the App Store and install it on the pad
- Now anything “dropped” into the shared folder is immediately loaded onto your iPad
- Find it >> load it >> view it >> and sell it!
Details of the operation
Loading PDFs or images onto the device is fairly simple using the iTunes interface and has been demonstrated clearly by Apple and others. However, you might be wondering what happens when I don’t have a computer handy and I need to show data to a potential customer that is not already on the device?
You could load Safari and search for the information on your company’s website for example, but Dropbox has presented us with a simple solution. Simply call or text a colleague and have them drop onto your iPad!
Quick Primer on DropBox
Dropbox is very intuitive web file sharing application that lives partially on your computers/devices and partially in cyberspace. Using dropbox you can rapidly share files with your devices and colleagues that you invite to be shared on folders you create. Best of all its free-up to 2.5 Gb of storage and secure.
To learn more and install Dropbox visit their website from your computer and the App store on your iPad or iPhone.
Dropbox for the iPad
What I love about Dropbox is the ability to rapidly share large files with others and over my machines (desktop, laptop, and iPad).
The iPad Dropbox interface is super simple to understand. The files you create in your Dropbox folder on their website or your computer appear on the left hand side and documents and images in the right window. Once you find the PDF or image you are looking for simple touch it to load into the right side view screen. Bam, instant documents anywhere, anytime!
Dropbox Ipad Interface is Super Easy to Use
Two tricks you should know
- By tapping the star icon on the top right toolbar you will download the document/file to your iPad for permanent viewing. Thus even when you don’t have wi-fi access (most conferences) your files are still there.
- By tapping the arrow on the top right tool bar you dropbox will assist you in loading the file into other applications on the device such as PDF viewers and image viewers that will allow you to utilize interactive PDFs, etc. I like iAnnotate for PDFs, because I like to mark them up and keep notes.
In Summary
Setting up dropbox with your sales and marketing team can be a quick way to save the day with your awesome new ipad selling machine. Simply call or text the home office and ask them to drop the file you need, find wifi access, access dropbox, and you are rolling.
The blue box above gives you a quick summary of the steps needed to make this work for you.
We’d love to have your comments and suggestions on improving this article.
Mark and I hope to see you at American Society for Microbiology Meeting next week in San Diego! We’ll have our iPads there for you to play with and test for yourself. Drop us a line if you want to meet with us at a specific time during the meeting.
