8-point targeted marketing plan for the science sector that includes media, content and face-to-face tactics to reach your audience.

Targeting your prospects can be a challenge in specialist sectors such as the food, nutraceutical, pharmaceutical and cosmetics sectors. A B2B Marketing study found that 62% of marketers found it difficult to target B2B audiences online which illustrates this challenge.

Our main way of accessing specialist audiences with marketing messages is via B2B publications of which there are hundreds. However, we can take this to another level and refine to reach our exact audience within the range of niches and sub-niches in the science sectors.

Here is Orientation Marketing’s 8-point plan on how to achieve this:

Subscribe for marketing insights via email

1. ALIGN YOUR MESSAGE WITH YOUR AUDIENCE

Sounds obvious? Yes. However, we often see this basic rule is not applied where a one-size-fits-all approach is adopted. This is wrong on a number of levels and will rarely produce results.

Are you targeting technical people? Marketers? Higher management? In each case make sure your message matches up – specifically targeting your content and message, highlighting a particular need or challenge, product benefit or feature, to that specific audience type. The location of the message also needs to be considered as different publications will have different audiences from different geographical locations. Therefore, each marketing plan, campaign or message needs to be aligned.

2. REQUEST AUDITS ALONGSIDE MEDIA PACKS

Whether it is for online or offline content, request an audit from an impartial auditing company like the BPA Worldwide. This will back-up the claims made in the media pack and will often give specific audience details. Also, use basic analytics software to ensure you work with the right media - keywords on site content, audience profiles and also site traffic are great areas to start.

Both of these will offer you an impartial and independent view of the site traffic and subscriber database. Helping you to ensure that you spend your money and spend your time targeting the right people.

3. USE A CONTENT-DRIVEN STRATEGY

Instead of spending large budgets on pushing your brand messages, focus your budget on content in order to pull the right audience to you. A pull approach in the non-intrusive method of having audiences find you when the time is right for them and is more representative of how customers prefer to buy.

This content can either be placed on B2B sites, company website or blogs (inbound) or distributed via a newsletter or other sponsored/paid methods (outbound). Inbound marketing, the creation of content for educational purposes, is gaining momentum in the science sectors and more can be found in a previous blog post on inbound for pharma marketers in 2019.

Other relevant content can be webinars, white papers, interviews, podcasts, infographics or any other form of informational content. You can find out more about content marketing via another previous blog post listing types of science content.

4. CONSIDER BEHAVIOURAL MARKETING

Many publishers offer products that help you target your audience based not only on their demographics but also their behaviour. This is usually based on which type of content they interact with and what type of newsletters they subscribe to.

In many cases you are already targeting the people from the right company, however, a behavioural approach will take your marketing investment to the next level, allowing you to target the people with buying intentions for your products and services.

5. LEVERAGE ALL THAT SOCIAL MEDIA HAS TO OFFER

Many publishers will offer you the opportunity to reach their LinkedIn Groups which, similar to their core readership, will have a very specific audience. This is sometimes value-added or sometimes a paid service, but in both cases can clearly supplement the other marketing activities you have already put into place.

LinkedIn also offers targeted marketing and advertising opportunities via their LinkedIn ads service. They offer sponsored content, sponsored InMail and text and dynamic ads, and although costly, the ads have the ability to target your exact B2B audience as the platform likely has access to the majority of your target audiences.

Also, see this previous blog post on how to make the most of your own LinkedIn profile.

6. CHECK THE EDITORIAL CALENDAR IN PRINT MAGAZINES

Using the editorial calendar to look for an edition with a subject much more closely aligned with your product can help improve your results. Although subscribers may receive the magazine every month, if your targeted message is on a special edition then more attention is likely to be paid by the people you are looking to reach. This will also align your brand with a specific subject area.

Also when placing adverting in print magazines do consider placing editorial at the same time. The double whammy of advertising plus editorial can mean that your return is greater than the sum of its two parts.

7. MAILSHOTS AREN’T DEAD

Although mailshots were made more difficult when the new General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR) came into force last year, they are possible in certain contexts and certain countries and still highly effective.

Always use email marketing and mailshots as part of your overall marketing campaign, perhaps to support and direct more traffic toward content or landing pages. For more on email marketing, see our B2B email best practices post as well as this blog post on increasing your own email subscriber list post-GDPR.

B2B websites are often broken up into categories and these categories often have newsletters on this specific subject. We can use banners or text ads on these targeted pages to reach a much more defined and targeted audience.

8. MAKE SURE YOUR FACE-TO-FACE STRATEGY IS ALIGNED WITH YOUR MARKETING STRATEGY

Marketing and advertising results increase if used intelligently and alongside your face-to-face strategy. A face-to-face strategy, normally during events and conferences, is highly recommended for science marketers and sales professionals in an industry that appreciates traditional methods and means to do business.

Spend time carefully selecting your events, trade shows and conferences to ensure you are present at the events that will allow you to get across the right message and reach the right people. See a previous post on tactics for a successful trade show and event presence.

REACHING YOUR TRUST AUDIENCE

John Wanamaker once said: “Half the money I spend on advertising is wasted; the trouble is I don't know which half.” The internet has changed this to some extent. If you follow this 8-point plan you will be maximising the return on your advertising spend and ensuring that you reach your true audience.

Guest contributor: Brett Curtis.