Innovation Unleashed: Rethinking Life Science Sales & Marketing

The biggest barrier that sales and marketing professionals face today is an inability to break through the hyper-noisy world to reach and persuade decision-makers. While on the one hand technology makes it easier to reach people, on the other it has resulted in an unprecedented assault on customers' inboxes, attention and peace of mind. The companies who are winning in this environment are redefining sales and marketing. While Innovation is widely regarded as the most important value creator for life science and diagnostics industries, many companies limit innovation to R&D and product development. Today, however, we need innovation in sales and marketing functions in our industry. In his keynote presentation, Hamid will guide the audience through a journey to reshape the way marketing and sales professionals think about their function by bringing innovation into their work. He will share how to look for patterns in customer behaviors that can lead to breakthrough results, in some cases increasing effectiveness by 40x.  And he will describe the 8 different types of innovation that every sales and marketing professional and team can leverage and will offer two practical tools for commercial teams and individuals to infuse innovation into their work.

Today’s sales professionals are facing new challenges in gaining access to their customers. Due to tightened security measures in both academic and biopharma accounts, Sales Reps’s access to their customers has become highly restrictive. However, when selling innovative products that require extensive customer education, it is imperative that companies find ways to create face to face opportunities for the Sales Reps and their technical sales partners. With restrictions on travel budgets, scientific conferences and industry trade shows are not always a reliable solution to this challenge. Corporate marketing emails are not always effective, as many emails are simply ignored by customers, as they are barraged every day by various vendors. However, customers are more likely to respond to a direct communication from a local Sales Rep (especially a Rep that they value) rather than an impersonal company email. Webinars are informative but not conducive for extensive dialogue. One solution to this challenge is to empower your Sales Reps to conduct account level marketing. In this presentation, I will describe how we have enabled Sales Reps to leverage technology and internal partners to deliver customized content to their customers, sponsor account level seminars with the partnership of key customers and sponsor regional biopharma symposia. With technology, these activities can be integrated into existing CRM processes including event promotion, registration tracking and lead creation.  Success will depend on the versatility of the Sales Professional, their ability to collaborate with strong marketing and technical selling partners and the possession of a passion for customer engagement. This approach expands the reach of the corporate marketing team and generate leads with higher value to the Sales Reps, given that they are vested in the outcome of the event. This presentation will explain how this can be implemented and factors for success.

Buyers spend 70% of their buying journey doing their own research, before reaching out.  Marketing to scientists requires more than just data-driven strategies. Scientists are people driven by emotions when making decisions.  Marketing messages are increasingly competing for attention. The key to breaking through the clutter lies in combining the latest in innovative marketing technology, cutting edge marketing approaches, and knowing how to gather a buyers intent signals to power personalization to build trust. You will walk away with actionable takeaways and a blue print for how to empower digital personalization by aggregating key data that you already have and combine that with account-based strategies to activate more marketing engagement, better quality leads, and alignment with sales.

Commercial teams are grappling with unprecedented challenges as we move from a Zero Interest Rate Policy (ZIRP) to a landscape demanding profitable and efficient growth (PEG). Traditional go-to-market strategies no longer suffice, budgets are tightening, and team morale is waning.However, the organizations thriving in this transformative period are charting a daring new course, embracing commercial strategies that break free from the conventional. This session will unveil how to lead with creativity and innovation, offering actionable insights to:

• Go-to-Market Strategy & Execution: Discover how to design a go-to-market motion that not only drives financial impact, but also unites your organization and captivates your target audience.
• Brand Positioning & Product Messaging: Learn to craft messaging that goes beyond product features to articulate real value, forge unforgettable customer experiences, and build a cohesive narrative that strengthens brand equity and market influence.
• Team Alignment: Implement streamlined processes that enhance efficiency and transparency across marketing, sales, and customer success teams, ensuring seamless collaboration and operational excellence.Join us to redefine success and harness the power of bold innovation in today’s dynamic market environment.

Company culture is a critical element of success. Marketing is the art of educating an audience to change their thinking and behavior. Can marketing communications enhance commercial success by influencing both internal and external audiences? Let’s explore the idea together with examples from some of my favorite podcast guests.