January 2023

The short answer: yes. The long answer: your brand strategy should constantly be evolving and adapting to the needs and demands of your target audience and customers. A strong brand strategy will stand the test of time, but a stagnant brand will fall short. Do you know how to approach your brand strategy updates? Let’s get into the basics.

Identifying Your Current Audience

Getting a clear understanding of who your current target audience is the first step in evolving your brand strategy. Your target audience may be different than it was when you first launched your brand. How can you tell? Through the data. Data analytics can be a vital tool when it comes to updating your band strategy. You can gain insight into who is buying your products or services, where they are buying, how often they buy, and more. Data analytics gives you access to information about your customers to better meet their needs with a brand strategy that works. A few questions to ask yourself when identifying your current audience:

What need do I meet?
Who has a need for my products/services?

Are there any competitors?

You may be wondering, where do my competitors come in? The competition has the potential to take your customers at any given moment, and vice versa. Using data analytics to evaluate your competitors will give you even more insight into your current audience and their thought processes when purchasing. This data can be helpful in identifying needs you are not currently meeting for your customers as well. Before you can do anything else with your brand strategy, you must know who you are targeting.

Understand Competitors

Your competitors have the potential to make or break your brand’s success. If you outperform the competition, you will be the preferred brand for your customers. At the same time, if the competition outdoes you, your brand will see a decline. Understanding your competitors, both direct and indirect, will help you foresee what brand strategy changes and adaptations are needed to stay at the top of your industry.

Direct competitors are those who exist in your specific market, with very similar products or services to offer. They are often the first alternative choice for your customers. Look at their brand and what they do, and then do better. Look at how they advertise and market themselves. Is it cohesive? Does it have a distinct look and feel? Then ask yourself, how can I do that but better? Revisit your brand strategy and look at how you approach your customers. You have already done the work to identify your current target audience, now look at what the competition offers that you do not. Then, determine how you can “fill in the gaps” with an alternative product or service that boasts a unique selling proposition they cannot refuse.

Indirect competitors are those who exist in your industry, and they solve a similar customer need, but in a different way than your own. The transportation industry is often filled with indirect competitors for example, they all fulfill customers’ needs for getting products and orders from point A to point B but in different ways. They compete for customers, but not directly; a customer looking for air transportation is likely not going to opt for ground shipping if they need to ship overseas. However, on any given day the roles could reverse. The best way to combat indirect competition with your brand strategy is to position yourself in a way they cannot ignore. You cannot simply be the cheapest or the longest lasting, but rather all that and more. You should be changing your brand strategy to account for both direct and indirect competitors and their potential for “poaching” your customers.

Why Brand Evolution is Important

Evolving your brand strategy is incredibly important if you want to stay in business. Having a stagnant, irrelevant brand will do more harm to your business than you can imagine. Research has shown that 14% of businesses fail due to bad branding and marketing. Your brand is everything to your business. It is your bread and butter, the foundation that your entire business stands upon. Your core values, while somewhat constant, should have room for flexibility. For example, what was once “transparency” can evolve to “collaborative customer relationships.” They convey the same message, but one is more specific and distinct. Your brand strategy can change without being too drastic. You can update your logo without changing the general concept, just polishing it up with a modern look and feel. The same goes for every other aspect of your brand, if it is currently successful you can update it without changing the entire concept. As for the less than successful components of your brand strategy, you must identify how to relieve the issue while still maintaining a cohesive look and feel. Evolving your brand strategy will only be as successful as you make it, and using data analytics and audience feedback will help you ensure you make the right decisions.

Don’t Stick with Trial and Error

While trial and error can be a great way to yield data, it is by far not the most productive or efficient. We have already discussed the importance of data analytics when it comes to updating your brand strategy, and you should not forget it. Take note of all potential ways you can yield data and prepare to integrate your findings into your strategy. If data analytics, branding, customer experience, and more are not your forte that does not mean you are out of luck. Professional branding firms are well versed in creating brand strategies that are adaptable and successful for the long run. Before you choose the right branding firm for your business, take the time to meet with their team and ask the necessary questions to see if they can meet your needs. An experienced firm that specializes in brand strategies like Millennium Agency will have the tools and background to take your brand to the top.

About Millennium Agency  

Millennium Agency is a nationally recognized, top woman led B2B branding, positioning, and digital marketing firm who creates value that builds emotionally impactful brands that influences your customer’s buying decision, giving you the competitive advantage. As your industry partner for B2B pharma/biotech, technology and manufacturing, our proprietary research-based framework makes a strong impact and accelerates your brand growth. While you focus on what you do best – running your business successfully – our team will build your brand, and drive leads.  For more information, call 877-873-7445 or schedule time here.

For years, the traditional marketing strategies of paid advertising, Yellow Pages listing enhancements, direct mail, and consistent communication with previous clients proved successful for business owners. However, digital technology has forever changed the marketing landscape, along with the way consumers receive and respond to marketing messages. Business owners must integrate online strategies into their digital marketing plan in order to effectively increase market share. (more…)

Establishing a strong biotech website requires research, data analytics, trial-and-error, and a lot of patience. As a biotech leader, you are no stranger to trusting the research and trial process, but you may not know how to approach the creative design elements that will help catch your audience’s attention – which is where professional branding firms can help significantly. Whether you are establishing a new biotech firm or are rebranding your existing website and content, having strong web design elements in your biotech website will make a significant difference in how your brand is perceived.

Use Personalized Photography

A strong biotech website will feature unique content and imagery. One of the best ways to show your biotech brand’s personality on your website is the use of original photography taken directly on your worksites and in your offices. Showing the actual people that make up your biotech firm will give your patients, healthcare professionals (HCPs), hospitals, pharmacies, and wholesalers the impression of an authentic, transparent biotech firm they can trust. Using original photos and videos throughout your biotech website will make your company stand out and give potential patients and clients a positive impression.

Look at BioMarin Pharmaceutical’s website for example. Their website features a wide variety of unique, personalized photography on all pages. Their homepage features a diverse range of patients, and showcases their headquarters – giving website visitors an immediate impression of what they have to offer. Instead of using standard stock imagery that could be found on a variety of websites, BioMarin uses unique photo elements on their website to boost the overall look and experience for patients and HCPs.

Vibrant Visuals

Your biotech brand’s logo and color theme are incredibly important visuals that are the first thing website visitors see. Visitors typically spend 15 seconds deciding whether they are going to move forward browsing on the site they click on. This means that your biotech website has 15 seconds to win them over. An eye-catching, relevant logo and an appropriate color scheme can help attract their attention. More and more biotech firms are beginning to use more vibrant colors, but that does not mean including neon orange or bright green will get the job done. Using vibrant visuals can engage website visitors but overusing too many bold colors can overwhelm them. Different colors are associated with different emotions and moods, red for example is a bold color that can invoke passion, power, and warmth. Yellow is seen as friendly, cheerful, and youthful, whereas purple is associated with luxury, authenticity, and high-quality. Different colors have different meanings, and different industries will favor different colors for how they resonate with their target audience.

Vertex’s website is a prime example of powerful color schemes with a relevant logo. The triangle shape pays homage to the literal definition of “vertex,” the top of the apex, and implies that Vertex is a top biotech firm. As for their key color scheme, their main color purple is successful at positioning the company as authentic, powerful, and truthful. Their secondary colors of orange, red, and teal green all pair seamlessly with their primary color, giving a sleek and clean result – which is exactly what biotech branding should be.

Easy Mobile Navigation

With 85% of Americans owning a smartphone, your biotech website must be mobile-friendly. A mobile friendly website will give users the exact same experience on their phone, tablet, or other device that they would have on a computer. Ionis Pharmaceuticals does this successfully, with easy navigation, a complete user-experience, and access to all the pages on their original website. The search bar is easily located and works smoothly for quick navigation on the go. The bottom of their website features a scrolling newsreel that features the newest headlines for Ionis, and this component carries over to the mobile version. The overall design of Ionis’ website is user-friendly and relevant, with everything easily accessible. A strong biotech website should be mobile-friendly without losing key components or offering a less-than experience.

Creativity is Key

Biotech and pharma work is highly technical and science-focused, but your branding should be creative. When designing your biotech website, you must be prepared to get creative. It can be hard to make the shift towards the creative branding process, which is why many biotech leaders choose to outsource their website design to an experienced creative agency, such as Millennium. A niche branding and web design firm will have background and experience building strong, relevant biotech websites that perform well. Unsure of the first step in successful website design? Schedule time with the Millennium team to get started on the process.

About Millennium Agency  

Creating a successful brand strategy for your biotech brand requires research, data-collection, analysis, and testing – all processes anyone in this industry is familiar with. But do you know how to use them in biotech branding? Building a successful brand strategy is a task that’s never truly finished. You should constantly be adapting and evolving your brand along with your products for the patients, healthcare professionals (HCPs), wholesalers, hospitals, and pharmacies you serve. Laying the foundation of a solid biotech brand from the start will help ensure the branding and marketing success you are aiming for.

Connect with Your Audience

Creating connections with your audience is one of the first things to do for your biotech brand. You serve patients, HCPs, hospitals, pharmacies, and more – each one looking for a different solution. Your biotech brand must create a meaningful connection with your customers and clients, ensuring them that they can trust you to look out for their best interests.

The U.S. biotech market is estimated to be a 152.4-billion-dollar industry, having grown 1.1% in 2022 alone – this means the competition is high and the industry is doing well. As we see more of a push from patients and stakeholders for more affordability in pharmaceutical products, there will also be an increasing demand for more transparency and authentic connections.

Connecting with your audience will help set your biotech brand up for success, positioning you as a company they can trust to provide the best solutions for their condition or need. Gathering information and analyzing the data to uncover what your audience likes or dislikes and what they are looking for enables you to better meet their needs with your products. HCPs, hospitals, and pharmacies are looking for biotech solutions that are compliant, effective, and reliable, while also being comfortable and beneficial for their patients. Patients want to feel seen and understood, like they are the only patient in the world and their condition is of the utmost importance, and that is because it should be. Conducting market research and using data analytics can help you connect your biotech brand to your audience successfully, laying the bridge for positive relationships and customer trust.

Establish an Online Presence

Everything is digital now, and the biotech industry is one of the more advanced markets, meaning your audience likely relies on some sort of device to connect with companies and providers like yourself. Having a relevant, easy-to-navigate, cohesive online presence will help you generate traffic, leads, and business. For starters, create a website that can serve as the “home” for everything patients, healthcare professionals (HCPs), hospitals, and pharmacies may be looking for. A strong biotech website will successfully make complex concepts and information easy to understand for all levels of familiarity. Elements to consider including in your biotech website include:

Comprehensive, relevant content
Industry news
Compliance standards
Original imagery
Mobile-friendly pages
Cohesive design

Having a website allows you to create a base point to drive your current and potential customers to and gives you a platform to further your biotech brand. Creating and publishing content will drive patients and HCPs to your website, demonstrating your knowledge and authority on the topic while educating them. Similarly, publishing industry news positions you as a biotech brand that is involved in the market and passionate about educating those around you. Biotech websites should cover compliance standards and how your firm meets the requirements of the industry and market. This is not only required by many, but also demonstrates exactly why patients, healthcare professionals (HCPs), hospitals, and pharmacies can trust you. Transparency when it comes to processes and compliance reassures your audience that you know what you are doing as a biotech brand and have knowledge they can rely on.

Understand the Market Demands

Creating a visually appealing website and digital footprint across social media, email-marketing, and PR opportunities will draw in your audience, making you easily recognizable everywhere. Original imagery gives a level of authenticity that encourages patients, healthcare professionals (HCPs), hospitals, and pharmacies to form more personal connections with your biotech brand. Instead of just being numbers and products, you are showing them the faces behind the products. Original images and materials also show customers real examples of the solutions and products you have to offer. Creating an overall impression of professionalism and authenticity with real-life people, products, and materials. To yield the most success online in 2023, you must cater to mobile browsing by making your website and all content mobile friendly.

Nearly 90 percent of U.S. hospitals, pharmacies, and HCPs use some form of mobile app in their work. From check-in forms, payment transactions, scheduling and more, your biotech brand must be able to accommodate the demand for mobile-friendly browsing and data-access. Your biotech website must be able to support a user experience that is smooth, cohesive, and exactly what they are looking for.

Know When to Ask for Help

Branding is the fuel that drives business and profits, and without strong branding your biotech firm is not going to get far. You are familiar with research, data-collection, analysis, and testing, but do you know how to apply it to your brand strategy? Incorrectly branding your biotech firm could do more harm than good, which is why it is always beneficial to ask for help from a branding agency that has experience in the biotech and pharma industries like Millennium Agency. Knowing when to ask for help can make the difference between a good brand and a great brand strategy. Biotech branding is complex, technical, and requires a certain amount of creativity to ensure you are engaging patients, healthcare professionals (HCPs), hospitals, and pharmacies all at the same time. It is always the right time to get your biotech brand on track.

About Millennium Agency  

Heading into 2023, we are going to see a wide range of B2B marketing strategies that are aiming to be bigger and better than the rest. Between the latest technology and different industry challenges, many B2B businesses are going to be thinking outside the box to reach their target audience in an authentic, engaging manner. Here are some of the B2B marketing strategies we live by that you can follow in 2023.

Know Your Niche

Knowing exactly who your target audience is and what they are looking for will help you appropriately and successfully market your B2B brand. B2B marketing requires you to understand your niche. What challenges do you solve? What makes you special? Knowing the specific niche of business you are targeting your marketing efforts to will help you align your brand in the best way, resonating with their team and piquing their interest – eventually becoming a sales lead.

Getting to know your niche begins with research and analysis. Gathering as much relevant data as possible will help you get a clear picture of where your brand is now, and what you need to address to reach your goals. Data analytics are a major tool at this stage, because they provide insight into the inner workings of both your business and your customers. You can also use data analytics to understand the competition that is vying for your niche audience alongside you. Data analytics serve as the window into business success for B2B marketing. Are you taking advantage of your KPIs and market data? If not, 2023 is the time to get started.

Optimize Your Website

Having a strong website is everything when it comes to B2B marketing nowadays. A bad website is not neutral, but rather does more harm than good and can scare off countless potential or even returning customers. You have 15 seconds to make a positive first impression with your website visitors, how are you using that time frame? What impression does your immediate home page give?

A strong B2B website should feature your mission, services, and values while also being easy to navigate with options for further browsing such as blogs or case studies. More content does not always mean good content, which is why you should take the time to examine your SEO rankings and website data to get a clear understanding of how your website currently ranks. Does your audience search relevant keywords to get to your website? When they reach your website, how long are they staying? Are they navigating through different pages and spending meaningful time on them? These are all indicators of the success of your website and can provide insight into what needs to be optimized. A few key details to consider incorporating into your website include:

Original photography
Engaging content
Vibrant colors
Relevant logos/visuals

Any B2B marketing plan will have little substance or cohesiveness without a meaningful website or an underperforming one. A strong marketing strategy should include the design and launch of a polished website, but long-term success lies in being able to return to your website and optimize it for constant relevance.

Automate Your Marketing

2023 is going to be the year of automation, and your B2B marketing strategy should reflect that. Automation has made getting simple tasks done so much easier and more efficient, why not take advantage of that? There are many different operations you can automate within your B2B marketing strategy including:

Email marketing
Social media posting
Customer relationship management

Automating repetitive, time-consuming tasks frees up your time to get creative and strategize instead of copying and pasting email marketing content. Email marketing is incredibly easy to automate, with excellent platforms such as Active Campaign and Mail Chimp available. You can set up and schedule your email(s) to launch to your contacts whenever you designate, either instantly or at future times. The software also often records the data and provides you with it in a cohesive report that gives you the full picture of your email marketing campaign’s success. Cohesive reports give you the full picture of your email marketing campaign’s success.

Automating social media is also a great way to cut down on time spent entering content or pressing “send.” Like email marketing, there are many different tools out there that allow you to automate your social media posting, even allowing you to preschedule months in advance. Platforms that are connected like Meta’s Facebook and Instagram even allow you to set up your social media on one account and automatically share it with the other. Automating your social media can help you ensure you never have a lull in activity.

Research conducted by Forbes found that 34% of marketing teams will increase the budget for customer engagement by 10% or more, which means your B2B brand must be prepared to take your CRM a step further. Utilizing B2B marketing automation for customer relationship management (CRM) can be tricky. Customers do not want to feel like they are interacting with a robot, but you also cannot be available 24/7 for CRM. Automating surveys, integrating chatbots for FAQs, and more can significantly reduce your hands-on tasks, freeing up your time to build relationships and optimize your communications. Getting the most out of your investments will require research and trial-and-error, but marketing automations will make a significant difference in your overall success in the coming year.

Head Into 2023 Strong

Every industry is going to see an uptick in the demands of their customers and market in general. There is going to be a push for more automation, better websites, and a clearer understanding of the niche businesses you serve. The gap between strong brands and weak brands is going to be wider than ever in 2023, and those who invest in their B2B marketing strategies will come out on top. Getting your B2B marketing strategy in order for the upcoming year is not instant, but an experienced, niche B2B marketing firm such as Millennium Agency can get you on the right track. They have the right tools and experience to know exactly what strategies are best for your B2B marketing plan, and can take it a step further and manage your brand for long-term success. Schedule time with the Millennium Agency team and head into 2023 a step ahead of the rest.