Does the science really speak for itself?
Scientists are typically trained in academia, where data speaks for itself. If the data supports the conclusions, the research is deemed trustworthy.
In the biotech industry, however, data alone is rarely enough to encourage adoption.
It’s not that the life sciences industry doesn’t want to see new data. It’s that more and more, the data is becoming disconnected from the outcomes and implications being presented.Â
More biotech enterprises are claiming that they have “cutting-edge”, “innovative” research that’s set to “transform how life sciences research is performed.” You’ve probably heard these buzzwords being used on company websites. Perhaps you’ve encountered other buzzwords (read more here) and found yourself rolling your eyes.
Good data alone, no matter how well-presented or massaged, will not lead to increased adoption if your audience doesn’t believe the data and can’t grasp why your tech is so important. If you want to demonstrate the transformative nature of your research, improve your lead generation, and boost your sales efforts, you’ll first need to know your customers’ strongest priorities and challenges and see how you can address them with integrity and engagement.
That’s why we’re going to walk through the six Ps in this blog. We’ll first cover why you need them to improve your marketing, Then, we’ll discuss what the 6 Ps are and how they can help you tailor your content to address your target audience’s questions and meet your commercial goals.
Why you need to tailor your company's message
In life sciences, it’s not enough just to present data and why your features are superior. You need to show why that data matters to the people making decisions.
Unless you show your stakeholders the relevance of their research, they won’t properly connect the data you tell them with their bottom line. You’ll end up with repeated clarification questions, slow-moving deals, and hesitation to act even when the data is strong.
When messaging resides at the data level alone, each audience is forced to interpret its relevance for themselves. This wastes valuable time that could be spent in increasing product adoption. Consider these audiences and their priorities:
- Investors don’t just want to see figures and tables. They want to connect the science with returns on their capital.
- Lab managers and scientists seek to evaluate claims closely, visualize the technologies within their workflows, and ensure that their grants can pay for it.
- Executives want to see how integrating a new technology can improve their bottom line.
Data and features alone can’t relate to the stakeholders’ problems. Tailoring your messages does. It aligns your goals with how each stakeholder defines risk, value, and success. Instead of asking your audience to bridge the gap, you do the work for them.
That’s where the 6 Ps come in.
Six Ps, six questions to understand your audience
The six Ps were inspired by an experienced director of sales after observing a systemic challenge in the life sciences: converting life sciences research into relevance. They can be classified into two categories (Figure 1): tension and resolution. The first three Ps relate to the challenges that your target buyers face and the consequences of not resolving them. The last three Ps demonstrate how your technology or service can resolve the tension created by the first three Ps.
Below are the 6 Ps explained. Afterwards, we’ll walk through the 6 Ps at work and how answering them can help boost sales through a case study that GenoWrite worked with.
The Six Ps
- Problem:Â The first P is about the problem your target customer may be facing. List out their every possible problem, especially the ones you’re confident your product can solve.
- Primary reason: The second P deals with where the problem originates. What factors or situations make them think the problem is worth raising?
- Pain: The third P asks what happens to the customer if the problem remains unaddressed. Consider the commercial, research, and regulatory consequences to start.
- Promise:Â This P asks how a product can solve the customers’ problems.
- Payoff:Â The fifth P considers what happens after the problem is solved for their customers.
- Proof:Â Finally, as the saying goes, “the proof is in the pudding”. Highlight the data points and other evidence that demonstrate that the product fulfills the customers’ problems.
The six Ps as applied to a diagnostic developer
When writing this case study, I was tasked with demonstrating how the microbiome dysbiosis kit could better quantify total microbial abundance within the gut microbiome and track aberrant changes that could be correlated with dietary markers of health. The document was geared towards pharmacists and clinical directors who wanted to evaluate the method’s protocols and data.
Throughout the content curation process, I framed the case study to reflect the 6 Ps I believed these stakeholders would ask the company about the technology behind the quantification process:Â
- Problem:Â Existing microbiome testing kits focus on changes in relative abundance, yet these do not always accurately reflect the changes in the microbes in fecal matter and the gut.
- Primary reason:Â The systemic biases make it much harder to reproducibly tie microbiome changes to one’s diet or a patient’s disease onset.
- Pain:Â This means that patients and physicians would be less willing to prescribe the kit for ensuring gut health.
- Promise:Â Within the results section, I demonstrated that the kit could indeed quantify DNA abundances accurately and that it identified previously agreed upon trends and new correlations between microbial abundance and diet.Â
- Payoff:Â When I wrote the case study, I focused on the payoff in obtaining more reproducible insights into how changes in microbiome composition are correlated with the foods we eat and our disease state.
- Proof:Â The proof lies in the data published in several manuscripts. They can be presented as figures, tables, or any other method so long as the data can be reproduced and accessed.
Implementing the 6 Ps: The Result
The client’s partner, GA Map, liked the case study so much that they used it as part of their sales collateral while commercializing their dysbiosis kit. Using it contributed to a 37% boost in sales revenue on the year it was published. The specific connection to increased GA-map Dysbiosis Test sales shows one thing clearly:
Writing content that addresses your stakeholders’ tensions and challenges is key to building trust and securing sales with your target customers.
If you want to read the case study for yourself, click on the button below!
Download the template now
If you want to start developing a content strategy that addresses buyer concerns and boosts revenues, download our template now! It provides you a way to address the six reasons that technological features alone don’t drive adoption into life science research workflows.
If you’d like help tailoring your messages to your audiences but aren’t sure how to start, you can also contact GenoWrite through the link on the right.
