How important is understanding biotech digital marketing trends for 2024? With the average person spending six hours and 58 minutes per day on screens connected to the internet, there’s no denying that digital marketing is critical to success. Biotech companies don’t need to throw out tried and true traditional marketing techniques. However, making the short shrift to biotech digital marketing is no longer an option.
Taking the cue from consumer-oriented businesses, B2B biotech companies are honing their digital marketing programs to differentiate themselves, build brand recognition, generate leads, and form valuable industry connections.
Read on to explore key biotech digital marketing trends for 2024 that will help biotech companies stay ahead of the curve.
1. Establish Your Overall Brand Identity
Effective branding can make or break a biotech company’s success. A continuing digital marketing trend in 2024 for biotech websites is to simplify content. Cutting-edge biotech companies are focusing on easy-to-digest written and visual content to create awareness and brand recognition, saving more technical details for visitors closer to purchase. The best advice is to use clear messaging, concise language, and engaging visuals that spell out why visitors should buy from, partner with, or invest in your company over your competitors.
2. Define or revise a visual brand identity for your biotech
When visitors come to your biotech website, their first impression can draw them in or turn them off. Within seconds, visitors will decide to stay or click away, often based on your site’s appearance, rather than its content. A strong, consistent visual brand identity across all your digital assets can make you easily recognizable–and if your reputation is positive, your visual brand identity will play a positive role in attracting people to the content you publish.
To create your style, carefully plan your biotech logo, colors, font, images, and other visual elements. The look and feel should align with what your audience values most and express what makes you unique—whether it’s innovation, stability, or industry leadership.
3. Dive deeper during product discovery
The goal of the product development process is to identify key audiences, gain a deep understanding of their needs, and use that knowledge to build a valuable, workable solution. The same information is also essential to creating a well-focused digital marketing approach that resonates with the target audience and aligns with their needs while meeting your marketing goals. Rushing through this critical stage, or not sharing results with the marketing team or agency, will undoubtedly weaken both traditional and digital marketing efforts.
4. Focus on your biotech’s niche audiences
When the product discovery process is complete, you should have a profound knowledge of your target audiences, their pain points, and how to prioritize product features. While it’s tempting to be everything to everyone, effective digital marketing calls for a more focused approach that addresses the specific audiences that are most critical to your current growth stage. Keep in mind that your website and digital strategy will change over time as your company evolves and you progress to a new stage of growth.
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5. Signal credibility in the biotech world with thought leadership
Scientists and others in the biotech community are highly educated and seek high-quality information from credible sources. You can be this source by positioning yourself as a thought leader in your field. As a thought leader, you’ll have more opportunities to increase visibility, attract a following, connect with your peers, engage with potential customers and investors, and draw people to your website.
How do you become a thought leader in your niche? Success relies on delivering high-quality content that is authentic, original, and based on personal expertise, insights, and experience. These characteristics closely mirror Google’s ranking factors for quality: Expertise, Experience, Authority, and Trustworthiness (commonly known as E-E-A-T).
Here are some suggestions for building your thought leadership:
- Highlight the credentials and experience of your executives and scientists on your “leadership” webpage
- Demonstrate your authority with downloadable white papers, research, and educational content
- Promote your participation in conferences and industry events
- Hold webinars and consider presenting with other experts in your field
- Create a blog with easy-to-read, well-sourced articles on your area of expertise
- Partner with other respected companies in or adjacent to your niche
6. Leverage SEO for visibility for your biotech startup
SEO is an enormous topic, but here are some of the most vital aspects for ranking high on Google’s search engine result pages, getting your audience to click on your page link, and keeping them on your site.
Long-Tail Keywords
Do biotech and niche keyword research, focusing on long-tail keywords that sound conversational. Remember that more and more people find out information by asking questions on their mobile phones and digital assistants, such as Alexa.
Mobile-First
It’s not surprising that Google’s web crawler now prioritizes the mobile version of a website’s content for indexing web pages given that 60 percent of all online searches in 2023 were from a mobile device. When designing websites with a mobile-first strategy, some guidelines include using a responsive web design that automatically adapts to the device’s dimensions, intuitive navigation, an uncluttered look, optimized images and videos, easy-to-read colors, and contrast.
Page-Load Speed
Users are impatient and won’t wait more than a few seconds for a page to load, so Google is now using page-load speed as a ranking factor. Some ways to increase page load time are compressing images, minifying and getting rid of useless code, using a CDN (Content Delivery Network), enabling browser caching for repeat visitors, and conducting website speed tests.
Accessibility
It’s just bad business to ignore the 42.5 million Americans with disabilities. While not a direct ranking factor, accessibility significantly affects user experience, which is a ranking factor. The Americans with Disabilities Act (ADA) defines four primary principles for accessible web design: Content should be perceivable, operable, understandable, and robust. Learn more about accessibility standards for auditory, visual, mobility, speech, and cognitive disabilities by visiting W3C Accessibility Guidelines and ADA Guidance on web accessibility.
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7. Engage audiences with visual content
Life sciences companies deal with complex subject matter that can be hard to comprehend through text alone. Visual content can make complicated concepts more accessible and memorable to a broader audience.
Two of the most popular trends are video and animation.
Humanize Digital Content with Video Content
91% of businesses use video as a marketing tool, and biotech companies should join the party. Videos are a great way to humanize your company, making it more relatable while building credibility. You can also convey a sense of authority, show a passion for your work, and reveal a human face behind the science by publishing videos in which experts at your company or key opinion leaders share their ideas, insights, research findings, and real-world applications.
Illustrate complex biotech concepts through animation
Animations can increase comprehension and recall of complicated medical and scientific subjects. Biotech companies can use them to simplify scientific concepts, share the impact of a medical process, and explain innovative processes, research, disease mechanisms, research applications, and more. Too many animations, however, can be overwhelming and slow a site down, so remember not to overdo it.
8. Create Effective Social Media Channels for your biotech startup
Scientists, investors, and journalists all spend time on social media and forums to learn about interesting scientific topics and find out about companies and their products. In 2023, internet users averaged 2 hours and 31 minutes a day on social media.
If you want some of that digital attention, first identify the social media channels your audiences visit most, and then participate and engage to share your expertise and show the company’s human side. Regularly visiting these sites can help you uncover popular topics, identify industry trends, and draw traffic to your website.
9. Join in the podcast revolution
Estimates put the number of podcast listeners in the US at more than 100 million by 2024, and biotech is no stranger to this format. The appeal is not surprising for both educational and entertainment purposes. Podcasts are generally free and can be listened to anytime, anywhere. Biotech podcasts allow life sciences experts to share their real-world experiences and display a personality apart from the objective language of research and academic papers. You can get in the game by producing your podcast featuring experts from your company, have an influential guest on your podcast, or being a guest on a well-respected podcast.
Biotech Digital Marketing trends for 2024 can take you to the next level
Like the biotech industry itself, digital marketing techniques are continuously evolving. There are new technologies, shifts in user preferences, and increasing consumer demands. By understanding biotech digital marketing trends in 2024.
