Generating leads in the life sciences industry requires more than just compelling messaging — it starts with strong brand awareness. Before potential customers engage with your company, they need to know who you are, what you do, and why it matters to them. But how do you make a life science brand stand out in such a competitive and complex industry?
To answer this question, we sat down with Ben Rowe, SCORR’s chief creative officer. Having designed and launched more brands than nearly any other creative director in life science marketing, Ben is a true branding specialist. In his 20 years at SCORR, he’s helped countless companies refine their brands, differentiate themselves, and create strategies that drive measurable results. In this Q&A, he shares key insights on how brand awareness can turn cold leads into loyal customers.
Let’s Start With the Basics. What Is Brand Awareness?
Let’s start by defining what your brand is. Your brand is your audience’s gut reaction to your company. That reaction could be based on relationships, experiences, stories, beliefs, behaviors, and more. On the other hand, your branding allows you to shape and influence that gut reaction through telling your story and sharing your value. Branding also includes your identity, meaning all of the elements that your audience uses to identify your company — naming, logo, tagline, colors, fonts, icons, and more.
Brand awareness is how well your audience recognizes your brand and branding.
Your brand is basically useless without awareness. If a tree falls in a forest and nobody hears it, did it even make a sound? If a company rebrands and nobody associates it with the company, is it even a brand?
What Does Brand Awareness Have to Do With Lead Generation and Conversion?
Brand awareness is the first step in the buying process. It helps you stand out. It compels more people to search you out, and it enhances your other marketing tactics.
When you build brand awareness, you position yourself in front of your audience so that when they’re ready to buy, they buy from you.
Why Is Awareness So Important for Life Science Brands?
Brand awareness is essential in the life sciences for three main reasons:
- The industry is plagued by a lack of differentiation. Standing out is critical.
- There are many large life science companies offering a variety of services, as well as smaller specialized companies. Because there are benefits to both, audiences often get confused about who’s who and what’s best. By clearly saying what you do and emphasizing the value you provide, you become more memorable and help make their decision easier.
- Mergers & acquisitions are prevalent in the life science industry, leading to even more confusion. Brand awareness helps your target understand what’s the same, what’s changed, and what it means for them.
What Are the Most Common Brand Awareness Mistakes?
- An unclear value proposition. What specific value do you offer? Why should your audience expect to experience that value? How is it different from that of your competitors? If it’s not clear to you, it won’t be clear to your audience.
- Not differentiating your brand. You’re not memorable unless you stand out.
- Lack of consistency. We are constantly bombarded by brands. You need to make it as easy as possible for your audience to recognize and remember you, and give them plenty of opportunities to do just that.
- Overcomplicating your message and/or visuals. Simple is strong. If your audience has to work hard (or at all) to understand who you are and what you offer, they will move on.
- Changing your branding too often. If you keep switching things up, how will your audience recognize and remember you?
Let’s Dig Deeper Into “Changing Your Branding Too Often.” Why Do You Need to Let a Life Science Brand Nurture?
When you live in a brand day in and day out, it’s easy to get tired of it and want to do something new. But you have to put yourself in your audience’s shoes. What brand touch points have they been exposed to? How long does it take for them to recognize your brand? To trust it?
Here’s the truth: Around the time that you start getting bored with your branding, it’s just starting to resonate with your audience. You need to let your brand nurture!
Consistency is so important to building brand awareness, especially in the complicated life science industry. Changing too often confuses your audience and sets you back on the equity you’ve built.
How Do You Let a Brand Nurture?
Follow these 4 steps:
- Start with brand positioning, a marketing strategy that identifies and establishes your unique value proposition. Take that information and translate it into an integrated marketing plan and messaging grid that addresses your target audiences’ needs.
- Next, steadily apply your branding across all the tactics you execute. Having an established set of brand guidelines helps ensure your messaging and visuals are applied consistently for maximum impact.
- You also need to stay flexible. Your branding should be able to encompass varying promotions and messaging shifts that you know are on the horizon, as well as any that pop up along the way.
- Keep your brand fresh with campaigns that use your visuals and messaging in slightly different ways. Campaigns are where you get to have some fun with your branding and push it in different directions to get noticed.
What’s Your #1 Tip for Life Science Brand Awareness?
Take risks! Stay true to who your company is and the value you provide your customers, but don’t be afraid to blaze your own path.
Make Your Life Science Brand Stand Out With SCORR
Building brand awareness is the first step in generating leads and driving business growth — but it takes the right strategy to stand out. SCORR has the life science expertise and marketing prowess needed to help you create compelling, differentiated branding that resonates with your audience and delivers real results.
Ready to elevate your brand and turn awareness into action? Partner with SCORR.
About the Author
Ben Rowe