BioInformatics's latest report, 'Advertising to life scientists: maximising ad effectiveness', should help executives understand the major scientific publications in terms of audience and impact
Based on a 34-question survey of more than 1500 life scientists from around the world, this report provides insights into both the media and messages that will most effectively reach the growing life science market.
This report helps suppliers evaluate advertising opportunities by providing an understanding of what their scientific customers consider to be most useful in both a publication and an ad.
Life scientists largely view advertising as an important source of product information.
Respondents were surveyed regarding their professional reading preferences to determine the level of awareness and usefulness of 16 leading life science publications.
Science, Nature, the Scientist, and BioTechniques ranked as the publications that are regularly read by the most respondents.
However, the reasons respondents read each of these publications varied and greatly influence their degree of exposure to the ads in each publication.
Unique to this study is the identification and assessment of parameters to consider when selecting publications for ad placement, based upon key factors such as personal subscription rate, length of time spent reading a given publication, whether or not a publication is saved for future reference, and the average number of people who typically read one person's subscription.
The study found that respondents with personal subscriptions to a publication visit its corresponding website far less frequently, if at all, as compared to those respondents without personal subscriptions.
"When planning their ad campaigns, suppliers should keep in mind that print and online versions of the same publication likely have different target audiences," notes Tamara Zemlo, director of syndicated research and analysis for BioInformatics.
The study also asked respondents which suppliers regularly publish ads that capture their attention.
More respondents ranked Invitrogen as the supplier with the most memorable ads, with Bio-Rad Laboratories and GE Healthcare - a division of General Electric - also ranking highly.
Invitrogen's ads were ranked as the most memorable among scientists performing all types of research.
However, their ads ranked most strongly among scientists conducting basic, drug discovery and translational research, while scientists working in clinical research and molecular diagnostics were more fragmented in their responses.
According to Zemlo: "An effective marketing communications strategy calls for an integrated approach involving media selection, message frequency, ad copy, message reinforcement, and stimulating customer action.
"Suppliers can adopt such an approach by better understanding the preferences of their customers.
Advertising to life scientists: maximizing ad effectiveness contains over 100 charts and tables and multiple cross-tabulations for the 34 survey questions and includes detailed readership profiles of 15 leading scientific publications.
The report also looks at readership and ad preferences by market segment, gender, age, and geographic location.
