Life science researchers are inundated by messages offering better research, faster results, improved reliability, etc. These messages come in print, at trade shows, via email, through webinars, ads on websites, on Facebook pages and in Tweets. To a certain extent, what Marshall McLuhan said 50 years ago about the medium being the message is true today. How much of our messaging efforts go into optimizing the medium (email, Facebook, Twitter) compared to actually preparing the message? Are we losing our messages in the medium? Let’s look into this.
First and foremost in our life science communication plans must be a clear and consistent message about the solutions that we provide. This message must incorporate or express the value of our solution and enough information so that the message is clear and not confusing. The message must also be consistent across all the media we plan to use. Of course clarity and brevity are not always good companions, so a good message takes some work to develop. A message that takes a paragraph or a page to deliver obviously won’t work when you only get 140 characters, or in a banner ad on a scientific community. So what’s the solution?
The solution is to start with the message. We must define the message, then we can develop a program to deliver that message across all the life science communities and media that have targeted. The next challenge is to adjust the content of the message so that it is appropriate for each of these communities and the media we have chosen.
What is important to remember here is that we are adjusting the message content – the images and copy to make it appropriate, we are not adjusting the message. The goal is to have that clear and consistent message for our prospects in the life science research communities. A message that can be reinforced by exposure across all the media that we have chosen for our solution and our prospective customers.
That’s the message!
