BiotechNiques

Try these techniques to simplify life-science communications

1.The Rule of One.

For print and email communications, pick one point of data to address. Examples: 90% clinical responder rate with product X; assay error rate down 75% with a new technology.

For web-based communications and professional education, pick one narrow topic for each webpage, allowing visitors to click easily to other topics.

Aim for these goals:

• Every email fits its key points in one screen.
• Every slide in a Power Point deck is brief enough to inspire one minute of talk.
• Every title or headline covers one idea.
• Every positioning statement coveys the one key message you want to communicate. Positioning that expresses multiple messages is really not positioning at all. The goal is to identify the single, unique, and memorable benefit of your brand.

2. Under 10.

Keep headlines and titles to 10 words or less.

Devote the first 10 characters of a headline, title, or subhead to the most important, meaningful word or words in your message: "Cancer Cured in 45% of Cohort" beats "45% of Cohort Achieves Cancer Cure."

For excellent examples, check out www.karengedney.com. Karen is a great writer and e-communications expert who knows how to get the most from headlines. I owe her this idea.

3. Benefits not Features.

It's not what a product or technology does, but what it does for me. That's true even for highly trained science people. They are people first.

Communications get a lot simpler when they focus on benefits to your audience—less work, lower costs, and happier patients—than on the details of your lab process or mechanism of action.

4. Connect More Times with Less Info.

Sometimes, the story you need to tell your audience has a many parts. Maybe there's efficacy information on a technology or several different studies in process. More information will be conveyed if you break up the story into multiple communications, for instance, several different emails.

Each communication lets you reconnect to your audience with one new bit of information each time. That's more effective than contacting your audience just once with lots of information.

5. Many Baskets.

Communicate in many ways: print, web/email, audio, symposia, snail mail, and even "under-the-radar" communications like door tags, wall signs, and premium items at key professional meetings.

Include assisted as well as unassisted communication. In the life sciences, there is simply no substitute for assisted communication, that is, discussion between your prospect and a researcher, salesperson, or company executive.