Doing More With Less: Marketing Spend Trends in Health Science

When you consider what strategies and tactics are effective for marketing in the health science space, it is helpful to examine what marketers have historically done, what they are doing now, and how those trends may be changing. Marketing is a broad world, so it is important to analyze the #healthscience space for trends and make recommendations on best practices. Utilizing a reputable survey of health science marketers, I’ve presented a variety of information here. While survey results are not a sole reason to choose a strategy or tactic, they do provide insight into efforts that have been or are working/not working when marketing health science products/services/solutions.

I’ll walk through some trend data specific to #healthsciencemarketing for Drug Development Services (DDS) companies to understand how much marketers are spending and how they utilize various approaches or tools to give you insights that can help inform your decision making.

Marketing spend varies by industry, with a recent report showing a range of marketing spend as a percentage of overall revenue from 0.5% (Energy) to 13.9% (Consumer Services). The trends report below reflects a much lower spend in the health science market. Only 17% spend more than 5% of their revenue on marketing, while 32% spend 1% or less. The theme for marketers in the health science space is clear: Do more with less!

Marketing Trend Data

Digging into spending trends more specially, we see that more than half of CMOs/CDMOs respondents reported budgets of 1% or less and only 11% spent 5% or more. CROs and Sponsors (biopharmaceutical companies) come next, with about 1/3 of respondents reporting spending of 1% or less. Software/Tech spending had the lowest percentage of respondents on the low (1% or less) and high (5% or more) ends of the spectrum, with most of them falling in the 2-4% range.

In 2022, trade show spending came roaring back, with over 50% of respondents increasing their spending. Having attended some trade shows this spring, the feeling in the air is that conferences are back after being decimated during COVID. Maintaining the spending trends from 2020 and 2021, marketers continued to increase their digital spending, in particular for social media and website/apps/interactive development.

Here’s a peek into where various companies (by type) are spending the most money.

The next several charts provide insight into which tactics respondents found to be effective. Content-focused tactics still lead the way: webinars, case studies and white papers. This reinforces what I see in practice often: good content helps drive engagement.

The increases in social media advertising that started in 2020 are still holding, a sign that perhaps the use of these tactics prompted by COVID proved effective, so DDS marketers are sticking with that tactic.

Market research can be helpful in a variety of ways; not just to inform branding, but also to help decide on specific tactics for your marketing plan. While it is helpful to see trends and opinions from health science marketers, each individual circumstance will dictate the size of the budget and the best-suited tactics. ?These findings can be helpful as you explore options for your marketing efforts, or as supporting material as you pursue marketing budget funds. Ultimately, I encourage health science marketers to take this and other background information and apply it to their own unique circumstance and combine it with knowledge of your company, your customers, and your industry to form a strategic marketing plan that reaches your audience with tactics that engage them and help move them from the marketing to the sales funnel.?

About the SCORR Marketing, 2022 SURVEY REPORT: Marketing Trends in the Health & Life Sciences: ?SCORR developed the questions, administered the survey using a web-based tool to life science/health science executives and/or marketers. The survey was fielded from July 2022, through September 2022. Sample size: 123. Nearly half (46%) of the respondents were CEOs, presidents, vice presidents, or directors. Additionally, 62% of respondents have more than 10 years’ experience in the industry, and 77% have more than 6 years.

Roger Boutin is Vice President of Communications and Market Intelligence at?SCORR Marketing, the leading full-service marketing agency for the health science industry. He is also a member and thought leader for the?Forbes Communications Council. In his 18+ years in the health science industry, he has led numerous branding initiatives ranging in size from start-ups to a $3B+ international organization and plans and executes strategic marketing plans for companies across the health and life science industries.