Effective marketing communications emphasize certain advantages in a way that appeals to specific groups and engenders a perception of a company's uniqueness. However, one of the most challenging aspects of marketing to life scientists-vividly demonstrated by past installments of our Marketing to Life Scientists study-is the high degree of homogeneity exhibited by scientific customers. At the same time, it is clear that different scientific customers do in fact have significantly different attitudes, needs and preferences. Thus, segmentation plays an important role in the life science market because it enables suppliers to identify groups of scientists that can be expected to respond differently to the company's promotions, communications, advertising, and other marketing mix variables. For years, marketers have been searching for relationships between their products and their customers' purchasing behavior. Traditionally, scientists' reactions toward various marketing communications have been measured by their demographics-typically market segment (e.g. "industrial" vs. "academic) and geographic region. However, an increasingly successful approach is to use psychographics to measure customers' lifestyle characteristics and personality traits. By evaluating attitudes, values and opinions, psychographics allow for a more complete picture of a scientist. To provide suppliers with a new way of gaining a competitive edge, BioInformatics, LLC created the first-ever psychological profile of customers in the life science market. We developed The Scientific Personality Assessment (SPA) by adapting techniques used in the consumer products market and creating a questionnaire that best reflects the behavior of scientists. Based on their responses to 76 questions, participants were assigned to one of the following four personality profiles: Enthusiast, Explorer, Leader or Organizer (see Page 4 for details). In Marketing to Life Scientists: A Psychographic Analysis, our psychographic assessment has been used in conjunction with the results of a 33-question survey of over 1,300 researchers. This analysis highlights how scientists in each personality profile exhibit similarities and differences in the way they prefer to receive and respond to marketing communications delivered by various media, including: print catalogs, supplier Web sites, direct mail, sales representatives, print advertising, and scientific meetings.
With this information, the message a customer receives from all parts of the organization (e.g., ads, e-newsletters, sales representatives, customer service, etc.) can be customized to better reach and influence the target audience. Report Highlights Marketing to Life Scientists contains over 80 charts and/or tables and more than 15 cross-tabulations for the 33 survey questions. Below is a glimpse of the key findings derived from just a few of the survey questions: • Nearly half of Explorers learn about a supplier's products and services at scientific meetings while only 35% of Enthusiasts do so. (Question 1) • When receiving a printed catalog that was not requested, Explorers are more likely than their counterparts to pass it along to a colleague, however, overall, more than a quarter of scientists throw it out. (Question 4) • Invitrogen and Sigma-Aldrich were cited as having the most useful Web sites. (Question 11) • For all personality types, the most influential factor in a scientist's decision to open a piece of mail is the fact that he or she is currently using the supplier's products. (Question 14) • To increase effectiveness, it is most important for sales reps to respond promptly to scientists' requests and least important for them to contact scientists at least once a month. (Question 17) • The overwhelming majority of scientists, 81%, prefer to attend smaller meetings devoted to specialized topics (e.g., apoptosis, combinatorial chemistry, etc.), if possible. (Question 28) (electronic copy also includes 1 print copy) | 
