• by Ray Schultz , March 10, 2023

Providers in the health or life sciences industry increased their marketing budgets last year, according to Health & Life Sciences Marketing Trends, a study by Scorr Marketing.

Of the companies polled, 52% upped their spending on trade shows/events/booths, 41% on website/apps, interactive development and 37% on social media.  

In addition, 81% of drug development services companies developed an annual marketing plan. But that was down from 87% in 2021. 

And 45% developed an annual public relations/communications plan, versus 54% in the prior year. But 78% regularly seek feedback from clients on ways to improve, up from 73% in 2021. 

Email marketing was not among the leading channels in terms of either spend or effectiveness. The respondents gave these grades to different channels, 5 being the highest:

• Webinars — 3.84 
• Case studies — 3.83
• White papers — 3.74 
• Social media — 3.63 
• Video — 3.57 
• Online presentations — 3.44 
• Digital advertising — 3.43 
• Infographics — 3.27
• Paid search — 3.25
• Email marketing — 3.23 
• Blogs — 3.20
• Podcasts — 3
• E-books — 2.88 

Overall, 72% of companies use social media advertising, rating the platforms as follows:

• LinkedIn — 4.26 
• YouTube — 3.11 
• Twitter — 3.01 
• Vimeo — 2.50 
• Facebook — 2.37 
• Instagram — 2.13 
• WhatsApp — 1.89
• Tik Tok — 1.61
• Snapchat — 1.45
• Pinterest — 1.40 

Scorr surveyed 123 executives in the health/life sciences industry last summer. Of these, 26% were:  

• Spomsors (the biotech, medical device, or pharmaceutical company that drugs and holds patents for approved drugs) — 26%
• CROs (contact research organization that manages studies or functions within a study on behalf of sponsors) — 25% 
• Software/Tech (a company that provides a platform to help process the huge amounts of data generated and collected during the drug development process) — 15%
• CDMO (Contract development and manufacturing organization, able to conduct both the development and manufacturing of a drug)/CMOs (contract manufacturing organization, an entity that manages studies or functions within a study on behalf of sponsors) — 15%
• Other — 13% 
• Consultants — 3