There’s an old saying in marketing: ‘just because there’s a gap in the market, doesn’t mean there’s a market for the gap.’

This, in essence, sums up the problem many Life Science businesses find themselves in. They have a scientifically sound new product, which has been thoroughly approved by regulators, but the challenge is then getting it to market.

While there are multiple potential reasons for this lack of demand, much of it comes down to a simple reality. The fact that the development process at many companies does not sufficiently consider how the final product will deliver value and generate commercial interest.

This results in poorly designed trials. Where outcomes don’t align with the key value messages that ultimately drive business and grow a market. By the time this becomes clear, it is simply too late. Then you could be left with a great product that nobody knows about.

To counteract this, we developed a proprietary Storyboarding process. In this article, we’re going to explain exactly how it works and how it can benefit your business.

The Storyboarding Process

Storyboarding is a set of meta-cognitive exercises designed to align your development process with a smart, commercially aware commercialization strategy. You can imagine it as literally plotting the ‘story’ of your product. We plot from the very beginning of development to its commercial launch and delivery to the end-user.

The goal is to ensure your team understands the marketing process and produces information that helps sell the final product.

We do this via three steps:

1. Defining the deliverables
   We begin by identifying exactly when during the development process storyboards should be written. We also identify who will be responsible for the deliverable and where they take input from.
2. Determine the most important data
   Next, we assess what key messages and data points will be relevant to the marketing narrative. This allows you to ensure your trials are set up to produce this data.
3. Develop messaging skills
   Finally, we undertake content meetings. In them, we train your people to focus on key messages; align their thinking and language; and produce coherent marketing narratives – ideal condensed to as few as 20 sentences.

The Benefits of Storyboarding

Ultimately, the Storyboarding process provides three clear benefits to your business:

• Develop marketable products, not just registered ones
  By shining a light on the commercial element earlier in the process, we maximise the value products produce and ensure they actually reach consumers.
• Make more from less
  By establishing clearer strategic goals, we ensure every piece of data produced is relevant and useful to demonstrating your product’s value.
• Understand your marketing needs
  By training your people to think strategically, we create greater cohesion within your teams and ensure future projects run more smoothly.
• Creation of a “Backbone” Document
  By creating a strong storyboard, the information will feed other important documents throughout the commercialization process. Documents such as dossiers, filings (regulatory), and marketing presentations.

Come and discover how we put our Storyboarding process into action to help a biotech company redefine their marketing. Read of our case study here.