From life sciences and healthcare to scientific marketing: What I’ve learned at NHB Writing

Nicole Brooks
May 22
5 min read

Table of Content

What I’ve learned about scientific marketing for regulatory affairs, clinical research and healthcare, and how I implement it in my work.

Know your clients and research your target audience

Segment and target your audiences properly.

Learn what your competitors are doing and do it differently—do it better.

In the life sciences industry, organic growth over ads.

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Falling into regulatory affairs

I haven’t met anyone who actively sought out a career in regulatory affairs. I don’t say this to diminish the importance of regulatory affairs, it just seems to be a career people fall into.

This was true for me.

Before regulatory affairs, my experience was in healthcare and clinical research, either practically setting up and delivering trials, or working in the Sponsor’s office for non-CTIMP cancer studies. I worked clinical research backwards in a sense.

I was running clinical trials in the NHS at the height of COVID, when donning and doffing became a phrase one said daily. I then coordinated prospective, longitudinal cancer epidemiological studies at the University of Oxford.

Looking for a new challenge, I fell into regulatory affairs after stumbling upon a fantastic company. I completed TOPRA’s Essentials of European Regulatory Affairs to learn the basics before I started the job, and I was fortunate to have a wonderful director, with decades of experience in regulatory affairs consulting and commercial pharmaceutical and biotech, to teach me.

It wasn’t until almost two years into working in regulatory affairs that I, once again, fell into copywriting and marketing. The marketing department in the large life sciences consulting firm I was working for needed blogs for the European regulatory affairs department. My boss asked me to write one, and I was hooked. One blog turned into two, then into search engine optimisation (SEO)-optimised headlines for the marketing team’s copy, then a whitepaper, flyers and employee bios. It turns out, I’m better at marketing and copywriting for regulatory affairs and clinical research than I am at writing briefing books and marketing authorisation applications.

I wondered why.

1. I enjoyed it. I think enjoyment in work is often overlooked in how much it determines the quality of the output.

2. I discovered that marketing teams don’t always understand the science, and wickedly intelligent scientists don’t write to engage an audience. I fit somewhere in the middle of the two, so I could distil complex scientific information and present it in a way that different audiences could read without falling asleep (hopefully).

3. SEO fascinated me, and learning how to make content and copy rank in search engines became a challenge I leaned into.

4. I’m interested in people, so talking to clients to understand their pain points is the foundation of any marketing project I start.

Along the way, I qualified in SEO copywriting and digital marketing. I came from a life sciences background and wanted to understand marketing principles and how to implement them in niche industries like regulatory affairs and clinical research.

What I’ve learned about scientific marketing for regulatory affairs, clinical research and healthcare

Know your clients and research your target audience

I speak to clients who can identify their pain points in seconds. They can lay out the features and intricacies of their services in great detail and explain what they hope to achieve.

But they often pause when I ask:

What are your clients’ pain points?
How do the features of your services benefit your clients?
What do your clients hope to achieve?
What value do you offer clients?
Have you asked your existing clients these questions?

Why are these questions important?

Looking at what you offer and how you position your offer, from your clients’ perspective is the best way to shape an effective marketing strategy. Asking existing clients for feedback improves your services, but it’s also a targeted way to market to prospective clients facing the same challenges.

Segment and target your audiences properly

Trying to be all things to all people can work, but in the life sciences and business-to-business (B2B) healthcare industries, segmenting audiences and targeting them with precision, whilst offering them value, is instrumental in generating highly qualified leads.

If you’re a regulatory affairs consultancy offering services to small and medium-sized (SME) biotechs, as well as large pharmaceutical companies, both client types are aiming for the same thing: medicine approval, but their journey to approval can be strikingly different. Segmenting these audiences in your marketing and content strategy helps you speak to each target audience in different ways, depending on their needs, their therapy area, the stage of development they are at and the knowledge and resources they may or may not have access to.

Learn what your competitors are doing and do it differently—do it better

It seems obvious, but understanding your competition can be instrumental in finding the whitespace in your industry. For example, a large full-service life science consultancy will have a larger ad spend, mature brand awareness and full lifecycle services from pre-clinical to post-authorisation stages. But do they specialise in SMEs? Do they have expertise in advanced therapy medicinal products (ATMPs)? Do they specialise in rare diseases? Do they have subject matter experts in different therapy areas waiting in the wings?

Additionally, does the fact that they’re a large life sciences consultancy incite a culture of high staff turnover and high client churn? If you’re a small specialist life sciences consultancy, don’t overlook the client relationship value you can offer. Market that as a strength.

In the life sciences industry, organic growth over ads

I may be biased because my experience leans towards SEO and organic growth marketing, as well as content marketing strategy, but I found that because regulatory affairs, clinical research and B2B health tech are relatively niche industries, paid search like Google Search Ads doesn’t target clients the way value-driven content does. A robust content marketing strategy using specific marketing channels has two-pronged benefits.

You provide value to the right audiences
You build your brand identity and position yourself as a thought leader in your industry.

Summary

I fell into regulatory affairs and clinical research, and I fell again into marketing and copywriting for the life sciences and healthcare industries. I’m very glad I did. I’ve learned many marketing lessons so far, but the four that have stuck with me are: