What is the meaning of marketing as it applies to science?
When I was a graduate student and even as a postdoc, I was in science for the purity of discovery and the building of knowledge. When I thought about marketing, what I thought was advertising and some salesperson trying to manipulate someone into buying something. I thought networking was something for yuppies and business majors. Eventually, I began to see that presenting scientific findings was more than just telling your results, but that there was also an element of persuading people that it should be important to them. I began to see that poster sessions were not just social time, but meeting other scientists could lead to synergistic work. As I became a professor and began writing grant proposals, I began to see why it was important to go out and promote your work. But I still didn’t connect these activities to the terms marketing or networking. Those terms still had negative connotations in my mind.
At some point I was figuring it out. I bought the book “Marketing for Scientists” by Marc J Kuchner and even began reading it. However, I wasn’t quite ready, and put it down for a few years before picking it back up again. By this time I had been a professor for almost 10 years, publishing papers, going to conferences, and writing grant proposals all the while. With that experience under my belt, I finally began to understand what the heck I had been doing all those years, and how, if I had only had awareness of marketing and networking from the beginning, I could have probably made much greater progress in my own work. Marketing for Scientists is a book I highly recommend. Take a look at all the pages I flagged! I’m writing some thoughts on this topic now for current graduate students and postdocs, so they can begin to approach their careers in a more deliberate way than I did back then.
First, what is marketing NOT? It is not self-promotion. It is not selling. It is not manipulating other people. Same for networking, which is really just a specific type of marketing. They are not these things IF DONE CORRECTLY! Both marketing and networking take skill, awareness, and sincerity/genuinness to do in a beneficial way. If you do it wrong, you will creep people out and turn them off.
Let’s now look at the definition of marketing, according to the American Marketing Association: “Marketing is the activity, set of institutions, and processes for creating, communicating, delivering, and exchanging offerings that have value for customers, clients, partners, and society at large.”
Let’s break that down. The first key word is value, and it is offerings that have value. The offerings, in a scientific context, are things like theories, models, research tools, methods, technologies, and new knowledge. Value is judged by the offerings’ capacity to help stakholders, defined above as “customers, clients, partners, and society at large.” These can be other scientists, funding agencies, patients, farmers, taxpayers, your employers, and on and on.
Some of the other key terms and their translation would be: Activities and processes for creating offerings: this is what goes on in the lab or in the field: the research itself. Set of institutions: Universities, professional societies, scientific journals, funding agencies. Processes for communicating, delivering and exchanging offerings: presentations, publications, grant proposals, conferences, poster sessions, social media, etc.
The definition above is eye-opening. It places emphasis on the value of your offering, but it doesn’t really get to how it is being done by the marketer. So, how is marketing different than self-promotion? I’m glad you asked. Marc Kuchner says: “Marketing is the craft of seeing things from other people’s perspectives, understanding their wants and needs, and finding ways to meet them.” You see that in this definition, like the one above, the focus is on other people, not on the marketer. In “This is Marketing”, Seth Godin defines it as such: “Marketing is the generous act of helping someone solve a problem. Their problem.” I like the framing of both of these definitions. They help me see that it is possible, even preferrable, to conduct marketing in a way that is primarily beneficial to the other party. They shift my thinking to the other party’s needs, rather than mine. This relationship is much like that of an author and a reader. A skillful writer will write with the audience in mind, not simply writing for their own pruposes.
Building genuine relationships
Speaking of relationships, much of what Marc and Seth promote in their books is building relationships with the stakeholders, customers, end users. Relationship is critical in a scientific career, also. We build relationships with our labmates, advisors, instructors, and classmates by just going about daily activities. Relationships are built farther out when we join clubs, professional societies, go to department seminars and external conferences, email colleagues about research, and so on. If you begin thinking about the AMA definition of marketing as we discussed above, you might begin to see these interactions in a different way. An unproductive way of seeing them would be, how can I promote my work or myself in as many interactions as possible? But, a productive way would be, how can I understand what the other person needs in as many interactions as possible? This doesn’t mean that you always try to bring the topic to their work or your work. Sometimes you can meet their needs just by having a friendly chat. Sometimes you can meet their needs by promoting THEIR work, not yours. Maybe other times you can provide a helpful tip, needed information, or make a connection to someone else who can help. These everyday interactions are marketing, and they are networking in the sense that you are building up a network of colleagues that will be mutually beneficial.
As you go through these everyday interactions, and the less frequent conference interactions, you are building a personal brand. Your brand is what people will think, unconsciously or consciously, when they see you or hear your name. It’s kind of like the concept of reputation, applied to your professional life. Whether or not you put effort or thought into your personal brand, you have one and it will continue to develop over your career. Seth Godin says on the topic of brand: “Everything you do … is a form of marketing your brand. My suggestion is to recognize this fact and take control of shaping the formation of your brand. How do you do this without engaging in unsavory behaviors and self promotion? Building relationships, geniune ones based on respect and trust, is a major part of it. In addition to in-person relationship building, these days it is important to have an online brand and marketing platform. Myself, I use Twitter, LinkedIn, ResearchGate, and my blog, in addition to email. I maintain a presence on Google Scholar, ORCID, and Loop. How can you use these and other platforms to build your brand and realtionships? Some ways are to send out notifications when you publish a new paper, give a poster, attend a conference, have a useful professional opinion. Some other ways are to congratulate others, amplify interesting posts or articles, and ‘like’ people’s accomplishments. Follow them, connect with them, promote their good work. When you see a friend/collegue publish a new paper, send them an email saying congrats! Just keeping in touch can maintain and strengthen your network.
Developing a personal mission statement can help you decide how your brand should take shape and guide the kinds of activities you do to build it. I made a mission statement a few years ago, and it helped me define my priorities. I put it on the wall in a place where I could see it every day to remind me why I do what I do. To get some ideas on how to build yours, look up the mission statements of some of your favorite companies or organizations. The statement for the American Association for the Advancement of Science is: The AAAS seeks to “advance science, engineering, and innovation throughout the world for the benefit of all people”, while the statement for Merck is “To discover, develop and provide innovative products and services that save and improve lives around the world”.
Another goal of marketing for scientistis is to build one or more teams. Your team will allow you, along with your team mebers, to accomplish big goals. Who is on your current team? It could be your current or former academic advisors, teachers, mentors, colleagues next door or across the world, or even people in other fields. Who do you need to add to your team to achieve your big goals? It depends on your goals and the stage you are at in accomplishing them, and it may change over time. To build a team, you need to build relationships and build a personal brand, and to reach potential team members, you need to actively engage in scientific marketing.
The long-range goal of marketing for scientists should be to develop advocates, that is, people who advocate for your and/or your science. Marc Kuchner describes a scientists’ marketing funnel that begins with people who have “never hear of you”, which develops into they “know your work”, and as you build relationships with them, they become “collaborators”, who eventually, due to your relationship and history of providing value, become “advocates”.
I haven’t said much to this point about introverts or networking. I’m an introvert myself, as are most scientists. I’m not naturally a person who likes to bring attention to myself or meet new people. It is hard for me to talk to a stranger. But that doesn’t stop me from marketing, because I know how important it is. I can’t help people if they don’t know what I can do. And if I don’t know what they need, I can’t fulfill that need with my products or services. So, marketing is necessary for me to fulfill my mission. Networking is just basically marketing in a face-to-face setting.
As a graduate student and postdoc, I had a lot of opportunities to network when my department would invite seminar speakers to campus. Usually there would be a pizza lunch session where we could go meet the speaker and ask questions. These were great opportunities for me to add value and directly ask prominent researchers about their work. I made many connections this way, but not knowing anything about marketing at that time, I didn’t do a good job of maintaining the relationship, and most of them have probably forgotten me by now. In the recent past, most of my networking was at scientific conferences. Networking there took place in mixers, poster sessions, and end-of-conference dinners. From these interactions, I have made a lot of friends and connections all over the world. I try to maintain these relationships using online platforms. Sometimes the conversations would be directly about work and research, other times they are about family and recreation. Any mutally enjoyable topic is good!
Over the last year, I have begun going to a lot of networking events. These are kind of like going to a poster session, but without posters. By that I mean that everyone there knows that the reason they are there is to talk to other people. As an introvert, that takes a lot of pressure off me, and makes me feel OK just walking up to a stranger and saying hi, something I could never do in a regular daily setting. To network in person without being a self-promoter, just remember to focus on the definition of marketing that says your point is to find out and meet other people’s needs. Of course, you can’t directly ask them what their needs are, you have to do it through a conversation.
Some typical conversation starters are “So what do you do?” or “What brings you here today?”. In my opinion, a good answer to the first one is not to state your job title or that you are seeking a job, it is more of an “I help people solve X problem” type of answer. A good answer to the second one is not “I’m here to find a job”, it is more like, “I’m here to meet other professionals in X field” or “I’m here to learn more about X”. Usually, I can network for 1-2 hours, depending on how loud the place is, before I have to go home. Don’t feel bad if you have to leave the event before the official ending time.
Here are some DOs and DON’Ts for networking:
DO walk up to strangers and introduce yourself. If there is a group of 3 or 4 people talking, just walk up and join. They will talk to you, or when there is a break in the conversation you can introduce yourself. If you walked up to the rare clueless group that ignores you for more than 30-45 seconds, it’s OK to walk away and find another group.
DO let the conversation go where goes naturally. It doesn’t have to be strictly business. That can make it feel too transactional. If it is going in a way you don’t like, it is fine to say you want to keep meeting people and move on.
DO have business cards made and bring them. They don’t need to be super fancy. $20 should be enough to get you 500 cards or so.
DON’T automatically hand your business card to everyone you meet. That’s too pushy and it’s a turnoff. Wait for them to ask for your card, or establish the basis for a mutually beneficial relationship before offering it. If you don’t give any cards out, or collect any, that’s OK.
DON’T try to “sell” to anyone. It’s fine to tell them about your work, but leave it at that. If they want to do business with you, they will ask more about it. If you feel like a collaboration is a natural fit, you ask if they would be intrested.
DON’T ask for something on the first meeting. Even if you are desperate for a job, don’t ask for help. You need to build a relationship first. Once you have provided value to the other person and they trust you, they will be ready to help you. Many times, people will offer to help you make connections.
DO be willing to help without getting anything in return. Having a transactional midset is not going to be productive.
DO follow up after the event if you feel like you can be helpful to that person or there is a possibility for a professional relationship. At a minimum, send them a LinkedIn connection request, and make sure to add a note to the request. After you have connected, it would be good to send the person a link to a useful article or job advertisement that might be good for them, if you come across it within the next few weeks.
DON’T treat a networking event like it is a singles event (unless it is a dual-purpose event advertised as such). You are not there to flirt or find a date. Keep it professional.
DO dress professionally. Not too casual, but not overdressed either.
DON’T scarf down the free food or abuse the open bar. This is a good time to practice moderation.
DO network! Don’t stand off by yourself waiting for people to come to you, even if you are feeling intimidated at the moment. Remember why you are here. If you are at a conference, go to the mixers, poster sessions, and last-evening dinners, and meet new people. If you are hiding in your hotel room or hitting the bars, you are missing out on opportunites for marketing your science and building your network and brand.
I hope that is helpful! Did I miss anything? Do you have questions? Leave a comment below!
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