March 12, 2025 • 40 mins
Join Gokce Wood on The SCORRcast as she unpacks how marketing strategy is like solving one giant puzzle. Discover how to piece together data, creativity, and strategy to build successful campaigns. Learn how aligning the right elements can drive brand growth, improve engagement, and create a clear path to marketing success. Tune in for insights into mastering the art of strategic problem-solving in marketing.
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Episode Transcript
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(00:00):
Music.
(00:09):
Hello everyone, and welcome toanother episode of The SCORR
cast. I'm recording this in mybasement. It's February 21 it's
really cold outside in Omaha andin North Carolina, where Gokce
is at, and I'll introduce Gokcein a second. But I'm so excited
about this episode, because Ithink Gokce, you bring such a
unique perspective of being inhouse, having agency experience,
(00:32):
being at SCORR for the lastthree plus years now, and
working with a handful of ourclients, from the largest of
clients to the smallest ofclients to everywhere in
between. And I've alwaysappreciated just how you think
about marketing and just theperspectives that you bring to
the table. So I'm really excitedto get into that as a topic. And
(00:54):
you know, I mentioned thisbefore we even started
recording. But I'm also excitedbecause you were, you were a
part of the worst travelexperience of my entire life,
when we were in Milan for a cphiworldwide back in October, and I
got kidney stones and was justtrying to survive in advance in
an Italian hospital, and thenbeing on the show floor, and so
(01:16):
I've never talked about that onthe podcast once, but I might
ask to ask you a question oflike, what the team was thinking
as I all of a sudden make aphone call and say, Hey, I'm in
a hospital as we as we goforward, but that's not what
we're here to talk about. We'rehere to talk about your
marketing expertise. We're hereto talk about your understanding
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of the industry and the problemsthat we solve. So before we get
into that, Bucha, would you mindjust doing a quick introduction
for those who are listening andfor those who maybe don't know
you yet? Yeah,absolutely. So I'm Gucci wood,
as you said, Alec, been at SCORRfor it will be three years in
(02:00):
about two weeks. So been atschool for three years as a
senior account strategist. Now,I did join as an account
strategist before, as youmentioned, you know, I've been
in the life sciences industry myentire career. Since I
graduated, I studiedneuroscience because, honestly,
I thought that would soundsmart, so I studied
(02:20):
neuroscience, and then Irealized I really enjoyed it.
I've always been interested inhuman health, and always wanted
to go into medicine, actually,at first, and it just didn't
happen for me. So I went intosomething that really interested
me, really enjoyed it, and thendidn't really want to go into
the research space. So we lookedaround and saw what I liked. I
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was a problem solver. I likedpuzzles growing up. I really
liked generally, doing any kindof puzzle, problem solving game
and things like that at home. SoI kind of looked at what I can,
combine that kind of sciencebackground with that passion
that I liked, and kind of dug alittle bit deeper, and, you
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know, looked into sales andmarketing. And really, I started
my role, actually, in medicaldevice sales when I when I
graduated, because I wanted toget into something straight away
and really interesting. Got toexperience a lot of interesting
surgeries, because I sawsurgical devices. And then, you
know, from there, I really likedthe sales side of things, but I
started getting interest.
Interested in the way that themarketing team were really
(03:25):
marketing the products. So thatreally made me look into the
marketing side a bit more. Andthen I actually moved over into
an agency where I started as aproject manager, essentially in
the UK. They call them accountexecs there in the UK, and, you
know, worked on really projectmanagement, but I worked with
CROs, and I also worked in thepatient recruitment portion of
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the agency too. So kind ofworking with CROs and their
patient recruitment strategy,but also in their corporate
branding too. So worked withCROs and worked with some of the
large pharma and biotech interms of bringing some of their
recruitment messaging forward.
And then from there, I actuallyended up going client side and
worked for a CRO for a while intheir marketing team, because I
(04:10):
thought, you know, get someinsight there still young, and
we're moving countries. So itkind of worked out. So I worked
for then Inc research, which nowis known as cineos, worked in
their marketing team, dideverything from, you know,
European marketing, AsianPacific marketing, and their
events as well. So I got todelve my toes in event planning,
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too. And then we moved toAustralia, and spent the last
spent four years in Australia,and I decided to go back a
little bit into that sales rolewhile I worked for Johnson, and
Johnson in the orthopedicdepartment, so kind of back into
that med device. But it was, itwas a longer sell, so more kind
of relationship building andreally working and understanding
(04:51):
the product, and then workingclosely with the marketing team
too, to develop some of thesales support materials too. So
then I was like. Actually, no, Ineed to go back and go back to
an agency, and here I am.
I love it. I love the backgroundand the context. And also, you
just gave me like, fourdifferent tangents that I'm so
(05:12):
excited to go down, you know,ranging from the sales and
marketing relationship and theimportance there, and more and
more marketers having salesexperience, more and more sales
individuals having marketingexperience, them working
together and being on the samepage. I know we're going to talk
about the puzzle pieces as well,but I do want to ask a quick
question just about your role atSCORR. I think one of the
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reasons that I was excited tohave you on the podcast and your
role is that not everyoneunderstands how important
strategy is to what a marketingagency should be bringing to the
table. And so a lot of times inthe sales process, when I talk
about an account strategist or asenior account strategist, and
we're really bringing thatstrategy, there's a little bit
of confusion, for lack of betterterms of what does that role
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actually do? Is it a projectmanager? Is it an account
manager? Is it an accountexecutive. What does all that
look like? And so at SCOR, whatis your day to day look like?
What type of clients do you workwith? And you know, what do you
really? What do you love aboutthe position right now here at
SCOR?
Yeah, so I guess there's a fewquestions in there. Alex, I told
(06:17):
you bad podcast questions.
That's not my listen. I might bethe host, but I didn't say I was
a good one. Sono, I love it. So the type of
clients I work with, I'll startwith that. So I've worked with
CROs, job discovery companies,cdmos. So you know, really broad
spectrum, med tech, med device.
So as a strategist, I guess thein a nutshell, what I do is
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ensure that everything that weare proposing to deliver our
client solutions are reallygoing to help them achieve their
goals. So you know, when wethink about clients coming in
and sharing an issue or aproblem or they're like, We want
to get more leads and we want toraise more brand awareness.
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Whatever tactic that we proposeshould really help drive those
results. But I guess Alec is alittle bit more complicated than
that, because there's a littlebit of this, like we talked
about the puzzle piece earlier.
But for me, the fun is actuallyidentifying what those
challenges are truly and notjust taking you know, what can I
(07:24):
say always as a face value? It'smore about like starting with
the discovery, not havingassumptions. So for me, it's
really that detective work thatI love the most to really like
identify what could be the beststrategy moving forward for this
particular client? Yeah,I love that. I think it's such
(07:45):
an important piece of the puzzleto go back to that, that concept
here, you know, in the BDprocess, and even just last,
what, a couple weeks now, ago,now, we were in Orlando for the
scope Summit, and you hear theseproblems that are happening, and
it's, Hey, we don't have a fullpipeline. Hey, we don't have
leads. Nobody knows who we are.
(08:06):
And those are problems, but alot of times they're a symptom
of a different problem. And weactually have, you know, a brand
recognition problem, or whateverit might be. And I think going
down that layer deeper, a lot oftimes, I don't think happens in
marketing, because in a lot oftimes in marketing, it's just,
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let's check the box, let's dothe thing that we're supposed to
do, let's run the campaign,let's hit the button, let's
check the box, and then wereport on impressions and be
part of this. And that's wheremarketing, I think, gets a bad
rap in the industry as a whole,because we're not trying to,
like you said, have themarketing tactics and strategies
that actually align at thebusiness objective level. And so
(08:49):
can you just, can you just walkthrough, you know, maybe a
little bit more in terms of howyou think about the puzzle, and
how you think about all thedifferent pieces, the sales
team, the brand recognition. Dopeople know who you are? What
GEOS are we going into?
Competitors? What are youlooking at when, for lack of
better terms, Alec brings aclient in and says, Okay, Roche,
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this is who we're working with,and here are the problems that
they solve. What are the piecesor the steps that you take as
part of that process to reallyidentify the actual problems
that are causing those symptomsthat we're talking about?
Yeah, I think there's, there's,like, several layers to this. I
think for me, the first thingwhen I go into, you know,
working with a new client is toreally start with that discovery
(09:34):
as the objective. So a lot ofclients do come in with their
preconceived idea of what theyneed. Like, they're like, We
need this. We need this. Andactually a lot of the time
having those in depth Discoverysessions, having stakeholder
interviews, doing some of theresearch, really help uncover
gaps that they may not see. So Ithink the biggest thing that I
(09:54):
love about the SCORR coreprocess that we do is we do a
combination of that. Aquantitative and qualitative
assessment at the beginning, sothat we help identify gaps, you
know, with the qualitative wherewe do all of the competitive
research, the market states andtrends. That really is key in
(10:16):
bringing insight, you know, someof that insight, but also when
you look at, you know, voice ofcustomer surveys, doing those
internal assessments, thatreally helps, kind of bridge
that gap that you don't oftenget with just listening to what
they say they need so, and a lotof it's another, you know, it's
another layer to it. It's justreally identifying the root
cause of what they're sayingversus the symptom of, hey, we
(10:39):
need more leads. We need morebrand awareness, and sometimes
it could be something likepositioning, targeting, their
messaging isn't right, or itdoesn't align with their value
prop. So it's several layers tothat. So I see this really as
like when we go into a newclient, it's start from the
beginning, try and go with,okay, this is what they're
saying they need. But is theresomething that I can ask that
(11:00):
can dig deeper and figure outactually there's something that
they haven't identified. Andthat's the most exciting thing
for me, because we talk about itas a puzzle, but often the
puzzle pieces aren't there, soyou gotta find the puzzle pieces
before you put them together.
Yeah. And not only a lot oftimes are the puzzle pieces not
there, they've never beenthought of inside that
(11:20):
organization. And I think themore and more that we talk about
it, especially with our clientbase, with our target audience,
we know that revenue is theproblem right like right now,
it's a really complicated timeto be in the life sciences. It's
a really complicated time to beselling into pharma or into
biotech, and so we have tounderstand that the business
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problems are are really bigright now, and the marketing
problems are right underneaththat. And again, I think that
separation between marketing andbusiness objectives is a lot of
times where, where we go wrong.
And so as you're going throughall of this, how important is it
for marketing, businessdevelopment, sales and then the
business side to be, you know,for lack of better terms,
(12:08):
aligned on what we're trying todo and working in tandem moving
forward, rather than marketingrunning that way, sales running
that way. And, you know, thebusiness objectives and the
business obstacles are going inanother direction. Yeah,
I mean, I think for me, it'sabsolutely critical for our
clients, have marketing andcommercial alignment. At the end
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of the day, marketing is a, youknow, revenue generating
function. We need to be able tosupport the commercial team, be
aligned sometimes, you know, weuncover that there are no go to
market strategies, and we needto ensure that we're working
together with those clients tosupport the build out of that,
and then how marketing willsupport getting those goals. So
I think it is absolutelycritical, so in any organization
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that marketing and commercialare aligned, so that what we are
developing is in line with thosewith those goals, and we're also
reporting back on those andlooking and seeing what we're
doing. Does that really driverevenue, and is it actually
making any difference? Butagain, it's not just around data
that we get. It's around some ofthose qualitative discussions,
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listening to their sales team,hearing what questions they're
getting, and helping them, youknow, with by providing them
sales support materials thatmaybe can help answer those
questions. So it's this ongoingprocess that I think we need to
ensure that our clients aredoing, and also ensuring that,
as you know, marketingstrategists and team that we are
trying to get ourselves into,woven with their commercial team
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too, and just being curiousabout them, being, you know,
interested in their business,asking the questions. And if
you're not curious about yourclient's business, then I don't
think you ever going to get agood strategy anyway and be
aligned? Yeah,I love the I love to be curious
and ask the question so much.
But I also think one of thethings that you alluded to there
is that it's a process. This isnot a set at one time and forget
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it, right? Like, it's great tohave annual planning. It's great
to have, you know, a big fourhour strategy session in
December, but if come March,we're not communicating with the
commercial team, and we don'tknow, hey, those leads that
we've brought in, they'reactually beneficial, they are
doing X, Y and Z, then it's notgoing to matter. And so I think
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building the program to have thethe commercial efforts be
aligned with the marketingefforts is, is such a important
phase here, and an understandingthat it's not easy like this is,
this is not an easy thing. Butif you build it and you follow
it, whether that's a monthlymeeting, it's a bi weekly
meeting, I've talked to a coupleof clients lately where they're
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now meeting weekly and it's just20 minutes. Hey, we've been
doing this. Are you hearinganything new, actually? Yeah, we
had a ton of questions last weekabout this objection. Could we
put a, you know, an FAQ on thewebsite? Can we do a one pager
to identify that that objectionearlier on in the marketing
process? And I think that'swhere you know that voice of
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customer comes into play. Two.
And we talked a little bit aboutthis on a BD call that you and I
were both on at this time acouple of weeks ago. Now, when
this airs that, the question waslike, how do you actually get to
that nugget that the audiencecares about? And there's no
other way to do it than toactually go out and talk to your
current customers and yourpotential customers, you know,
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lost opportunities, just thetarget market in general,
because if you don't hear fromthem, you're not going to know
exactly what they want. And Ithink a lot of times that's such
a it's an overlooked part ofthis that it's good market
research in general, but it'salso the beginning of a content
marketing plan, hear from them,learn from them, and then create
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all of those pieces. And I knowI'm rambling now and that
there's not really a questionthere, Gokce, but is there
anything that you want to add tothat voice of customer and how
relevant that can be? I mean,I would say, more often than
not, you hear somethingcompletely different from the
voice of customer surveys. Ithink that perception of where
you know their gaps are, youknow, you speak to your client
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and they they, you know,potentially raise some gaps or
challenges that they face, orthe perceptions they think they
have in the market, when, inactual fact, it's not that at
all, and it could be somethingcompletely different. And what I
think it really does is allowslike insight, and it doesn't
it's not biased. Whereas, whenyou have a lot of the internal
(16:20):
assessments, you do have a loveof the bias, right? You do have
some of that. This is what weare strengthen. Well, we don't
really have any weaknesses. Weheard this, but people are going
to be more honest as well. Whenyou have those client
satisfaction surveys, right?
You're going to have morehonesty there, especially when a
third party is conducting it.
And I think it really helps, asyou said, it's a bit of a
content plan. It helps developsome of the messaging and some
of the content strategy thatyou're doing, but I think the
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biggest thing is it reallyuncovers something that they
don't often you don't, oftenhear an internal assessment,
which, again, is critical,because that shows you know
where their strategy, wheretheir growth lies, but it's a
combination that makes thatdifference. Yeah, and
I think one of the things that Ihave been so surprised by that
process is people being willingto admit like, this is where I
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get my content. This is who I'mgoing to talk to. This is like,
there's just so much there. Andif I hear I said this on a
meeting the other day, but I'mstarting to get offended on
behalf of CEOs and CEOs andChief Scientific officers that
we don't treat them like humanbeings. And, oh, a CEO or a CTO
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is not on LinkedIn, or a CTOdoesn't, you know, watch
football on Sundays or somethinglike that, because we treat them
as if they're not going toconsume marketing at all. And
one of the things that I'veloved about the voice of
customer process is, hey, whereare you consuming information?
It's like, oh, I read thisarticle, I read this journal, I
read this it's like they they'realways consuming content. And
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it's such a, again, such an easyway to reach out and engage with
them in that manner. And I thinkit also goes a long way for your
target audience to show that,hey, we care. We want to be
where you're at. We want to havethe conversations with you at
your level too. Yeah.
And I think it's one of thosethings that you can't have a
long standing relationship witha client without doing
continuous voice of customersurveys. Yeah, it can't just be
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like one at the beginning of therelationship, but then never
again, because you want to knowit has a perception changed. Are
you having differentexperiences? So that maybe you
can say, well, this is working.
Let's focus more on this. Soactually, we're still hearing
that there is a piece ondelivery that we need to focus
on. So let's get that messageout there. So there's really,
you know, some those. They'rejust really invaluable. If you
do those often, and it doesn'thave to be every six months,
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could be once a year.
Yeah, and it could just be atouch base. It could just be a
touch base. Now we just got sooff track on voice of customer,
and I know our marketintelligence team is going to be
so excited with how much we justtalked about that market
research, and it's absolutelyimportant, but I do want to
change, you know, shift gears alittle bit here. The industry is
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complicated. I'm going to put itthat way. It's a complex beast
in terms of regulations,competition the industry is,
you're at one company for acouple of years, and you jump to
another company the technologychain. It's just a complicated
sales process. It's acomplicated beast in general,
(19:14):
especiallyin that early drug discovery
phase too. I mean, theregulations and the changes and
to be keeping up with that is,yeah, super challenging. It's
difficult.
And then you add on, withoutdiving into the current state of
the world, but you add on thecurrent administration, and you
add on the fears and concernsabout clinical trials and the
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just regular, I would call it,what we hear is that
conservative nature of marketingin the industry and wanting to
maybe sometimes play it safe.
And now what we kind of refer toas that sea of sameness, in
terms of everybody has the samemessaging. How do we go through
and I promised a bad podcastquestion. I felt like I already
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asked one, and so I. I don'tknow if I can ask a second one,
but I think it's importantbecause, like, how do we
actually find the marketingstrategy and convince someone to
that, hey, marketing is reallyimportant in 2025 with how
complex this is, and how do weshow them what they truly need,
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versus like, hey, we can just bereally conservative and do what
the rest of the industry isdoing. I don't know. Does that
make sense? I'm rambling now,and I'm not sure if this is the
right answer to this, but when Ilove this about marketing
strategies, it's for me, it'snot just about what the
company's goals are. Okay,marketing strategies should be
built around their customer. Sohow they how they perceive
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information? What do they careabout? What keeps them up at
night? It's not just about,okay, our goal is to reach x
revenue in this year. Our goalis to launch X it's not just
about how do we get that messageout? It's how do we answer the
problems for their clients? So Ithink that's the first way of
looking at it could be a littlebit backwards, right? We ask
them about we ask clients aboutthe goals and what they're
(21:07):
looking to achieve. But thatdoesn't really matter if you're
not getting the message to yourcustomers and they're not
resonating with it. So you'reright. Like a lot of you know,
what we hear is, you know, thesimilar type of messaging,
similar type of valueproposition. It's a combination
of understanding their targetaudience, number one, and then
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really spending the time toidentify what makes your client
different. And that's where ittakes time. It takes questions,
it takes being curious. It takesspeaking to key stakeholders in
the company. And it could justbe a word that they use. It
could be the way they you know,their culture is built and it
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and those are the things thatyou can really I know people
think culture internally may notactually drive marketing
strategy, but it actually couldbuild a personality for that
company that you can bring outin your messaging, which can
make your clients feel somethingso I'm not sure if that answers
your question. It's sodid. It's like it was a bad
question and you had a greatanswer to a bad question, which
(22:13):
is why I was so excited to haveyou on and you hit on that core
pain point of the targetaudience. And we talk all the
time that that SCORR, or anyother agency or any other
company, for lack of a betterterms, could go into a corner
and create something that lookscool and it looks really nice
(22:34):
and it looks modern. But if youaren't identifying what position
you have in the lives of yourtarget audience, and what
position you have in the market,it's not going to matter. And I
think, especially, you know, ourspecialty, a lot of times, is in
that emerging company. Maybethey've reached 10 million or 30
million or 50 million, and thenthey're trying to reach 30 to
(22:56):
5050, to 100 and so on down theline, you're having to call
you're you're having to convincesomeone to change, to use your
product or services. And I thinkone of the questions that I've
kind of fallen in love with is,who are they going to go with if
you don't exist, and if you, ifyou can't answer that question,
we haven't done the right marketresearch, and we don't know, but
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a lot of times that questionputs it in perspective of where
you're at in the market. Arethey going to go to a really big
company? Are they going to go toa, you know, an individual
contributor? Are they going togo back to using Microsoft
Excel, or are they going to befine not using it? And that
alone is like, if we can answerthat question really
(23:40):
confidently. We can own theposition that we have and then
own the value proposition thenthat we bring to the table, and
that's what we're able to showand I'm I, I'm a broken record
of show versus tell. Like, youcan't just tell people that you
have great people, you can'ttell people that you have
excellent technology. You haveto show them over and over
again. I think you do that byexactly what you just referred
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to, which is starting with thosepain points of the of the
customers and the targetaudience too.
Yeah. And I think, I think asyou kind of hit the nail on the
head, you know, looking at thoselike emerging clients that we
work with a lot of the time,there is this apprehension that
we can't do something out of thebox. We can't be different. But
when was the last time youopened an email from a store
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that you bought from that wasn'tlike you forgot something, or,
you know, you have to feelsomething. You have to feel
positive, excited and getsomething for you to action on.
We are so overwhelmed withemails flooded through all the
ads that we get. You go onto anywebsite and it's just
overloaded, but the ones thatyou look at are making you feel
(24:47):
something, whether it's from thevisual perspective, whether it's
from a word that's in there, butit has to evoke some form of
feeling for you to really actionon it. And I think that being in
the life sciences. Industry, itcauses us to be a little safer
because it's more of aconservative industry in
general, like people are morenervous about bringing forward
(25:07):
some of the bolder ideas, butthere's no there's no harm in
trying something and seeing whatthat response could be, because
more often than not, you'regoing to get people intrigued,
especially when you're trying toraise brand awareness. So I
think it's a combination ofgetting clients excited about
trying something different, butalso finding the right language
(25:30):
that really is appropriate forthat client, because you don't
want to say something about themwhen internally, that's actually
not how they live and breathetheir organization. You can't
just say, Hey, we are the mostcollaborative team where and
they don't have team meetings,and then ends up coming out down
the line. So you've just got tofind what that is, and dig deep
and find it and then position itin a very unique and emotive
(25:53):
way.
Yeah, people, people buy frompeople that they know, like and
trust, and that is, like, it'sjust at the core of every buying
decision that is made as a humanbeing. Yeah. And for some reason
we pretend in B to B, it's like,no, that's not true. And it's
like, what are you talking aboutif you don't trust the person
(26:15):
that that you're, you're, you'rebuying from this industry. A lot
of these, these purchases aremake or break deals. If you're
signing a three year sevenfigure deal, you best believe
that I'm going to know like andtrust that individual before I
sign that contract. And so Ithink a lot of times we lose
that story element, and we justgo to like, trying to be really
(26:38):
like, I don't want to saydescriptive, but we're just
going to explain, hey, here'sthe technology, here's what it
does, here's here's x, and it'slike, really just bland. And
we're, we're moving the, likeyou said, the emotive aspect of
it, or the storytelling aspectof this piece of the puzzle, and
that's what matters, the storyof how you fit in, how you solve
(26:58):
the problems, and then theimpact that can be made. Am I
going to run a clinical trialmore effectively? Is the
patient's life going to beeasier? Is the drug going to be
more effective? Like that's whatwe have to find. And I think
it's interesting. In my fouryears at SCORR, the first two
years, this was not aconversation that was an easy
(27:19):
one. People were it was 2022,2023, and out of COVID, lot of
confusion, still in this weirdbubble, the biotech like all the
things. But it was like, No, wewe don't care about the story.
We don't care about the message.
We want digital and we wantleads right now. We want leads
right now. We want leads rightnow. And now we've seen this
(27:40):
shift, especially in the lastthree to four months, where more
and more people are saying wejust don't feel like our story
is accurate in the market. Wedon't feel like our our story is
like effectively telling peoplewhat we can do and what value we
bring to the table, which isobviously great for you and me,
because it's really fun to workon those projects, and your
(28:01):
marketing is more successful. SoI do have a question about that,
because I'd love to havesomebody besides me say it on
this podcast in general. Butjust curious on your thoughts
the opportunity cost, or the subcost, however you want to word
it, if we spend this is a badexample, but this how I usually
(28:22):
say it. You can spend a milliondollars, and if your message is
wrong and you don't know whatrole you play, that million
dollars is going to be soineffective, I would rather
spend $500,000 on a marketingprogram and have the core
message, the design, theconsistency and the results in
(28:42):
place, and the results in termsof, like, what we can do and the
impact that we can make onbehalf of our clients and their
clients. Can you just talkabout, Am I off my rocker here?
Like, how much more effectivecan we be when we have the right
brand, we have the right story,and we know what role we play in
the target audience's life. Imean, tenfold, right? So you
(29:06):
know, we know that standing outisn't just about those features
and benefits. It's about tellingthat story, getting people
engaged. And it doesn't comefrom just putting out benefits.
It comes from understanding whatyour competitors say, being
different, right? Finding thatunique space that you can own,
that is authentic to you, thatyou can like, tell the story,
(29:28):
but it's different, and itstands out from your
competitors. And absolutely, ifyou get the right message, the
right value proposition outthere, you can spend less than
that, it can make more of animpact than a million dollars
spent on just getting benefitsand features out there, because
at the end of the day, you'vestill got to have someone look
(29:48):
at that and say, Okay, that issolving my problem today. That
is going to make my life easier,that's going to make me hit my
targets quicker, or that isintriguing. I want to speak to
the people that I'll. Puttingthis out there, and at the end
of the day, that's what our jobis, right? We want to get our
clients meetings. We want tohave those conversations,
because what we do is all it'srelationships, and what they're
(30:10):
doing is relationships. Allwe're doing is facilitating the
relationship to happen. Yeah, Idon't know if that answered your
question either.
I did. I didn't expect we justwent down like I told you that
we had, you know, an outline oftopics, and then then I was just
going to take us in alldifferent directions, and we've
already done that. But I think,like, like, what you what you
just said there at the end, interms of stopping someone and,
(30:32):
oh, this is intriguing, or thisis going to solve my problem, or
this, like, and then youmentioned it earlier, in terms
of the collaboration, we're themost collaborative team. And
then it turns out they're not.
You have to, you have to be thisbrand day in and day out. Like,
how many, I cannot tell you howmany times we have somebody come
in and say, We want to be like,this really bold brand, and we
(30:54):
want to, we want to be sooutside of the box. And then you
get into the day to day, and welearn through the assessment
phase, it's like, that's not whoyou are. That's you aren't that
you are. You got great customerservice, and you've got this
awesome team, and you've gotgreat people. Let's highlight
that, and then other times it'sthe other way around. They want
to say, we've got great customerservice, we got this great team,
(31:16):
and it's actually that theirtechnology is so far advanced
and it's so much better thaneveryone else's. But we're not
telling anybody that. And soit's, it's so interesting that
when you set this, it kind ofsets you up for success or
failure for the whole year. AndI cannot tell you how many times
we hear somebody say, like,well, we ran paid search and it
didn't work. It's like, Well,what was the what were we
(31:37):
running? What was the? Do weknow what content it was like?
Oh, it's just this. You know,it's just a random piece of
content. We content we had. It'slike, well, the content wasn't
good, the the message wasn'tgood. We weren't we weren't
identifying with anything andand I think that's why
marketing, I think that's whymarketing gets a bad rap. And
I've said it a lot this week,and I'm probably going to say it
more next week, is that if werebranded marketing to just
(31:58):
like, revenue support,marketing's budgets would be a
lot bigger, because we don'tview marketing and the
investment mindset of what itactually should be in 2025
I mean, I think that's why Ilove what we do here at school,
like as account strategists.
Like our job, as you said, is tobe the integral part of our
(32:22):
clients. We need to continuouslyfind out what they're doing,
continuously asking thequestions. And I think not being
afraid to ask the question islike the biggest thing for us
that it's something that youknow, especially if it's a part
of the industry that I haven'thad a huge experience in before,
it's something that you're opento learn. Ask the questions,
because that's how you're goingto develop the best strategies.
(32:45):
And I think it's challenging,it's fun, but, yeah, I think
you'll never get the rightstrategy out there if you're not
finding out, digging and as yousaid, like finding out their
culture, finding out how they dosomething, and then asking more
questions, as you said, it canlead to something like this
groundbreaking technology thatthey had, that you didn't you
(33:07):
know, that you weren't sayinganything about, and also making
sure that you're spending thetime auditing, like, as you
said, like, if they've beendoing paid search and you don't
know what they've been running,ask the questions, find out, see
what they've been doing, anddon't be afraid to Ask those
questions, because sometimes youcan uncover something that is
pivotal in the in the strategy.
Yeah, you you hit on the topic.
(33:28):
That is the last line ofquestioning that I have for you
today. And I say this all thetime on LinkedIn, maybe like
once a month, I'll do a randompost that says marketing should
be fun. And you know, if youstay curious and you stay up to
date, marketing is fun, and ifyou let yourself play a little
bit outside of the box, or youjust create a bigger box from
(33:49):
the get go, it can and should befun. So I know the puzzle pieces
are fun, but what's the most funthing you've done at SCORR?
What's a project, what's acampaign, what's a thing, what's
what's something, aside frombeing on this podcast with me,
what is the most fun that you'vehad in a setting at SCORR right
(34:12):
now or prior? I guess you knowif you ran a really kick ass
campaign before, I'd love tohear that too.
I think for me, the greatestsatisfaction or fun, I guess, I
have is seeing a strategy thatwe develop come to life and
actually provide a difference toour clients. So recent example,
(34:36):
we worked with a cdmo who weremerged with another
organization, we had to do awhole new rebrand. Developer,
obviously full year tacticalplan, make sure everything was,
you know, aligned with their newbrand, but also work on multiple
different business units thatthey had and super challenging,
(34:57):
really interesting. Got to workwith. Multiple stakeholders in
the organization. And after ayear, you know, of their
branding out in, you know, inthe wild, we, you know, looked
at some of their results, and wewere really heavy on working
together with them to ensurethat we were tracking
everything, working throughtheir full pipeline, looking at
(35:18):
through their sales funnel, and,you know, reporting back on, you
know, one revenue and looked atthe work that marketing did, we
were able to help them in, youknow, we were basically 8% of
their their revenue was due tomarketing tactics that we had
done. So super cool. I know ittakes a long time to see those
results sometimes, but that, forme, is like the most fun going,
(35:40):
Okay, what we did really didwork for them. And I would say,
looking back and seeing thesuccess is where I have the most
fun. But obviously have funduring it too. But I would say,
like, that's the biggest thing,being competitive and then
getting the result that you werelooking
for. I love that you right awaywent to a revenue number. And
(36:00):
that makes me and everybodylistening to this very happy.
And so along those lines, lastquestion that I have for you is
just a final takeaway. You know,I'm curious what you might tell
someone who is a CCO or amarketing head or a CEO inside
the industry and they'rehesitant about marketing. What?
(36:22):
What would you tell them? Youknow, I might, you might even
just tell me that exact samestory, again, about 8% of the
revenue, if you invest and youdo it right over time. But
what's kind of your what wouldbe a takeaway that you would
leave with somebody who is inthat position, and they're
debating making the investmentinto marketing and really being
able to ramp this up in in 2025,and beyond,
(36:46):
I would say, I would not talkabout revenue. I actually would
say, you know, it's in our bestinterest to make you look good
and get the results that youneed when, when we do our job
effectively, and, you know,bring those leads or raise brand
awareness, their results areshown. So for me, it's, you
(37:08):
know, we become part of yourteam. We are invested in your
business as much as you are, andwe get excited when you succeed,
because we succeed.
Just Mic drop. Just hands are inthe air. Gokce. I I knew that
this would be a fan fantasticepisode, and you said you had to
live up to those expectations,and you absolutely did, as you
(37:32):
always do. So thank you verymuch for for taking time out of
your Friday. And I know, aspeople are listening to this,
Gokce has started to post alittle bit more on LinkedIn.
I've seen you be more engaged onthat platform and sharing some
things. So reach out to her ifyou have any questions as you
listen to this, I know that shewould love to talk all things
(37:54):
marketing, and is a nerd in thatway, in a very similar way to to
how I am. And so if you dolisten this and you want to
connect with her, make sure youshoot her a message. And then,
as you are listening, youprobably just made it through,
and you're thinking, what anepisode. Make sure you leave a
review on Spotify. Now you canleave a five star review, and
(38:16):
you can even leave comments inthere, where I think we're over
45 star reviews, which isfantastic. And this, this
podcast, would not be possiblewithout individuals like Gokce,
and then the individuals withinthe industry that are listening
to it. I can't believe that. Ithink you're, I think you're
episode number 42 Gokce. And sothat has been six and a half
(38:37):
months, seven months worth ofrecordings of individuals all
across the industry. And we'vegot another 30 planned for this
year. So our goal is to hit 50,6070, easily in 2025, so thank
you so much coach, and thank youfor everybody who listened. And
I hope you have a great day.
(39:00):
Music,as always. Thank you for tuning
in to this episode of The SCORRcast, brought to you by SCORR
marketing. We appreciate yourtime and hope you found this
(39:25):
discussion insightful. Don'tforget to subscribe and join us
for our next episode. Untilthen, remember, marketing is
supposed to be fun.
Music.
(00:09):
Hello everyone, and welcome toanother episode of The SCORR
cast. I'm recording this in mybasement. It's February 21 it's
really cold outside in Omaha andin North Carolina, where Gokce
is at, and I'll introduce Gokcein a second. But I'm so excited
about this episode, because Ithink Gokce, you bring such a
unique perspective of being inhouse, having agency experience,
(00:32):
being at SCORR for the lastthree plus years now, and
working with a handful of ourclients, from the largest of
clients to the smallest ofclients to everywhere in
between. And I've alwaysappreciated just how you think
about marketing and just theperspectives that you bring to
the table. So I'm really excitedto get into that as a topic. And
(00:54):
you know, I mentioned thisbefore we even started
recording. But I'm also excitedbecause you were, you were a
part of the worst travelexperience of my entire life,
when we were in Milan for a cphiworldwide back in October, and I
got kidney stones and was justtrying to survive in advance in
an Italian hospital, and thenbeing on the show floor, and so
(01:16):
I've never talked about that onthe podcast once, but I might
ask to ask you a question oflike, what the team was thinking
as I all of a sudden make aphone call and say, Hey, I'm in
a hospital as we as we goforward, but that's not what
we're here to talk about. We'rehere to talk about your
marketing expertise. We're hereto talk about your understanding
(01:38):
of the industry and the problemsthat we solve. So before we get
into that, Bucha, would you mindjust doing a quick introduction
for those who are listening andfor those who maybe don't know
you yet? Yeah,absolutely. So I'm Gucci wood,
as you said, Alec, been at SCORRfor it will be three years in
(02:00):
about two weeks. So been atschool for three years as a
senior account strategist. Now,I did join as an account
strategist before, as youmentioned, you know, I've been
in the life sciences industry myentire career. Since I
graduated, I studiedneuroscience because, honestly,
I thought that would soundsmart, so I studied
(02:20):
neuroscience, and then Irealized I really enjoyed it.
I've always been interested inhuman health, and always wanted
to go into medicine, actually,at first, and it just didn't
happen for me. So I went intosomething that really interested
me, really enjoyed it, and thendidn't really want to go into
the research space. So we lookedaround and saw what I liked. I
(02:42):
was a problem solver. I likedpuzzles growing up. I really
liked generally, doing any kindof puzzle, problem solving game
and things like that at home. SoI kind of looked at what I can,
combine that kind of sciencebackground with that passion
that I liked, and kind of dug alittle bit deeper, and, you
(03:03):
know, looked into sales andmarketing. And really, I started
my role, actually, in medicaldevice sales when I when I
graduated, because I wanted toget into something straight away
and really interesting. Got toexperience a lot of interesting
surgeries, because I sawsurgical devices. And then, you
know, from there, I really likedthe sales side of things, but I
started getting interest.
Interested in the way that themarketing team were really
(03:25):
marketing the products. So thatreally made me look into the
marketing side a bit more. Andthen I actually moved over into
an agency where I started as aproject manager, essentially in
the UK. They call them accountexecs there in the UK, and, you
know, worked on really projectmanagement, but I worked with
CROs, and I also worked in thepatient recruitment portion of
(03:48):
the agency too. So kind ofworking with CROs and their
patient recruitment strategy,but also in their corporate
branding too. So worked withCROs and worked with some of the
large pharma and biotech interms of bringing some of their
recruitment messaging forward.
And then from there, I actuallyended up going client side and
worked for a CRO for a while intheir marketing team, because I
(04:10):
thought, you know, get someinsight there still young, and
we're moving countries. So itkind of worked out. So I worked
for then Inc research, which nowis known as cineos, worked in
their marketing team, dideverything from, you know,
European marketing, AsianPacific marketing, and their
events as well. So I got todelve my toes in event planning,
(04:30):
too. And then we moved toAustralia, and spent the last
spent four years in Australia,and I decided to go back a
little bit into that sales rolewhile I worked for Johnson, and
Johnson in the orthopedicdepartment, so kind of back into
that med device. But it was, itwas a longer sell, so more kind
of relationship building andreally working and understanding
(04:51):
the product, and then workingclosely with the marketing team
too, to develop some of thesales support materials too. So
then I was like. Actually, no, Ineed to go back and go back to
an agency, and here I am.
I love it. I love the backgroundand the context. And also, you
just gave me like, fourdifferent tangents that I'm so
(05:12):
excited to go down, you know,ranging from the sales and
marketing relationship and theimportance there, and more and
more marketers having salesexperience, more and more sales
individuals having marketingexperience, them working
together and being on the samepage. I know we're going to talk
about the puzzle pieces as well,but I do want to ask a quick
question just about your role atSCORR. I think one of the
(05:34):
reasons that I was excited tohave you on the podcast and your
role is that not everyoneunderstands how important
strategy is to what a marketingagency should be bringing to the
table. And so a lot of times inthe sales process, when I talk
about an account strategist or asenior account strategist, and
we're really bringing thatstrategy, there's a little bit
of confusion, for lack of betterterms of what does that role
(05:57):
actually do? Is it a projectmanager? Is it an account
manager? Is it an accountexecutive. What does all that
look like? And so at SCOR, whatis your day to day look like?
What type of clients do you workwith? And you know, what do you
really? What do you love aboutthe position right now here at
SCOR?
Yeah, so I guess there's a fewquestions in there. Alex, I told
(06:17):
you bad podcast questions.
That's not my listen. I might bethe host, but I didn't say I was
a good one. Sono, I love it. So the type of
clients I work with, I'll startwith that. So I've worked with
CROs, job discovery companies,cdmos. So you know, really broad
spectrum, med tech, med device.
So as a strategist, I guess thein a nutshell, what I do is
(06:40):
ensure that everything that weare proposing to deliver our
client solutions are reallygoing to help them achieve their
goals. So you know, when wethink about clients coming in
and sharing an issue or aproblem or they're like, We want
to get more leads and we want toraise more brand awareness.
(07:00):
Whatever tactic that we proposeshould really help drive those
results. But I guess Alec is alittle bit more complicated than
that, because there's a littlebit of this, like we talked
about the puzzle piece earlier.
But for me, the fun is actuallyidentifying what those
challenges are truly and notjust taking you know, what can I
(07:24):
say always as a face value? It'smore about like starting with
the discovery, not havingassumptions. So for me, it's
really that detective work thatI love the most to really like
identify what could be the beststrategy moving forward for this
particular client? Yeah,I love that. I think it's such
(07:45):
an important piece of the puzzleto go back to that, that concept
here, you know, in the BDprocess, and even just last,
what, a couple weeks now, ago,now, we were in Orlando for the
scope Summit, and you hear theseproblems that are happening, and
it's, Hey, we don't have a fullpipeline. Hey, we don't have
leads. Nobody knows who we are.
(08:06):
And those are problems, but alot of times they're a symptom
of a different problem. And weactually have, you know, a brand
recognition problem, or whateverit might be. And I think going
down that layer deeper, a lot oftimes, I don't think happens in
marketing, because in a lot oftimes in marketing, it's just,
(08:27):
let's check the box, let's dothe thing that we're supposed to
do, let's run the campaign,let's hit the button, let's
check the box, and then wereport on impressions and be
part of this. And that's wheremarketing, I think, gets a bad
rap in the industry as a whole,because we're not trying to,
like you said, have themarketing tactics and strategies
that actually align at thebusiness objective level. And so
(08:49):
can you just, can you just walkthrough, you know, maybe a
little bit more in terms of howyou think about the puzzle, and
how you think about all thedifferent pieces, the sales
team, the brand recognition. Dopeople know who you are? What
GEOS are we going into?
Competitors? What are youlooking at when, for lack of
better terms, Alec brings aclient in and says, Okay, Roche,
(09:11):
this is who we're working with,and here are the problems that
they solve. What are the piecesor the steps that you take as
part of that process to reallyidentify the actual problems
that are causing those symptomsthat we're talking about?
Yeah, I think there's, there's,like, several layers to this. I
think for me, the first thingwhen I go into, you know,
working with a new client is toreally start with that discovery
(09:34):
as the objective. So a lot ofclients do come in with their
preconceived idea of what theyneed. Like, they're like, We
need this. We need this. Andactually a lot of the time
having those in depth Discoverysessions, having stakeholder
interviews, doing some of theresearch, really help uncover
gaps that they may not see. So Ithink the biggest thing that I
(09:54):
love about the SCORR coreprocess that we do is we do a
combination of that. Aquantitative and qualitative
assessment at the beginning, sothat we help identify gaps, you
know, with the qualitative wherewe do all of the competitive
research, the market states andtrends. That really is key in
(10:16):
bringing insight, you know, someof that insight, but also when
you look at, you know, voice ofcustomer surveys, doing those
internal assessments, thatreally helps, kind of bridge
that gap that you don't oftenget with just listening to what
they say they need so, and a lotof it's another, you know, it's
another layer to it. It's justreally identifying the root
cause of what they're sayingversus the symptom of, hey, we
(10:39):
need more leads. We need morebrand awareness, and sometimes
it could be something likepositioning, targeting, their
messaging isn't right, or itdoesn't align with their value
prop. So it's several layers tothat. So I see this really as
like when we go into a newclient, it's start from the
beginning, try and go with,okay, this is what they're
saying they need. But is theresomething that I can ask that
(11:00):
can dig deeper and figure outactually there's something that
they haven't identified. Andthat's the most exciting thing
for me, because we talk about itas a puzzle, but often the
puzzle pieces aren't there, soyou gotta find the puzzle pieces
before you put them together.
Yeah. And not only a lot oftimes are the puzzle pieces not
there, they've never beenthought of inside that
(11:20):
organization. And I think themore and more that we talk about
it, especially with our clientbase, with our target audience,
we know that revenue is theproblem right like right now,
it's a really complicated timeto be in the life sciences. It's
a really complicated time to beselling into pharma or into
biotech, and so we have tounderstand that the business
(11:44):
problems are are really bigright now, and the marketing
problems are right underneaththat. And again, I think that
separation between marketing andbusiness objectives is a lot of
times where, where we go wrong.
And so as you're going throughall of this, how important is it
for marketing, businessdevelopment, sales and then the
business side to be, you know,for lack of better terms,
(12:08):
aligned on what we're trying todo and working in tandem moving
forward, rather than marketingrunning that way, sales running
that way. And, you know, thebusiness objectives and the
business obstacles are going inanother direction. Yeah,
I mean, I think for me, it'sabsolutely critical for our
clients, have marketing andcommercial alignment. At the end
(12:28):
of the day, marketing is a, youknow, revenue generating
function. We need to be able tosupport the commercial team, be
aligned sometimes, you know, weuncover that there are no go to
market strategies, and we needto ensure that we're working
together with those clients tosupport the build out of that,
and then how marketing willsupport getting those goals. So
I think it is absolutelycritical, so in any organization
(12:49):
that marketing and commercialare aligned, so that what we are
developing is in line with thosewith those goals, and we're also
reporting back on those andlooking and seeing what we're
doing. Does that really driverevenue, and is it actually
making any difference? Butagain, it's not just around data
that we get. It's around some ofthose qualitative discussions,
(13:09):
listening to their sales team,hearing what questions they're
getting, and helping them, youknow, with by providing them
sales support materials thatmaybe can help answer those
questions. So it's this ongoingprocess that I think we need to
ensure that our clients aredoing, and also ensuring that,
as you know, marketingstrategists and team that we are
trying to get ourselves into,woven with their commercial team
(13:31):
too, and just being curiousabout them, being, you know,
interested in their business,asking the questions. And if
you're not curious about yourclient's business, then I don't
think you ever going to get agood strategy anyway and be
aligned? Yeah,I love the I love to be curious
and ask the question so much.
But I also think one of thethings that you alluded to there
is that it's a process. This isnot a set at one time and forget
(13:54):
it, right? Like, it's great tohave annual planning. It's great
to have, you know, a big fourhour strategy session in
December, but if come March,we're not communicating with the
commercial team, and we don'tknow, hey, those leads that
we've brought in, they'reactually beneficial, they are
doing X, Y and Z, then it's notgoing to matter. And so I think
(14:15):
building the program to have thethe commercial efforts be
aligned with the marketingefforts is, is such a important
phase here, and an understandingthat it's not easy like this is,
this is not an easy thing. Butif you build it and you follow
it, whether that's a monthlymeeting, it's a bi weekly
meeting, I've talked to a coupleof clients lately where they're
(14:35):
now meeting weekly and it's just20 minutes. Hey, we've been
doing this. Are you hearinganything new, actually? Yeah, we
had a ton of questions last weekabout this objection. Could we
put a, you know, an FAQ on thewebsite? Can we do a one pager
to identify that that objectionearlier on in the marketing
process? And I think that'swhere you know that voice of
(14:56):
customer comes into play. Two.
And we talked a little bit aboutthis on a BD call that you and I
were both on at this time acouple of weeks ago. Now, when
this airs that, the question waslike, how do you actually get to
that nugget that the audiencecares about? And there's no
other way to do it than toactually go out and talk to your
current customers and yourpotential customers, you know,
(15:18):
lost opportunities, just thetarget market in general,
because if you don't hear fromthem, you're not going to know
exactly what they want. And Ithink a lot of times that's such
a it's an overlooked part ofthis that it's good market
research in general, but it'salso the beginning of a content
marketing plan, hear from them,learn from them, and then create
(15:39):
all of those pieces. And I knowI'm rambling now and that
there's not really a questionthere, Gokce, but is there
anything that you want to add tothat voice of customer and how
relevant that can be? I mean,I would say, more often than
not, you hear somethingcompletely different from the
voice of customer surveys. Ithink that perception of where
you know their gaps are, youknow, you speak to your client
(16:00):
and they they, you know,potentially raise some gaps or
challenges that they face, orthe perceptions they think they
have in the market, when, inactual fact, it's not that at
all, and it could be somethingcompletely different. And what I
think it really does is allowslike insight, and it doesn't
it's not biased. Whereas, whenyou have a lot of the internal
(16:20):
assessments, you do have a loveof the bias, right? You do have
some of that. This is what weare strengthen. Well, we don't
really have any weaknesses. Weheard this, but people are going
to be more honest as well. Whenyou have those client
satisfaction surveys, right?
You're going to have morehonesty there, especially when a
third party is conducting it.
And I think it really helps, asyou said, it's a bit of a
content plan. It helps developsome of the messaging and some
of the content strategy thatyou're doing, but I think the
(16:43):
biggest thing is it reallyuncovers something that they
don't often you don't, oftenhear an internal assessment,
which, again, is critical,because that shows you know
where their strategy, wheretheir growth lies, but it's a
combination that makes thatdifference. Yeah, and
I think one of the things that Ihave been so surprised by that
process is people being willingto admit like, this is where I
(17:03):
get my content. This is who I'mgoing to talk to. This is like,
there's just so much there. Andif I hear I said this on a
meeting the other day, but I'mstarting to get offended on
behalf of CEOs and CEOs andChief Scientific officers that
we don't treat them like humanbeings. And, oh, a CEO or a CTO
(17:25):
is not on LinkedIn, or a CTOdoesn't, you know, watch
football on Sundays or somethinglike that, because we treat them
as if they're not going toconsume marketing at all. And
one of the things that I'veloved about the voice of
customer process is, hey, whereare you consuming information?
It's like, oh, I read thisarticle, I read this journal, I
read this it's like they they'realways consuming content. And
(17:49):
it's such a, again, such an easyway to reach out and engage with
them in that manner. And I thinkit also goes a long way for your
target audience to show that,hey, we care. We want to be
where you're at. We want to havethe conversations with you at
your level too. Yeah.
And I think it's one of thosethings that you can't have a
long standing relationship witha client without doing
continuous voice of customersurveys. Yeah, it can't just be
(18:11):
like one at the beginning of therelationship, but then never
again, because you want to knowit has a perception changed. Are
you having differentexperiences? So that maybe you
can say, well, this is working.
Let's focus more on this. Soactually, we're still hearing
that there is a piece ondelivery that we need to focus
on. So let's get that messageout there. So there's really,
you know, some those. They'rejust really invaluable. If you
do those often, and it doesn'thave to be every six months,
(18:33):
could be once a year.
Yeah, and it could just be atouch base. It could just be a
touch base. Now we just got sooff track on voice of customer,
and I know our marketintelligence team is going to be
so excited with how much we justtalked about that market
research, and it's absolutelyimportant, but I do want to
change, you know, shift gears alittle bit here. The industry is
(18:54):
complicated. I'm going to put itthat way. It's a complex beast
in terms of regulations,competition the industry is,
you're at one company for acouple of years, and you jump to
another company the technologychain. It's just a complicated
sales process. It's acomplicated beast in general,
(19:14):
especiallyin that early drug discovery
phase too. I mean, theregulations and the changes and
to be keeping up with that is,yeah, super challenging. It's
difficult.
And then you add on, withoutdiving into the current state of
the world, but you add on thecurrent administration, and you
add on the fears and concernsabout clinical trials and the
(19:38):
just regular, I would call it,what we hear is that
conservative nature of marketingin the industry and wanting to
maybe sometimes play it safe.
And now what we kind of refer toas that sea of sameness, in
terms of everybody has the samemessaging. How do we go through
and I promised a bad podcastquestion. I felt like I already
(19:59):
asked one, and so I. I don'tknow if I can ask a second one,
but I think it's importantbecause, like, how do we
actually find the marketingstrategy and convince someone to
that, hey, marketing is reallyimportant in 2025 with how
complex this is, and how do weshow them what they truly need,
(20:20):
versus like, hey, we can just bereally conservative and do what
the rest of the industry isdoing. I don't know. Does that
make sense? I'm rambling now,and I'm not sure if this is the
right answer to this, but when Ilove this about marketing
strategies, it's for me, it'snot just about what the
company's goals are. Okay,marketing strategies should be
built around their customer. Sohow they how they perceive
(20:45):
information? What do they careabout? What keeps them up at
night? It's not just about,okay, our goal is to reach x
revenue in this year. Our goalis to launch X it's not just
about how do we get that messageout? It's how do we answer the
problems for their clients? So Ithink that's the first way of
looking at it could be a littlebit backwards, right? We ask
them about we ask clients aboutthe goals and what they're
(21:07):
looking to achieve. But thatdoesn't really matter if you're
not getting the message to yourcustomers and they're not
resonating with it. So you'reright. Like a lot of you know,
what we hear is, you know, thesimilar type of messaging,
similar type of valueproposition. It's a combination
of understanding their targetaudience, number one, and then
(21:28):
really spending the time toidentify what makes your client
different. And that's where ittakes time. It takes questions,
it takes being curious. It takesspeaking to key stakeholders in
the company. And it could justbe a word that they use. It
could be the way they you know,their culture is built and it
(21:51):
and those are the things thatyou can really I know people
think culture internally may notactually drive marketing
strategy, but it actually couldbuild a personality for that
company that you can bring outin your messaging, which can
make your clients feel somethingso I'm not sure if that answers
your question. It's sodid. It's like it was a bad
question and you had a greatanswer to a bad question, which
(22:13):
is why I was so excited to haveyou on and you hit on that core
pain point of the targetaudience. And we talk all the
time that that SCORR, or anyother agency or any other
company, for lack of a betterterms, could go into a corner
and create something that lookscool and it looks really nice
(22:34):
and it looks modern. But if youaren't identifying what position
you have in the lives of yourtarget audience, and what
position you have in the market,it's not going to matter. And I
think, especially, you know, ourspecialty, a lot of times, is in
that emerging company. Maybethey've reached 10 million or 30
million or 50 million, and thenthey're trying to reach 30 to
(22:56):
5050, to 100 and so on down theline, you're having to call
you're you're having to convincesomeone to change, to use your
product or services. And I thinkone of the questions that I've
kind of fallen in love with is,who are they going to go with if
you don't exist, and if you, ifyou can't answer that question,
we haven't done the right marketresearch, and we don't know, but
(23:18):
a lot of times that questionputs it in perspective of where
you're at in the market. Arethey going to go to a really big
company? Are they going to go toa, you know, an individual
contributor? Are they going togo back to using Microsoft
Excel, or are they going to befine not using it? And that
alone is like, if we can answerthat question really
(23:40):
confidently. We can own theposition that we have and then
own the value proposition thenthat we bring to the table, and
that's what we're able to showand I'm I, I'm a broken record
of show versus tell. Like, youcan't just tell people that you
have great people, you can'ttell people that you have
excellent technology. You haveto show them over and over
again. I think you do that byexactly what you just referred
(24:03):
to, which is starting with thosepain points of the of the
customers and the targetaudience too.
Yeah. And I think, I think asyou kind of hit the nail on the
head, you know, looking at thoselike emerging clients that we
work with a lot of the time,there is this apprehension that
we can't do something out of thebox. We can't be different. But
when was the last time youopened an email from a store
(24:25):
that you bought from that wasn'tlike you forgot something, or,
you know, you have to feelsomething. You have to feel
positive, excited and getsomething for you to action on.
We are so overwhelmed withemails flooded through all the
ads that we get. You go onto anywebsite and it's just
overloaded, but the ones thatyou look at are making you feel
(24:47):
something, whether it's from thevisual perspective, whether it's
from a word that's in there, butit has to evoke some form of
feeling for you to really actionon it. And I think that being in
the life sciences. Industry, itcauses us to be a little safer
because it's more of aconservative industry in
general, like people are morenervous about bringing forward
(25:07):
some of the bolder ideas, butthere's no there's no harm in
trying something and seeing whatthat response could be, because
more often than not, you'regoing to get people intrigued,
especially when you're trying toraise brand awareness. So I
think it's a combination ofgetting clients excited about
trying something different, butalso finding the right language
(25:30):
that really is appropriate forthat client, because you don't
want to say something about themwhen internally, that's actually
not how they live and breathetheir organization. You can't
just say, Hey, we are the mostcollaborative team where and
they don't have team meetings,and then ends up coming out down
the line. So you've just got tofind what that is, and dig deep
and find it and then position itin a very unique and emotive
(25:53):
way.
Yeah, people, people buy frompeople that they know, like and
trust, and that is, like, it'sjust at the core of every buying
decision that is made as a humanbeing. Yeah. And for some reason
we pretend in B to B, it's like,no, that's not true. And it's
like, what are you talking aboutif you don't trust the person
(26:15):
that that you're, you're, you'rebuying from this industry. A lot
of these, these purchases aremake or break deals. If you're
signing a three year sevenfigure deal, you best believe
that I'm going to know like andtrust that individual before I
sign that contract. And so Ithink a lot of times we lose
that story element, and we justgo to like, trying to be really
(26:38):
like, I don't want to saydescriptive, but we're just
going to explain, hey, here'sthe technology, here's what it
does, here's here's x, and it'slike, really just bland. And
we're, we're moving the, likeyou said, the emotive aspect of
it, or the storytelling aspectof this piece of the puzzle, and
that's what matters, the storyof how you fit in, how you solve
(26:58):
the problems, and then theimpact that can be made. Am I
going to run a clinical trialmore effectively? Is the
patient's life going to beeasier? Is the drug going to be
more effective? Like that's whatwe have to find. And I think
it's interesting. In my fouryears at SCORR, the first two
years, this was not aconversation that was an easy
(27:19):
one. People were it was 2022,2023, and out of COVID, lot of
confusion, still in this weirdbubble, the biotech like all the
things. But it was like, No, wewe don't care about the story.
We don't care about the message.
We want digital and we wantleads right now. We want leads
right now. We want leads rightnow. And now we've seen this
(27:40):
shift, especially in the lastthree to four months, where more
and more people are saying wejust don't feel like our story
is accurate in the market. Wedon't feel like our our story is
like effectively telling peoplewhat we can do and what value we
bring to the table, which isobviously great for you and me,
because it's really fun to workon those projects, and your
(28:01):
marketing is more successful. SoI do have a question about that,
because I'd love to havesomebody besides me say it on
this podcast in general. Butjust curious on your thoughts
the opportunity cost, or the subcost, however you want to word
it, if we spend this is a badexample, but this how I usually
(28:22):
say it. You can spend a milliondollars, and if your message is
wrong and you don't know whatrole you play, that million
dollars is going to be soineffective, I would rather
spend $500,000 on a marketingprogram and have the core
message, the design, theconsistency and the results in
(28:42):
place, and the results in termsof, like, what we can do and the
impact that we can make onbehalf of our clients and their
clients. Can you just talkabout, Am I off my rocker here?
Like, how much more effectivecan we be when we have the right
brand, we have the right story,and we know what role we play in
the target audience's life. Imean, tenfold, right? So you
(29:06):
know, we know that standing outisn't just about those features
and benefits. It's about tellingthat story, getting people
engaged. And it doesn't comefrom just putting out benefits.
It comes from understanding whatyour competitors say, being
different, right? Finding thatunique space that you can own,
that is authentic to you, thatyou can like, tell the story,
(29:28):
but it's different, and itstands out from your
competitors. And absolutely, ifyou get the right message, the
right value proposition outthere, you can spend less than
that, it can make more of animpact than a million dollars
spent on just getting benefitsand features out there, because
at the end of the day, you'vestill got to have someone look
(29:48):
at that and say, Okay, that issolving my problem today. That
is going to make my life easier,that's going to make me hit my
targets quicker, or that isintriguing. I want to speak to
the people that I'll. Puttingthis out there, and at the end
of the day, that's what our jobis, right? We want to get our
clients meetings. We want tohave those conversations,
because what we do is all it'srelationships, and what they're
(30:10):
doing is relationships. Allwe're doing is facilitating the
relationship to happen. Yeah, Idon't know if that answered your
question either.
I did. I didn't expect we justwent down like I told you that
we had, you know, an outline oftopics, and then then I was just
going to take us in alldifferent directions, and we've
already done that. But I think,like, like, what you what you
just said there at the end, interms of stopping someone and,
(30:32):
oh, this is intriguing, or thisis going to solve my problem, or
this, like, and then youmentioned it earlier, in terms
of the collaboration, we're themost collaborative team. And
then it turns out they're not.
You have to, you have to be thisbrand day in and day out. Like,
how many, I cannot tell you howmany times we have somebody come
in and say, We want to be like,this really bold brand, and we
(30:54):
want to, we want to be sooutside of the box. And then you
get into the day to day, and welearn through the assessment
phase, it's like, that's not whoyou are. That's you aren't that
you are. You got great customerservice, and you've got this
awesome team, and you've gotgreat people. Let's highlight
that, and then other times it'sthe other way around. They want
to say, we've got great customerservice, we got this great team,
(31:16):
and it's actually that theirtechnology is so far advanced
and it's so much better thaneveryone else's. But we're not
telling anybody that. And soit's, it's so interesting that
when you set this, it kind ofsets you up for success or
failure for the whole year. AndI cannot tell you how many times
we hear somebody say, like,well, we ran paid search and it
didn't work. It's like, Well,what was the what were we
(31:37):
running? What was the? Do weknow what content it was like?
Oh, it's just this. You know,it's just a random piece of
content. We content we had. It'slike, well, the content wasn't
good, the the message wasn'tgood. We weren't we weren't
identifying with anything andand I think that's why
marketing, I think that's whymarketing gets a bad rap. And
I've said it a lot this week,and I'm probably going to say it
more next week, is that if werebranded marketing to just
(31:58):
like, revenue support,marketing's budgets would be a
lot bigger, because we don'tview marketing and the
investment mindset of what itactually should be in 2025
I mean, I think that's why Ilove what we do here at school,
like as account strategists.
Like our job, as you said, is tobe the integral part of our
(32:22):
clients. We need to continuouslyfind out what they're doing,
continuously asking thequestions. And I think not being
afraid to ask the question islike the biggest thing for us
that it's something that youknow, especially if it's a part
of the industry that I haven'thad a huge experience in before,
it's something that you're opento learn. Ask the questions,
because that's how you're goingto develop the best strategies.
(32:45):
And I think it's challenging,it's fun, but, yeah, I think
you'll never get the rightstrategy out there if you're not
finding out, digging and as yousaid, like finding out their
culture, finding out how they dosomething, and then asking more
questions, as you said, it canlead to something like this
groundbreaking technology thatthey had, that you didn't you
(33:07):
know, that you weren't sayinganything about, and also making
sure that you're spending thetime auditing, like, as you
said, like, if they've beendoing paid search and you don't
know what they've been running,ask the questions, find out, see
what they've been doing, anddon't be afraid to Ask those
questions, because sometimes youcan uncover something that is
pivotal in the in the strategy.
Yeah, you you hit on the topic.
(33:28):
That is the last line ofquestioning that I have for you
today. And I say this all thetime on LinkedIn, maybe like
once a month, I'll do a randompost that says marketing should
be fun. And you know, if youstay curious and you stay up to
date, marketing is fun, and ifyou let yourself play a little
bit outside of the box, or youjust create a bigger box from
(33:49):
the get go, it can and should befun. So I know the puzzle pieces
are fun, but what's the most funthing you've done at SCORR?
What's a project, what's acampaign, what's a thing, what's
what's something, aside frombeing on this podcast with me,
what is the most fun that you'vehad in a setting at SCORR right
(34:12):
now or prior? I guess you knowif you ran a really kick ass
campaign before, I'd love tohear that too.
I think for me, the greatestsatisfaction or fun, I guess, I
have is seeing a strategy thatwe develop come to life and
actually provide a difference toour clients. So recent example,
(34:36):
we worked with a cdmo who weremerged with another
organization, we had to do awhole new rebrand. Developer,
obviously full year tacticalplan, make sure everything was,
you know, aligned with their newbrand, but also work on multiple
different business units thatthey had and super challenging,
(34:57):
really interesting. Got to workwith. Multiple stakeholders in
the organization. And after ayear, you know, of their
branding out in, you know, inthe wild, we, you know, looked
at some of their results, and wewere really heavy on working
together with them to ensurethat we were tracking
everything, working throughtheir full pipeline, looking at
(35:18):
through their sales funnel, and,you know, reporting back on, you
know, one revenue and looked atthe work that marketing did, we
were able to help them in, youknow, we were basically 8% of
their their revenue was due tomarketing tactics that we had
done. So super cool. I know ittakes a long time to see those
results sometimes, but that, forme, is like the most fun going,
(35:40):
Okay, what we did really didwork for them. And I would say,
looking back and seeing thesuccess is where I have the most
fun. But obviously have funduring it too. But I would say,
like, that's the biggest thing,being competitive and then
getting the result that you werelooking
for. I love that you right awaywent to a revenue number. And
(36:00):
that makes me and everybodylistening to this very happy.
And so along those lines, lastquestion that I have for you is
just a final takeaway. You know,I'm curious what you might tell
someone who is a CCO or amarketing head or a CEO inside
the industry and they'rehesitant about marketing. What?
(36:22):
What would you tell them? Youknow, I might, you might even
just tell me that exact samestory, again, about 8% of the
revenue, if you invest and youdo it right over time. But
what's kind of your what wouldbe a takeaway that you would
leave with somebody who is inthat position, and they're
debating making the investmentinto marketing and really being
able to ramp this up in in 2025,and beyond,
(36:46):
I would say, I would not talkabout revenue. I actually would
say, you know, it's in our bestinterest to make you look good
and get the results that youneed when, when we do our job
effectively, and, you know,bring those leads or raise brand
awareness, their results areshown. So for me, it's, you
(37:08):
know, we become part of yourteam. We are invested in your
business as much as you are, andwe get excited when you succeed,
because we succeed.
Just Mic drop. Just hands are inthe air. Gokce. I I knew that
this would be a fan fantasticepisode, and you said you had to
live up to those expectations,and you absolutely did, as you
(37:32):
always do. So thank you verymuch for for taking time out of
your Friday. And I know, aspeople are listening to this,
Gokce has started to post alittle bit more on LinkedIn.
I've seen you be more engaged onthat platform and sharing some
things. So reach out to her ifyou have any questions as you
listen to this, I know that shewould love to talk all things
(37:54):
marketing, and is a nerd in thatway, in a very similar way to to
how I am. And so if you dolisten this and you want to
connect with her, make sure youshoot her a message. And then,
as you are listening, youprobably just made it through,
and you're thinking, what anepisode. Make sure you leave a
review on Spotify. Now you canleave a five star review, and
(38:16):
you can even leave comments inthere, where I think we're over
45 star reviews, which isfantastic. And this, this
podcast, would not be possiblewithout individuals like Gokce,
and then the individuals withinthe industry that are listening
to it. I can't believe that. Ithink you're, I think you're
episode number 42 Gokce. And sothat has been six and a half
(38:37):
months, seven months worth ofrecordings of individuals all
across the industry. And we'vegot another 30 planned for this
year. So our goal is to hit 50,6070, easily in 2025, so thank
you so much coach, and thank youfor everybody who listened. And
I hope you have a great day.
(39:00):
Music,as always. Thank you for tuning
in to this episode of The SCORRcast, brought to you by SCORR
marketing. We appreciate yourtime and hope you found this
(39:25):
discussion insightful. Don'tforget to subscribe and join us
for our next episode. Untilthen, remember, marketing is
supposed to be fun.
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