Problem · Life science
We are scientists. We know the product and nothing about marketing, and we do not know where to start.
You spun the company out of an academic lab, or you left a big supplier to build the thing they would not build. The science is sound. The customers who know you buy again. And the word marketing makes everyone in the room a little uncomfortable, because it sounds like the opposite of rigor. Here is the reassuring part: your buyer is a scientist too, and scientists do not respond to marketing. They respond to being found with the right answer at the moment they search for it.
How people search thismarketing for scientists who started a company · biotech startup marketing where to start · spinout company marketing plan · how to market a research product · life science startup first marketing hire or agency
Ground State at $2,500 a month if you publish nothing today: a newsletter, a blog post written to be cited, and social, with the $15,000 website rebuild included on the 12 month term. Excitation at $5,000 when you are ready to spend on one Google Ads campaign against the terms your buyers type. Kristen Coughlin, a trained molecular biologist, reviews every life science page before it ships. Pricing is published.
The good news about selling to scientists
Your buyer searches the way you do: by gene, by method, by catalog number, by the exact phrase from the paper. Those searches are specific, and almost nobody competes for them, because the big suppliers rank for the category and ignore the long tail. A page that answers the specific question, with the specification and the reference on it, gets found by the one person who typed that question. That is the whole method, and it rewards precision over polish.
It also means the two things most new companies buy first, a logo refresh and a LinkedIn cadence, are the two you can skip for now. Nobody chose a mouse model because of the supplier's logo.
The three things to do in the first ninety days
First, a site that says what you sell in the words a researcher would type, one page per product or service, server rendered so Google and the AI engines can read it. That build is included in every tier. Second, one piece of writing a month that answers a question your customers actually ask you on calls, with the citation. Third, a form that goes somewhere, a person who answers it inside a business day, and a spreadsheet or CRM that records where each inquiry came from. That last one is the step scientists skip, and it is the one that tells you in month six whether any of this worked.
What the first year looks like
Months one through three are the build and the first publishing cadence. Months three through six are when specific pages start to get found, usually for searches you did not plan for, which tells us what to build next. Months six through twelve are when paid search makes sense, because by then you know which terms convert. We report leading indicators every 30 days and judge revenue at months six and twelve, tied to your sales cycle, which in life science runs six to eighteen months. Nobody will ask you to judge a year of work at day 90.
Questions on this problem
Not yet. A marketing hire without a system produces social posts and a newsletter. Build the system first, then hire the person who will own it, and teach them at Protocol.
Yes. Every life science page is reviewed by a trained molecular biologist before it reaches you, and the MLR review gate add on routes clinical claims through a reviewer you name.
Yes. Below that we cannot run the cadence and include the build, and we would rather tell you that than sell you a smaller version that does not work.
George Stoff, Founder and Lead Engineer
Full-stack engineer with more than 30 years building the systems companies sell through. He built the seven-layer method Isovertic runs on and stays on every account as the standards owner and the escalation path. When the algorithm shifts or a compliance question comes up, you get his engineering judgment. The day-to-day execution runs on the team he trained.
LinkedInKristen Coughlin, Chief Operating Officer
Trained molecular biologist. Ten years selling translational research products, then institutional operations in the Department of Microbial Pathogenesis at the Yale School of Medicine. She reviews the life-science work before it reaches a client's MLR reviewer. She also built the delivery operation: took the method George engineered, wrote it down, trained the team on it, and turned it into a repeatable engagement so the same seven-layer system runs the same way on every account.
LinkedIn