Elizabeth Taylor, Author at Network Scientific Marketing

Women’s history month: 10 female pioneers of scientific discovery

Elizabeth Taylor — Wed, 01 Mar 2023 09:16:58 +0000

With the power to revolutionize the world, scientific discovery is a major player within our society. Through scientific research, we’re able to develop a profound understanding of the world as we know it today, improving our current processes and drastically transforming our healthcare.

Despite facing gender discriminatory challenges and systematics barriers, women have made significant contributions in scientific discoveries throughout history. Given that the scientific sector has been historically male dominated, and as we continue to embrace women in STEM, it’s important we pay tribute to female pioneers in the scientific field.

To kickstart Women’s history month this March, lets take a look at 10 major female pioneers of scientific discovery throughout history:

Jennifer Doudna (1963 – Present): Pioneer in CRISPR Technology

An American biochemist, Dounda made game-changing contributions within genetic engineering. Clustered Regularly Interspaced Short Palindromic Repeat (CRISPR) technology is a transformative engineering technique co-developed by Dounda and was specifically devised for genome modification.

This was a significant advancement within Biotechnology and has since led to developments of CRISPR-based therapies for the treatment of genetic diseases, including neuro-disorders, cardiovascular disorders, and life threatening diseases such as Cancer. Dounda received the Nobel Prize in 2020 for her significant contribution.

Katherine Johnson (1918 – 2020): Mathematician, One of NASA’s “Hidden Figures”

Nicknamed the ‘human computer,’ Johnson used her mathematical calculations of orbital mechanics to successfully navigate US spaceflights. Johnson was one of the first African-American women to work as a Mathematician at NASA, her calculations allowed the first ever American spacecraft to enter the earth’s orbit as well as land on the moon.

In 2015, Johnson was awarded the Presidential Medal of Freedom for her significant contributions towards Americans progression in space.

Rosalind Franklin (1920 – 1958): X-Ray Crystallographer and Chemist

Franklin made remarkable contributions within Physics and Biochemistry, particularly with her discovery of the DNA molecular structure. In 1953, Franklin used X-ray Crystallography to determine the helical structure and basic dimensions of DNA. Her work further lead to the structural discoveries in RNA, viruses, coal, and graphite.

Sadly, Franklin had passed before the Nobel prize was awarded in 1962. Despite this, she is still widely known as a pioneer in the identification of essential molecular structures.

Dame Sarah Gilbert (1962 – Present): Vaccinologist, the ‘Woman Behind the COVID-19 Vaccine’

Gilbert is a English Vaccinologist and professor of Vaccinology, who focused on influenza and other emerging clinical pathogens. During the global COVID-19 pandemic, her work led to the lifesaving creation of Oxford-Astra Zeneca, one of the first available COVID-19 vaccines.

The vaccine was authorised in late 2020, and was distributed to at least 270 countries. This saved the lives of millions of people, with over 2.5 billion doses of the vaccine issued worldwide.

Mae Jemison (1956-present): First Black Woman in Space

Jemison was a former NASA astronaut, and the first African American woman to have gone to space. In 1992, Jemison was one of 7 to onboard the Space Shuttle Endeavour, on a mission that orbited the earth for nearly 8 days.

Retiring from NASA in 1993, Jemison is now an engineer, and continues to holds a prominent presence within the scientific field. Now the author of several books, Jemison further formed a non-profit educational foundation, as well as her own company to encourage science, technology and social change. Jemison’s contribution to scientific history has enabled her a spot in the National Women’s Hall of Fame.

Dorothy Hodgkin (1910-1994): Chemist, Pioneer in the Structure of Biological Molecules

Hodgkin’s scientific discoveries revolved around the advancement of X-ray Crystallography, and the subsequent determination and architectural mapping of biological molecules. Her research lead to the discoveries of the molecular structures of cholesterol, Vitamin B12, insulin, and penicillin.

Through her discovery of these biochemical substance structures, Hodgkin received a Nobel Prize in 1964, and remains to be the only British female to have received one.

Sophia Louisa Jex-Blake (1840 – 1912): Physician, leader of the ‘Edinburgh Seven’

Sophia was a British Physician and feminist, who fought to change current legislation that limited Women’s education. During this time, women were not allowed to pursue a medical degree, nor were they able to hold a medical license.

Sophia was the leader of the ‘Edinburgh seven;’ a revolutionary group of women dedicated to fighting for women’s rights to study medicine. Thanks to her efforts, the legalisation was abolished, followed by the opening of the Medical School for Women in London in 1874, with another in Edinburgh in 1886.

Marie Curie (1867 – 1934): The 'Mother of Modern Physics'

Known as the ‘Mother of Modern Physics’, Curie was a pioneer in Physics and Chemistry, and one of the first women to receive a Nobel Prize. Her work led to the discovery of Radioactivity – particularly with the chemical elements Radium and Polonium – which uncovered its powerful ability to kill cancerous cells.

Her work lead to her receiving two Nobel Prizes, one with her husband in 1903, and the second independently in 1911. Sadly, her ongoing radioactive exposure contributed to her passing in 1934.

Chien-Shiung Wu (1912-1997) Leading Female Figure in Physics

Nicknamed the ‘First Lady of physics’, Wu was a pioneer in the field Nuclear and particle Physics. She is well known for her ‘Wu experiment’ in 1956, that found that atoms had a preference for the direction in their spin, proving that the Law of Conservation of Parity did not apply during Beta Decay. This was a significant milestone in Physics history, which her two colleagues received the Nobel Prize for in 1957.

Wu went on to receive the Wolf Prize in Physics in 1978 and was then elected as the first female president of the American Physical Society.

Ada Lovelace (1815 – 1852): Mathematician, the ‘First Computer Programmer’

Over a century before it was engineered, Lovelace devised the algorithm needed to create the ‘Analytical Machine.’ Despite the lack of technology available to build such a machine at the time, Lovelace was able conceptualise the formulation behind the creation, resulting in her well-deserved reputation as the first computer programmer.

As we continue to celebrate women in STEM today, it’s important we celebrate female pioneers of scientific discovery who’ve helped pave the way for women of today.

At Network Scientific, we offer business support through our bespoke range of scientific sales and marketing services. Could your business benefit form our bespoke offerings? Take a look at our full service range here, or contact us for more information!

The post Women’s history month: 10 female pioneers of scientific discovery appeared first on Network Scientific Marketing.

Content marketing becomes unnegotiable in the scientific sector

Elizabeth Taylor — Wed, 15 Feb 2023 08:33:07 +0000

If you’re striving for company success, growth, profitability and a prominent stance in the market, it’s imperative for your business to implement carefully thought out content that caters to each stage of the buying process, also known as a foolproof content marketing strategy.

High quality content is a cost effective, powerful aspect of a marketing strategy, and when used correctly, can be a driving force in building brand awareness, customer trust, improving online traffic, and nurturing leads.

What is content marketing?

Why is content marketing useful for scientific audiences?

Whether it’s in the life sciences, chemical, pharmaceutical or wider scientific sectors, it’s become imperative that you successfully market your products and services, with content being a key channel that is valuable to target audiences working in the sciences.

Content will give you a competitive edge in the market, as not every business in the sciences has implemented content marketing as part of their strategy. As not all decision makers within your target audience will be scientific experienced, implementing a variety of content that’s either technical or stripped back and engaging can help to target a wider audience with more purchase intent.
Many decision makers in the sciences don’t like to be sold to. Content allows for a more ‘soft sell’ approach by which you provide all the data, research and evidence for the consumer to make up their own mind. Given that the inherent nature of a scientist is to seek out and learn new information, it bodes well to provide this target audience with the knowledge they need to make their own decision.
Businesses in the sciences respect technical expertise and likeminded values. If you embed these into your content topics, tone of voice and communication types, you can produce far more appealing content for your audience.

As well as this, scientific content marketing can have benefits on your wider sales & marketing strategy:

Establishes your brand

Become the expert in your field, and tell your target audience. Website content can help to establish your brand as knowledgeable, expert leaders within the market, developing a credible and trustworthy name within the industry.

Using high quality content will create a solid, all round overview of your business and

showcase your business in the best way possible. Determine your business narrative and use this across various content types to provide your target audience with the exact knowledge they need.

Creating a satisfactory experience for your audience, which will in turn create a reliable name for your business.

Boosts website authority in search engines

Incorporating regular, relevant content is a sure fire way to improve your visibility online. Improved use of focus keywords, structured website content and varying content types is useful in educating search engines about your website, and consequently, where it ranks.

Helping people find your website through a search engine goes part-of-parcel with content; with sufficient content for various search queries and customer qualms, your content can reach the highest-ranking spots.

Generates the right traffic and drives leads

A well-executed content marketing strategy will propel growth in website engagement. If your content is catered to the right audience it will maximize the relevance of traffic.

Once on your site, various other content that is tailored to specific user personas will account for the various different touchpoints of their buying journey. This way, you have helpful content that encourages and educates at each valuable decision-making stage, ultimately funneling a conversion.

Which content types are the most important for scientific content marketing?

Scientific content marketing should be precise, data driven, and detailed to best deliver your message.

In order to develop useful content, you should first understand your target audiences. Next, you must determine what type of content will appeal to them. Here are some of the most successful content types we’ve seen work for our clients:

Blogs

Blogs are a powerful type of inbound marketing. This long term solution for generating ongoing traffic, is cost effective and highly successful. With a blog, you can craft a well-rounded overview of your brand, raise awareness of your products and services, demonstrate pain points that you can alleviate, offer insight on trending, topical industry news and more.

Check out our latest content curation case study.

Case studies

When you’re marketing for business within the scientific sector, it’s important to prioritize data driven results to best persuade your target audience. This is why case studies remain popular will those looking to buy or invest. They demonstrate quantifiable results, provide insight into how you work; showcase your greatest achievements and demonstrate your customer loyalty.

One of our clients utilises this ‘show, don’t tell’ method and incorporates case studies into the various stages of their sales cycle. Offering them as insights into real-time work for prospects, delivering them to the inboxes of current/lapsed customers and uses engagement metrics to filter back into their business plans.

Testimonials, reviews, and interviews

Much like case studies, recommendations are another important factor within the decision-making process. Testimonials are a great way to build trust and credibility within your brand, showing that you can deliver your business promises.

Interviews are also great way to humanise your business; you can interview in-house experts to show yourself as industry leaders, or use them to highlight further brand values and showcase key USP’s of your products or services.

Another client example, includes one in the life sciences, who targets academic spinouts. They conducts regular interviews with placement students as they come to the end of their work experience, reinforcing their brand ethos of helping to facilitate life science R&D where possible, both with their products and with future talent.

Check out their case study here!

Video content

Within this day and age, it’s especially important to catch people’s attention and maintain engagement through your content, with video content an excellent way to do so.

Bringing your products and services to life using video can bring about endless content opportunities. From interviews to product showcases, case studies, ‘how to’s’, ‘explainer’ videos and more.

The importance of consistent, personal content

Every business’ marketing strategy is different. What works for some, may not work for you. It’s important to measure success and failures through regular analysis, reporting, and tracking of website performance.

Once you determine how well your content marketing efforts are working so far and have a thorough understanding of which content resonates with your audience and when, you can expand on efforts and solidify a successful strategy that works for you and your audience.

At Network Scientific, we partner our in house marketing and commercial expertise with trained, experienced scientists. This way, we can achieve the perfect balance of technical, engaging content that resonates with various scientific sectors.

Need help with you content marketing? Get in touch with us.

The post Content marketing becomes unnegotiable in the scientific sector appeared first on Network Scientific Marketing.

What is SEO and why do businesses need it?

Elizabeth Taylor — Tue, 14 Feb 2023 15:32:02 +0000

Websites are an undoubtably powerful tool for your company. Showcasing your products and services is an essential driver in generating business. But what good is your website if it’s not driving the right traffic? You may be thinking, why isn’t my website generating enough interest, or more importantly how do I reach my target audience?

This brings us to the wonderful world of SEO; a powerful marketing tool designed to help your business reach the right target audience by increasing your search rankings. This, in turn, will generate more website traffic, increase your number of new customers, and help you retain existing ones!

We’ve delved into the basics of SEO, including why it’s such a valuable tool to your business, and how it can be implemented within your marketing strategy. But firstly, what actually is SEO?

What is SEO, and why is it important?

If you have a website, you need to know about SEO. In this competitive market, search engine optimization (SEO) is an important practice within marketing. It involves a set of techniques and processes aimed to help showcase your business and develop brand awareness within the right audience.

SEO largely focuses on people’s searching behavior and allows us to gain a deeper understanding into what people’s queries are, what terms they are using and what type of content they’re pursuing. Understanding your audiences’ intent will allow you to implement an SEO strategy that makes your website highly accessible to your target audience.

Think of SEO as your websites best friend; SEO aims to drive traffic, and with more traffic, comes more interest; with more interest, comes long term customers! Here’s the benefits in more detail:

Improving visibility

When you use google, how often do you flick through the pages? If you’re like the 75% of us that don’t click past the first page, then I’d imagine it’s not a lot! This behaviour highlights just how crucial it is for a place on the first page, and why ranking highly in search engines is so important to your business. Implementing SEO practices will keep your company competitive, securing the top spots in search engine results pages (SERPs).

Generating the right traffic

In order to boost website performance and engagement, SEO will use tactics that that target the right audiences. increasing traffic to your website is only beneficial when its made up of highly relevant individuals. In turn, this should boost the number of potential leads and customers.

Improved brand awareness and user experience

Top quality SEO techniques will also outline a precise overview of your company, showcasing exactly what you’re about. When you create valuable content for your target audience, it enables potential customers to fully understand your business and how exactly you can help them, leading to an improved user experience.

Building credibility and trust

A well optimised website with regular content types, will showcase your business as authoritative, experts and even market leaders within the industry. If you include quality content with useful knowledge to your target audience, your website will be viewed as a useful tool of information, increasing trust and credibility for your business.

Important components of SEO marketing

Keywords

A huge focus within SEO is recognizing strong keywords that are highly relevant to your business. Once identified, these keywords should be employed throughout your website and it’s subsequent content. These include words, phrases or long-tail keywords that capture the essence and core of what you do, and the solution that you provide. If your web content is well optimised, it will allow searchers to easily reach your website.

In order to stay relevant, it’s important that your list of keywords are continually reviewed, monitored and updated when required. To make sure you are utilizing the right keywords, you need to have a good understanding of your audience and what they are searching for. Once you know this, you can generate a list of keywords to incorporate within your site content.

There are important considerations to take into account when searching for the best keywords to use. For example, keywords that are too vague, too popular (and therefore, competitive) or are declining in popularity, may not be the best keywords to include on your list.

TIP: It’s important to note that ‘keyword stuffing’ can have adverse effects for your website, so it’s essential that you do not overuse keywords in your content. Embed them where it feels natural to do so!

Content

Website content is designed to improve your websites search ranking, with the aim to keep you in the top three. In order to rank high, your content will need to be written and structured in an optimised way, this means using header tags, paragraphs, images and more in a clear, structured manner. Doing this allows Google and other search engines to index your site and determine its relevance to queries and position it in the SERPs accordingly.

To enhance your visibility and rankings, it’s important for all content to include your targeted keywords, which will in turn ensure that your content is relevant to your target audience.

As well as your main landing pages, your site should also house areas where new content can be added regularly. One main example is blogging. Implementing blogs into your content marketing strategy is a great way to build authority, credibility, increase relevance, and of course, boost your rankings. Blog content should be designed to cater to individual target personas in each stage of the buyers journey, in order to drive the right traffic to your website and then push them through the marketing funnel.

Other types of content such as ‘how to’ guides, testimonials, case studies, PDF brochures or infographics are also valuable in boosting your website SEO. As well as this, it’s important for all product pages to be optimised. The incorporation of internal and external links boost SEO by establishing a clear hierarchy on your website and building backlinks to other trusted websites.

TIP: It’s vital that your content is NOT duplicated from other pages on your site, or plagiarized from external websites, as this can have a detrimental effect on your search rankings.

SEO vs PPC

As well as SEO, there are other types of search engine marketing (SEM), including PPC. Unlike SEO, which relies solely on organic strategy, PPC exclusively incorporates paid ads on search engines to drive traffic to your website. Also known as pay-per-click ads, they’re a widely used and effective method that provides an opportunity for all businesses to be on the top of the search page with a certain amount of budget.

Although not a necessary element in your SEO practice, PPC can be effective when used in conjunction with SEO for an additional marketing boost.

SEO is a continuous process

It’s important to recognize SEO as a continuously evolving process. The google algorithm is constantly changing, with over 500 updates made every year! Therefore, it’s vital for your business to keep up by revisiting and amending your strategy on a regular basis.

Do you need help with your SEO marketing strategy? Get in touch with our team, and we’ll be happy to have a chat!

The post What is SEO and why do businesses need it? appeared first on Network Scientific Marketing.