3. aintaining the personal connection: Selling remains a very personal, relationship-based task. Nowhere is this more true than in the scientific community. And as companies increase in size this often becomes more and more difficult to do. Additionally, customer companies require an increasing amount of business-to-business selling and relationship building as well. Finding a way to implement the two, and maintaining the personal connection while doing it well is not a simple task.

Will you discuss some of the key marketing strategies that you would recommend for managing the challenges in this evolving market?

1. nhance competitive differentiation by leveraging not only unique product offerings but also how you do business through the building of a strong corporate brand as well as distinct product brands.

2. each out to those making the buying decisions through consistent, ongoing, personal communications programs which effectively support both the corporate and the product brand strategies. This communication effort should be designed and continually refined to appropriately reach and resonate with each type of purchasing decision- maker.

What is the difference between product and corporate branding and the relative importance of each of those strategies?
f you go into the Life Science customer community (pharmaceutical and biotechnology) and ask about sequencing, customers will probably say, "I have two 377s in my facility." With further discussion they will note ABI Prisms or Applied Biosystems. ABI has primarily developed a product brand, and secondarily a corporate. When you ask customers about tissue culture they will say Falcon or Costar rather than a company.

As buying behavior for all the most innovative products continues to consolidate, the corporate brand will become more and more important because the business relationship that is emerging is not only between the salesperson and the user, but at least as importantly between the companies. Even very small companies (perhaps, especially small companies) need to establish their credibility within the customer community. The fastest way to do that, assuming good products, is to focus communications on their company as a brand as well as on the products themselves.