BioFX's Marketing Program

The emphasis for BioFX's marketing program should not be on product features unless these features can be tied directly to customer benefit. Because of this, it is critical that BioFX use its marketing program to promote the unique benefits that it offers (and that its competition does not) and the benefit of doing business with a company small enough to be highly responsive to individual customer needs.

As a new company, BioFX faces the challenge of learning about the market and, perhaps more importantly, educating the market about BioFX. To learn about the market, BioFX can build on the personal experience of its key personnel who have extensive backgrounds in the biotechnology industry. In addition, all key employees are encouraged to keep current with professional journals in the field, and to be active in the professional organizations supporting this field. For example, the company's Chief Scientific Officer will be presenting an abstract at the American Society of Microbiology Conference in Chicago in May 1999.

Participation such as this at scientific gatherings have a twofold purpose. Not only does such participation keep BioFX personnel informed about developments in the industry, it helps promote BioFX within that industry and establish them as a company with a strong reputation for quality and products which are especially suitable to the market. Getting the word out about a new company can be difficult, and participation in scientific gatherings carries

. BioFX's overall strategy will be to position its products as providing high quality at competitive prices (customers are price sensitive and not willing to pay a premium for substrates) as well as to differentiate the products from the competition based on unique product features. Lot-to-lot consistency will be emphasized in the marketing strategy as will the optical density, the long shelf life, the lack of dangerous solvents and the ability to provide custom lot sizes and packaging configurations. The marketing mix (product, distribution, promotion and price) is based on the market's own characteristics. BioFX has developed a family of products which is small enough to be manageable, but which permits considerable variation within each product group. While research and development will continue to investigate new ways of enhancing the product family, no new product groupings are planned at this time. Instead, the company will continue to focus on its microwell and membrane substrates and its fish gelatin products. Distribution will be handled directly by BioFX rather than through distributors wherever possible (foreign markets may require modification to this strategy) in order to ensure that BioFX has the greatest amou

Category: Business - B