A Decade of Growth & a Willingness to Experiment Leads to Long-Term Success

The Goal

Help a pharmaceutical manufacturer reach new customers and showcase the company’s expertise.

Seqens logo

The Challenge

PCI Synthesis works with emerging and mid-sized pharmaceutical companies to provide access to the expertise needed to develop and manufacture complex small molecules. For more than a decade, we’ve worked with the company, now Seqens, to find ways to differentiate their services from the competition.

The Strategic Approach

Initially, we focused on media relations, supporting announcements, and securing industry coverage as the company expanded into a Contract Development & Manufacturing Organization (CDMO). But after a couple of years of success on behalf of the company, which included cover stories in trade magazines and local news media, we recommended making a change to thought leadership to provide a steady flow of content about key issues facing the company’s customers and the industry. The recommendation was based on several factors:

  • The company didn’t always have a regular news flow, even though it was growing.
  • Announcements tended to be contingent on the willingness of customers – known in the industry as sponsors – and sponsors weren’t always willing to talk because they considered the work PCI did as proprietary.
  • We needed a way to address key issues facing sponsors, and announcements weren’t always effective because they didn’t address sponsors’ concerns.
  • Content was fast becoming key and the fuel to effective social media programs and search engine optimization.

At the time, B2Bs in general, companies in this sector in particular, did not write blogs or use social media. But Ed Price, the company’s founder, was willing to experiment.

The Results

The thought leadership program we’ve designed and continued to execute involves blog posts and bylined articles for industry publications that we cross-promote via social media. These bylined articles (which led to a regular column in a key trade publication, and strategic blog posts address key issues facing sponsors, answer questions they have about working with an outsourcing organization, provide best practices and insights to help keep costs down and projects on time.

The blog and industry articles serve as the engine that drives traffic to the website, prompting emails and calls from potential sponsors interested in doing business with the company. The content we researched and wrote was the number #1 source of leads for the company. Additionally, the conversion success rate was over 50% for users who contacted the company via its website.

Our thought leadership campaign helped get the attention of Lyon, France-based SEQENS Group, which in 2018 acquired PCI Synthesis. We expanded our work to provide PR and marketing to the parent company, which used our blogs as part of paid LinkedIn campaigns.

The Coverage

More than 60 bylined articles and video interviews published in Contract Pharma, Pharmaceutical Outsourcing, Pharma’s Almanac, Outsourced Pharma, Pharmaceutical Compliance Monitor, other U.S. and European trade publications.