Introducing: SCIENCE X MARKETING

By Sheeva Azma

The following blog is an unedited excerpt from Fancy Comma’s third book, SCIENCE X MARKETING. At the time I write this blog, the book is undergoing its final review, but by the time you see this, you can buy it here in Kindle, paperback, and hardcover versions!

DISCLAIMER: Fancy Comma has affiliate partnerships to support its blog content. We may earn commissions for products purchased via affiliate links.

As scientists, we never get any marketing training. That makes for an interesting crossover! 

You probably have not thought of yourself as engaging in digital marketing content creation for a target audience, but you have likely made a post on social media that you knew your friends would like.

Maybe you haven’t written a marketing email, but you have probably written an email or social media post announcing something in your life, like a new job or a new pet.

When I first got into freelance science writing, I had no idea of any of the terminology in the marketing world, but I was already doing a lot of things that marketers do. I learned that “copy” meant text because that’s how my marketing agency clients talked about the words I wrote. I actually ended up learning the terminology because the more professional (read: higher paying) gigs had people who knew this lingo, and I decided that if I wanted to get more clients, I had to learn it myself, too.

Could I be getting paid more if I knew all of the terminology? Maybe, but the thing that makes me happiest about freelancing is that I get to carve my own unique path, outside of the words that we try to use to describe the work that we do. Something that is “thought leadership” can also be referred to as “public-facing research writing.” So, how descriptive and useful are these names, exactly?

I have never taken a marketing, communications, or journalism course as a scientist – I learned all of these things over the past 10 years as a freelance science writer. Here are some of the terms I have learned in marketing (and my own definitions). I guess I could have been charging a lot more if I knew the actual terminology so I could act more like a marketer and get paid the “big bucks.” Hmm…

I cannot travel back in time, but I can help you with these terms so you can charge the “big bucks” earlier in your career (hopefully) – or even use this information to do better marketing as a scientist, policy professional, or whatever you end up doing in life.

The “Swipe File,” or “marketing I adore for whatever reason”

One thing I was surprised to learn had a name was the concept of a “swipe file.” What a marketer might call a “swipe file” I might call an assortment of ads I randomly adore. Basically, a swipe file is a collection of projects or ideas or copy or whatever that you really like and seek to emulate.

I did get some science communication training in my science courses at MIT, and that’s when my professor, a biologist turned science writer, told us: find someone whose writing you admire and emulate them. That’s what a swipe file does. I didn’t know what a swipe file is, but I’ve always had one in mind.

Marketers and ad professionals use “swipe files” as scrapbooks of copy, images, and other information that they found interesting. Think of a swipe file as inspiration for your work. 

Science communicators can also have a swipe file. Surely, there are some people that we all try to be like, such as Carl Sagan or Neil deGrasse Tyson. We can also draw inspiration from highway billboards, TV commercials, radio jingles, even the marketing text on the back of your box of cereal. I definitely get inspiration from everywhere. One of my favorite hobbies is to evaluate advertising and marketing materials that I see around me. Some are brilliant. Others…not so much.

An ad in my swipe file is the Pfizer COVID-19 commercial that features NFL football player Travis Kelce. Others include a Progressive commercial with cute kittens that are in a maching band. I also really enjoy the GEICO Gecko poster ad I see everywhere I go that changes according to where I am. It is always a delight to see: he has a cowboy hat in Texas and a shopping bag at the mall. I get teary-eyed every time I watch a State Farm TV ad from over a decade ago about the girl who grows up and gets a car after asking her dad if she can drive his car as a kid.

I love to get ideas from anywhere, especially TV ads and billboards that are meant for everyone to see. These ads in my swipe file inform my SciComm, and they help me communicate better. Sometimes, they are just brilliant and I wonder who came up with the brilliant ideas. I try not to limit my SciComm inspiration to just science, but get it from everywhere, because as scientists we’re allowed to have fun and communicate science in novel ways.

The world of “science copywriting,” or “convincing people with scientific evidence”

In the marketing world, people call text “copy.” Here’s an example you might hear from a science marketing client: “We are looking for copy that is about 1000 words about the novel use of CAR-T therapies to treat various cancers.” In this example, the client is looking for a 1000-word article about CAR-T therapies. Often, copy will need to be SEO-optimized (more on what that means later in this section), but not always. A good marketer will tell you everything you need to do in the assignment before you start – if you have questions, make sure to ask them. You can’t write a science marketing assignment properly if you don’t know the parameters.

The style of marketing writing needed for the science copywriting world is different from how we are used to writing in science. It’s also not quite how journalists write – it is writing for a specific purpose. The purpose, in this case, is get the audience to act a certain way, whether that is to do something or to buy something.

Copy, unlike other words on a page, is persuasive. Every word matters in copy! There are actual models of copywriting you can use that were developed for all copywriters, not just science copywriters. In the AIDA model, which Philip Oyelola wrote about on our blog, there are four steps: Attention, Interest, Desire, Action. First, you bring attention to your topic. Then, you explain the topic a bit to draw in the reader, and convince them that your product is what they need. Lastly, you call for them to act, whether it’s checking out a website, contacting the company for more info, or buying something.

My formula for copywriting involves using scientific facts – science is very persuasive. Science copywriting can be used to sell therapeutics and other evidence-based products. I also try to limit jargon, since copy is written for the public, not scientists. That doesn’t mean I dumb things down, but it just changes the way I communicate in copy a bit.

If you’ve never written copy before, I suggest you try this exercise. Sit down and try to write a 100-word explainer to the general public on something in science, whether it’s CRISPR, CAR-T, or some other method. What would you say and how would you say it to “sell” someone on your subject?

For good scientific copywriting, know your audience, use your critical thinking skills, and communicate effectively. Being a cognitive neuroscientist makes me a great copywriter, because I can write for humans, I can see through the ‘hype’ that pervades a lot of marketing documents, and I can write at the intersection of science and marketing. Science copywriting is the ultimate in navigating the SCIENCE X MARKETING world.

“White papers” or “explaining exactly what someone needs to know to understand a topic in a few pages”

White papers are a type of writing meant to inform and persuade readers. They are often bite-sized introductions to a subject that feature lots of research as well as insights from subject matter experts. 

A metaphor about white papers might be useful to explain what they are. If my entire makeup collection represents all the knowledge in the world, a white paper is like a small travel case of makeup, selected for the occasion and circumstances in which I am traveling. Whitepapers are portable, fit a given purpose, and get the job done. (If the makeup metaphor doesn’t resonate with you, consider a whitepaper to be a packed suitcase of clothes that you might need on a vacation or work trip. The same thing applies!)

White papers are often no more than five to 10 pages, and written to inform more than to sell or persuade. I absolutely love writing them – they are fun to write, and you can get paid a lot to write them. As of writing this book, I charge a minimum of $3000 per white paper because they require a lot of research, and hence, time invested. Writing white papers takes me back to my grad school days writing research papers and to my days working in a DC think tank. Applying your research skills and writing white papers can be a great way to expand your wheelhouse on a topic – and get paid to do so!

One example of a white paper I wrote once was on the use of software by law enforcement to be better able to conduct incident reporting to stay compliant with state and federal incident reporting requirements of the Department of Justice. I have also written tons of white papers about all things COVID – the best way to hold an event in the COVID pandemic, mask supply chain concerns, how to automate your warehouse to reduce occupancy requirements to quell the spread, and more. My favorite whitepapers bring together things I would not normally think about together – for example, commercial real estate and big data, which I wrote about for a tech company using algorithms to predict which office buildings to buy, once. I even wrote a white paper for a woman who reformed a county child support office to make it run more smoothly.

If you ask me, there’s nothing more persuasive than a well-researched, well-written white paper. I love them because they are basically research papers with a purpose. When writing journal articles, we often do not write with a strategic goal in mind as scientists, other than the goal of communicating our science. However, a white paper can be part of many exciting goals. It can help people learn about a rapidly-emerging topic, be part of the sales cycle for your company (especially if you sell something complicated, like MRI scanners, that have a lot of details and features), and can even inform policymakers and help them get things done. I have been lucky to work on government-facing white papers a few times, which I really enjoy.

“Thought leadership,” or “public-facing communication of expertise”

The term “thought leadership” is one of those phrases that I would find ridiculous as a grad student. Being a leader of thinking isn’t something we have in science; we have scientists that everyone knows, and while technically they are “thought leaders,” we do not refer to them as thought leaders. 

One example of a thought leader in my field of cognitive neuroscience is Russell Poldrack. Everyone I have talked to calls him Russ. He even came up in a job interview I had once with a neuroscience nonprofit. He is a thought leader in the field of cognitive neuroscience because he uses brain imaging to learn about decisionmaking, behavior change, and the brain’s executive control mechanisms, which is, in a vague sense, how your brain manages its cognitive abilities.

Thought leaders are visionaries in their fields. Bill Gates, who is the co-founder of Microsoft, is an example of a “thought leader.” Paul Allen, the other co-founder of Microsoft, is also a thought leader. However, you don’t have to have started a famous software company to be a thought leader. Anyone can be a thought leader in something.

For example, I am a thought leader in the overlapping subfields of SCIENCE X MARKETING, which is why I am writing this book. You are definitely a thought leader in something, whether that’s perfecting a specific type of lab protocol, the best tips and tricks to succeed in your field of academic study or at your job.

Thought leadership is a form of public-facing writing that showcases your expertise. Scientists do thought leadership every time they write an academic paper, but they don’t do that for a non-scientist audience.

The purpose of thought leadership is to make a name for yourself, to connect with others working on similar issues, and to share your knowledge with the world. An easy way to engage in thought leadership in science: write a blog post, LinkedIn post, Twitter/X thread, or create an Instagram reel explaining what you did, the results you found, and why that is relevant to your field and to the world at large. You don’t have to be pretentious about it, but you do have to make sure to explain it to people who are not in your field.

For more insights on the space shared by science and marketing, read Fancy Comma’s book, SCIENCE X MARKETING. It is our third book — check out all of our books here.