Maurice Van Rotterdam (00:00)
when I look back the last five years we see a lot of changes in design. We see downscaling in terms of information. So being more precise, more targeted. So it would be easy to say that's also going to happen in the next five years. But to be honest, think also with all the developments in AI, think we're
This will really disrupt how we look at websites.
Joachim Eeckhout (00:20)
Welcome to Science Marketer Podcast, where we dive into how science driven companies can communicate and market more effectively. Today, we're talking about websites and how life sciences companies should develop them. In an industry where credibility, trust and clarity are everything,
A website is often the first impression for investors, partners or talent. But what makes a life sciences website truly stand out? To answer that, I'm joined by Maurice van Rotterdam, the founder of Sciential, a digital marketing agency specializing in life sciences
In this episode, we'll explore what makes a killer website the biggest mistakes to avoid and how to build something that not only looks good but works strategically for your growth.
Joachim Eeckhout (01:05)
So hi, Maurice. Welcome to the Science Marketer Podcast.
Maurice Van Rotterdam (01:08)
Thank you, Joachim, and really pleasure to be here. Thank you for the invite. We're looking forward to this episode.
Joachim Eeckhout (01:13)
Great. So ⁓ yeah, let's start with a question of background. Can you briefly introduce yourself for the audience and your agency, Sciential
Maurice Van Rotterdam (01:22)
Yeah, sure. So I actually have a scientific background. So I studied biomedical sciences in University of Leiden. Did a specialization in tumor immunology. So I worked in the lab. Did some work on cancer research. Found it really fascinating, but also found out that the lab itself wasn't really my thing. So shifted more towards the commercial side of life sciences. Did some consulting and then actually there I found my passion in marketing. Well, from my side, are actually two...
two things that I really enjoy or that I'm very passionate about in marketing. It's one the ones that translating difficult or really technical information into easy understandable information. And the other side, think that's ⁓ what currently keeps me running ⁓ is how you can activate people. So that's currently really everything on top of my mind. that was also the reason why together with the two other co-founders, we started Sciential. That's now four and half, almost five years ago.
So we're a life science and health digital marketing agency. So we help companies within the life science sector with everything related to marketing. So that could be branding, could be web developments, ⁓ advertisements, ⁓ content creation, ⁓ well, for events, kind of things. To elaborate a little bit more, we're currently 30 people. We're based in Rotterdam in the Netherlands. Most of our clients are, of course, based in Europe. We also have some clients in the US and in Asia.
And to give you a little bit of indication, the type of clients we mainly serve are service providers in the pharma outsourcing niche. So really CROs, that could be preclinical research, but also clinical and also CDMO companies. those are, yeah, the most of the companies that we actually help. Of course, we also help some smaller companies, so biotech startups, biotech innovators in that case. yeah, I hope that's a long introduction maybe, but I hope it gives a good overview.
Joachim Eeckhout (03:07)
Great, great overview. so today we will talk about one of your services, which are building websites. And we will focus on this topic as you have a lot of experience in this field. So let's start with a question about websites in particular. So in your opinion, what makes websites in the life sciences space unique compared to other industries?
Maurice Van Rotterdam (03:30)
Yeah, of course, if you compare it really to fast retail goods or those kind of industries, it's completely different, right? What I usually see in our sector, what is really important is that there's a lot of technology involved. There are multiple kind of buyers or people that are visiting the website. So there are multiple types of audiences that visit the website. So that makes it super complex. Also, if you compare it to other industries, the buying journey of a
potential clients and forgive me, most of my story today will be focusing on CDMOs or CROs. So having a look from their perspective on their websites are really commercial companies that provide a service or product in our market. So in that case, I think it makes it really like complicated because you have multiple people visiting the website. They all need a specific kind of information in specific types of their buyer journey.
So that makes it quite difficult to get everything together and don't create an overflow of information and create 100 pages that nobody actually visits. think that's something that is completely different than when you look at, for example, smartphone cases or those kinds of things.
Joachim Eeckhout (04:35)
Yeah, I totally agree. think it's hard because you have to translate complex science in different levels of complexity over the website. Like you have to be generalists and at the same time go deep in some of the pages and yeah, this complexifies a bit the case.
Maurice Van Rotterdam (04:54)
Yeah. And also like it's also worldwide, right? So you actually have different languages and also you have different personas. So we will probably touch upon that a little bit later, but if you have, you're targeting the US. Well, we learned also based on the data that, well, US website visitors have a little bit, a slightly different kind of user experience than European visitors in that sense. So all those things, of course that also happens in other markets, but it is...
Joachim Eeckhout (04:57)
Yeah.
Maurice Van Rotterdam (05:18)
Yeah, specifically important in our market as well.
Joachim Eeckhout (05:21)
What are the biggest mistakes you see Life Sciences companies making with their website?
Maurice Van Rotterdam (05:26)
Yeah. Well, I think we can actually have a separate podcast about this topic. see, well, to be honest, I think if we, if we go back when we started five years ago, just the three of us in our small broom closet here in Rotterdam. At that moment, things were really going wrong for, terms of websites. Nowadays we see, I need to say a lot of nice websites, also websites that are not developed by us. So I need to give grads there. But I think one of the most.
Joachim Eeckhout (05:30)
you
Maurice Van Rotterdam (05:55)
things that that sends out or really pops into mind is undervaluing the importance of your website. From my perspective or our perspective, if I really look at our belief or our vision of marketing, the website is really the nucleus of the whole marketing strategy. So whether you actually run a campaign on Google, run a campaign on LinkedIn, if you go to an event, everyone's actually coming together at the website and it also needs to translate.
people in their buyer journey actually every time they actually visit the website. So undervaluing the website in general, think that's the most important thing. we just have a website. It looks like 1990. Well, it is there. It works. That's basically the biggest one. To get a little bit more into detail, I think it all starts with the audience. So a lot of companies, they're developing the website from their point of view.
especially when I'm looking at CROs and CDMOs, they're really, they're of course like experts in their service, but they don't dive into the target audience. So I think it's also important. This is basically how we build also our websites is we, I first need to understand three important things of a website. So that's what I would advise is understanding the audience. That's the first thing you need to understand. So.
Is it healthcare professionals? Is it CEOs of biotech companies? Are it senior scientists of biotech companies? Are those investors? Is it maybe PE firms that you want to attract when you're a CDMO? All these things, you need to keep that in mind in translating that in UX design. think that's the second thing. yeah, making sure that people can navigate over the website. Especially what I see is that a lot of the service providers, preclinical CROs, they have a technology.
And they have a service. And combining that, that is super difficult. So UX design is one of the most important things. And maybe to close off with another one that I also see quite often is too much information. So it's like pages of infinite scroll, I would say, of information. And it's not working. of course, you could say it is for SEO. But to be honest,
It's also not positively impacting your SEO score, I can tell. So those are the three things that we see mainly going wrong. Not focusing on the audience, looking at UX design, and then too much information and a lot of jargon. So a lot of things that are common as if you're a CDMO, but maybe not if you're a senior scientist at a biotech company that is exploring maybe to outsource part of their business. So that's maybe three things that I see going on quite often.
Joachim Eeckhout (08:26)
So when a life sciences company...
approaches you to start working on a new website. What's the very first step you take with them?
Maurice Van Rotterdam (08:34)
Yeah, actually, I really like to have standardized processes. essentially, we have got a lot of standardized processes. when I have, for example, an introduction meeting with a client that is maybe into revamping their website, I first want to understand their business case. So for me, there are three things super important to understand. First of all, their services. The second thing is really, who is their core audience? And then not just saying, yeah, all of the
scientists or all of the CEOs of biotech companies, it should be a little bit more defined in that sense. And of course the competition, because then I can also see like, hey, is this a specific niche? How is the competition doing? Is it like, I know top-notch websites? Then I can also give advice, right? Because sometimes it's also the advice to not make it too difficult, to keep it simple in that sense. So in that case, that's from my side, the first step.
understanding who they are, so what they sell to who and who we're competing against towards together because that's what I want to understand. And then from there, before I can actually give advice on how the website should look or actually think about design even, what we do is we analyze the current website. So of course, there's always a website. Well, 99 % of the time, there is already a website. So what we do is we have our analysis package using analytics or Matomos.
using Hotjar, using Microsoft Clarity, we analyze the current website, which pages are frequently viewed, which has the highest bound rates, what are the ways how people can convert, really getting that all mapped out, making sure that we have a general understanding of the current website. And then from there, we can build a case. And what we do there is we develop a recommendation report, which is quite a detailed report on our strategy, saying, hey, this is basically
The most important pages, they're now orchestrated like this. This would be our suggestion because it makes sense. And this is how the competition is doing it. So in that case, that is basically how we onboard or how I, yeah, before actually thinking about the whole project or anything, first looking at those two kinds of elements. So their business model and what's currently out there. Then from there, we can actually pinpoint a point on the horizon where we actually want to go together.
Joachim Eeckhout (10:43)
Yeah, sounds good. Like you do an audit basically of the current website and you build from this.
Maurice Van Rotterdam (10:50)
Yeah, sometimes there's nothing there, right? So it's just one page or something. And then it's difficult. But most of the times there is already a website. then what really fascinates me is the data. Like you have pages that, well, they say these are really the most important pages of our website. And then you actually see that nobody actually visits them because you need to click seven times before you can actually access that specific landing page.
Joachim Eeckhout (10:53)
Well.
Maurice Van Rotterdam (11:16)
This should be only three clicks away because that's the maximum. Those things, it is quite confronting. And it's also quite interesting because then you can really learn how you can optimize the website maybe with some simple steps, except for building a complete new website in that sense. So that's not always the case.
Joachim Eeckhout (11:32)
So let's talk about this, like the user journey on a website. What are the biggest mistakes you see in user journey and how do you fix them?
Maurice Van Rotterdam (11:40)
Yeah, I think I already mentioned it earlier, like having the different kind of buyer personas or website visitors in mind. That could also be different kind of locations on the world. So it could be like you have a specific buyer persona or like a variation of a specific kind of persona. It could be like European, US, or maybe like Asian ⁓ Pacific.
So in that case, really understanding why specific people actually come to the website. Then you can actually focus of course on the UX design itself. Because what we see going wrong is that, as I mentioned, the important pages, they're really, you need to click seven times before you access them. So if I look really at the UX design, where it usually goes wrong is having those buyer personas in mind. And then the second thing where a lot of companies struggle or
is that they have a technology and they have a service. So for example, there's CRO company, let's say for example, and they have like a platform technology. So they want to explain the technology and the other side, they also want to explain, for example, the service that they do as a contact research organization. And putting that all together in one page or one website, that is quite difficult because when you...
enter the website, like the first header or hero, it should be clear that you can read about the technology, for example, for scientists. And the other side, maybe for the C, executive roles, that they really understand, hey, why should I do business with them or why should I outsource basically my work to them? So those are the most important things for CROs. And for CDMOs, I think there's a good example.
If you go to a standard kind of website of CDMO, you see thousands of services. They're all mapped together. You have a menu, you go to the menu and then you like it burst open and you have like target areas. You have different kinds of models. Everything is coming together. I think that's very difficult to centralize that in terms of UX So yeah, I think that's a long answer to the question.
Joachim Eeckhout (13:39)
Do you have any ways,
like is there any ways that you found helpful for this kind of complexity?
Maurice Van Rotterdam (13:45)
Yeah, so of course it remains difficult, is basically, this is the reason why actually companies hire us because then we have a team, for example, of UX designers that together with our life science specialists really dive into these buyer personas. Like, hey, let's say, and also based on the analysis that we did before, like what are the most important pages? How can we make sure that we define those and they are actually on top layer so they can be easily accessible? So in that case,
Some examples are, example, the menu types that you can use, but also on the homepage, you have different sections you can maybe scroll through. Or one of the things I'm really a big fan of this is that you have above your normal header, you have like a sub header saying researcher, investor, or C level executive, because then you can just click on it and then you have a menu specifically for your person, yeah, your buyer persona. So it could really help because
there's a 90 % chance when you're a scientist you want to first understand the technology before you actually want to see like, some case studies or those kind of things. I think that those are some simple examples
Joachim Eeckhout (14:52)
So many biotech companies struggle with balancing scientific detail and accessibility. What's your approach to this?
Maurice Van Rotterdam (14:59)
Yeah, super relevant question. ⁓ Of course, like from our side, we mainly help the service provider. So we have a little bit more expertise in that specific field. But if I look at biotechnology companies, they, of course, they want to pitch their technology, right? So they really need to go into depth. From my perspective, I still would say to keep it super simple on the website and maybe have like a specific portal where people
that have an access to this specific portal, they can read more. Because to be honest, when you're looking at a biotech company, they're, well, I could say that for most of the biotech companies, their target audience is investors, other research partners, or maybe like government institutions providing grants, those kinds of things. It's like a mandatory thing that you have a website at least. So these three kinds of audiences, they visit the website. And of course you want to
get in contact with the investor. if you're of course having a name, you're making a name for yourself, you have a super simple website, you could always make like a kind of like portal based kind of part. So they need to reach out before they can actually learn more. Of course, it should be really on the edge of teasing. So people reach out. Yeah, putting all the information there. I think that's what most of the companies do. They have like very extensive pages, like I mentioned, like infinite scrolls with information.
Try to stay away from it and only provide all that information when you know that people are really looking for it. Because that's also how you keep your website clean. think for 90 % of the cases, I would delete half of the pages of biotech companies, actually. yeah, that's basically the answer. All the scientific content gated on a specific kind of partner portal or something.
So when people are really interested, they can access it because it should be accessible. But only if you have like, that's for investors. Maybe on a side note for CDMOs and CROs, I'm a big fan of non-gated content. So that's maybe a different story. But if you're a biotech company, then you need to spark the interest of the investor.
Joachim Eeckhout (16:59)
Let's talk a bit about design now. So how do you strike the right balance between making a website visually appealing while also keeping it professional and credible, especially in a scientific environment like life sciences?
Maurice Van Rotterdam (17:13)
Yeah, it's a very thin line, I would say. it also really depends on our client. So of course, we have a UX design team. We have a web development team, So we could really go out of the box. But I know that.
Well, in our industry, we're a little bit conservative, I could say. So in that case, if we compare it, I think it's a good question. Referring back to your first question, what's different? So our websites are a little bit more conservative. And that's also okay. Also in terms of design, we're a little bit more conservative because it's really, well, it's scientific information. It's very serious business that we're actually trying to sell, right?
So in that case, that also resonates from our side. Of course, there are some influences from other industries that we can see. And there is a balance between these super ultimate kind of tech kind of websites. Maybe that's the best way to describe it, that you scroll through it and that everything is animating and that these things fly in. To be honest, I think it's not really working in our industry. It's also something that we already cover in our first meeting, so the kickoff meeting, saying, hey, this is the
this is the audience, is a scientist that is really looking to outsource their most precious experiment, like proof of concept study. Do they want to outsource it to something really flashy or a little bit more conservative and really all the information there and simple design? So we recently also launched a website from a Berlin company that we're working for.
We also, it is really on the edge. it's super scientific. It's super sharp, but it's not flashy. So I think that's the main part. So don't put glitter and glamour on it, but it should be like nowadays, right? To be honest, I see a lot of companies trying to go for really the Apple kind of websites. I think it's a little bit difficult to get all our information because we have so much menus. We have so much information that we put onto it.
I think that that's difficult. So that's also something that we keep in mind. And in terms of design, I think you really need to stand out. You can't use standard stock images anymore. I would highly recommend to invest a little bit more in hiring a professional photographer, videos, short videos, maybe some photos of the whole team, make a uniform from the whole company. And I can imagine, right, if you're a CDMO, cannot take
pictures of the bioreactors and the whole facilities. But of course, there's always possibilities, especially because in the end, especially in our business, the decisions where to go for company A or B is really based on personal connections. And it's really about the people behind the brand. So in the end, CDMOs you can select four.
In the end, they all do the same. And I think we learned quite recently from a report from Simon Kucher, which was presented during CDMO Live here in Rotterdam early this year, that there are specific elements that, that, ⁓ well, biotech companies they, they look at when they're looking at selecting the right partner. So if you can give your company really a face and also a face that resonates with how your company culture is.
then I think that's something that you can put in the design as well. So if it's really playful and those kinds of things, that's really how you could resonate. And usually what we do, 90 % of the times we actually develop a website. We also try to revamp a little bit the brand itself because for example, we see quite some trends into going into more gradients. So a lot of gradients are used.
And of course some small animations, kinds of things that you need to integrate it. But then you should first adapt a little bit to brand because otherwise you have very nice gradients in your website. And then you go into a conference and use a brochure that was developed two years ago with like a solid kind of color. So those kinds of things, it's also something to take in mind, right? When you're developing a new website, that maybe have a look, don't change everything. Don't change the whole logo and everything, but just, I know.
spicing up the ⁓ brand a little bit. think that's a good thing. Bringing it up to 2025. Usually we see that design-wise, brand-wise, four to five years, and then you need maybe a little bit of sparkle again to get it up to speed with the current brand. Maybe a long answer to your question, but I think it answers it.
Joachim Eeckhout (21:33)
You're already answering several
questions at the same time. But it's great and it's as a side way. So I recorded another episode recently with 4BaseBio and they did a rebranding in addition to a website redesign. And we were discussing this and of course it's the best decision you can make. The effort is a bit bigger, but then you don't have to go back later to updating your logo or this or that.
And basically you come with a full package of re-branding for everything, your brochures, your events, roll-ups, everything, and you have the same identity everywhere and this creates consistency. So yeah, I totally agree with your advice. It's a good choice.
Maurice Van Rotterdam (22:13)
Thanks.
Joachim Eeckhout (22:13)
So do you have an example of a client project you can mention? You don't have to say the name, maybe just explain the project where good UX and design made a measurable difference for the business.
Maurice Van Rotterdam (22:29)
Yeah, I could actually mention two because we also developed case studies that I share with our clients and potential clients. So I can mention them. So one of them is also one of my favorite clients. It's 3D HisTech. They're actually a company from Hungary. And I met them a couple of years back at Medica And the interesting thing is they supply
⁓ specific software and also really the equipment for, histology and those kinds of like analysis. they actually, we came in contact and their biggest kind of challenge was they wanted to have a converting website. So at that moment, it was like a little bit of an old fashioned website, I think developed somewhere at 2000, something like that. So.
What we did is we wrote the whole plan on how we could use UX design and also not only UX design, the homepage, right? But also like you have these specific pages that you know that those are the most important pages of the website because most of the people, will go for that specific product or they will go for specific things. So what we did is for the specific landing pages, we developed multiple A, B kind of tests.
and checked how we could, for example, optimize lowering the barriers of filling in a form because eventually sales is always asking for new leads and contact form fill-ins. To be honest, there are a lot of other things that you can do to lower the barriers to let people connect with you. A good example is, for example, a calendar invite ⁓ form on the website. You can directly...
Well, schedule a call with an expert, for example. In those ways, you can also lower the barrier to conversions. And in that case, we could actually multiply the amount of leads in the first half year after the launch of website by four. So before the website,
Now it's like four times more. So maybe good to mention, and I already mentioned it earlier, I'm a big fan of non-gated content. So all the content is still un-gated. But there are quite some smart tactics how you could, well, convert website visitors into potential, well, conversations. I try to avoid the word leads. I'd rather call it conversations.
another company that we work for, also one of my favorite actually is Insphero. It's a Swiss company, very famous ⁓ for their organ on the chip technology. a couple years ago I met them and also they wanted to rebrand and also do a new website. And there were a couple of things that were very important when we started developing the website. One of them was the loading speed. So their previous website was...
quite slow. And the other one was visibility of their main keywords. So together also with SEO experts, we developed a whole new website and we really focused on SEO. So in that case, we could also increase their visibility of their specific keywords with more than 50%. So they actually showed up more in search engines like Bing and Google. So that's also something that we did.
So it's on the one side more like a kind of design wise and the other part is more like a, Insphero example, is more like a technical part, I would say. And now you could also expand that, for example, with G-E-O. So that's basically how you could appear in large language models like Copilot and then ChatGPT. It is currently one of the hottest topics. A lot of people are actually reaching out like, hey, how can we end up in a
in larger language models, that's currently quite a topic.
Joachim Eeckhout (25:59)
We should do an episode about this maybe next time. But the technical side also is interesting. So what technical aspects are the most critical
Maurice Van Rotterdam (26:01)
Yeah.
Yeah, so really at the back end, try to keep things simple as possible. from our side, we're a big fan of the combination between WordPress and Elementor. There are a couple of reasons for it. The most important reason is it's the most frequently used combination worldwide. And that is for the reason that it is super user-friendly. So we can develop something.
non-gated it and our clients, can actually, when we launch the website, can, yeah, we can develop specific templates so they can work, for example, on creating an event page themselves, a vacancy or I can know a blog page themselves. So that is super important that when you're actually looking for a new website, whether it's with us or with another agency that after the launch, you can do also.
basic things yourself. think that's the most important thing when you're a marketeer and looking for a new website. Because if you always need to call your marketing agency for help, I wouldn't say that that's a good thing. So that's one of the most important things, really looking from a marketeer perspective. Really on a technical level, think, making sure that you check all boxes in terms of mobile friendliness. Make sure that you check all boxes on
loading speed, for example, usability on different kinds of devices I mentioned. Of course, when you're thinking about ranking well in Google or other search engines, there's this unofficial checklist of things that you should take into consideration. Also, like for example, specific image formats. This is a very basic thing, image formats that they shouldn't be PNG, but
like other different formats, like Web3 formats, because then the loading speed increases. So all these things, they, in a technical form, they should align. one of the things we see often going wrong when we do the analysis, because during the analysis, before we actually pitch or we develop an idea of how to develop a new website, we see a lot of We see a lot of plugins like
Everyone is installing plugins, plugins, plugins, and it really slows down your website. Another thing is website hosting. I think also something that is quite often overlooked or under looked, So really undervalued. Because let's say we have a biotech company or like a CRO together and our, most of our clients are in the US, but well, then we find out that our website doesn't load fast in the US.
just because we have a server that is not suitable for us. It happens quite often. So those are all the technical parts that you really need to make sure that they're covered.
Joachim Eeckhout (28:38)
If a company has limited budget, let's say an early stage biotech company wants to start, what do you recommend for them if they cannot hire an agency or what options they have?
Maurice Van Rotterdam (28:53)
Yeah. Well, as I mentioned, most of our clients are of course the commercial companies, but we also help biotech companies really in the early phases. And I could only give that one advice, which is really keep it super simple. So I would recommend only one page. So if it's really a biotech startup, I know you have like maximum 10 people in the team. One page is more than enough. Keep it really simple.
don't burn too much resources on the website. should, should look good. It should be super straightforward. Everything could be on one page. know some of the technology partners, some of the team pictures in there and some, some other things that they can actually visit. That's all you need. maybe like that, portal that I mentioned, ⁓ we, developed a couple of those websites, for us, it's really, ⁓ yeah, that's what I would recommend. super simple.
You don't need more, I would say. What's your vision on that Joachim Because of course you also work more with startups as well, right?
Joachim Eeckhout (29:48)
I think it has to look good. That's important. More than we think. Because you see a lot of companies or even the CEO trying to do it themselves. Yeah, exactly. But then it ended up just being not looking good. it might then create some issues when an investor connects to the website and wants to learn more.
Maurice Van Rotterdam (29:52)
Mm.
Yeah, my nephew can create a website.
Joachim Eeckhout (30:11)
They may miss opportunities just because of this and because they undervalue the aesthetic of a website, which is normal also for someone maybe who is focusing more on science. But see, I think the look is very important. As you said, keeping it simple is very important. So yeah, maybe even investing more effort into the brand's identity more than the website because then it's quite easy.
Maurice Van Rotterdam (30:14)
Yeah.
Yeah.
be honest, I couldn't agree more. I mentioned, did consulting in the past for like grant writing and venture capital. I could really see a difference between companies that had their brands well sorted out and the companies that I know, they were light blue, gray and white, ⁓ I would say. That's always a joke I make.
Yeah, it's really, if you stand out, if you have a good story, it's also like, if you're pitching, for example, your pitch deck, if it's all uniform, you see that it has like, well, you actually send the message that you're super professional and we take this serious, right? And it's also underestimated. It's more difficult to make something simple than keeping things really like, I don't know, exploding in terms of information. So of course you need to do...
spent quite some time on it, but in the end, the brand and the message, like the positioning, those kinds of things, it's very important that you get that across because you can, yeah, you only have one chance, right? If the investor lands on your website, it doesn't load or it doesn't load well on your iPhone. This investor say, well, yeah. Okay. Next one. Yeah, sure.
Joachim Eeckhout (31:40)
Next one.
So last question, how do you see life sciences website evolving over the next five years or 10 years?
Maurice Van Rotterdam (31:51)
Yeah, it's, think, a very difficult question to answer. I think when I look back the last five years until now, we see a lot of changes in design. We see downscaling in terms of information. So being more precise, more targeted. So that's what we see in last five years. So it would be easy to say that's also going to happen in the next five years. But to be honest, think also with all the developments in AI, think we're
This will really disrupt how we look at websites. So for example, in terms of UX design, it could also be that, and we're trying to implement that already in some of our clients' websites, is that you have like a menu where you can just, I don't know, ask questions to a specific agent on the website and is going to answer based on the database that is behind it. So those kinds of things, that's what we see. It's more tailored towards the specific audience itself. So those are more feature-based.
But of course, still the most important thing of the website or in the marketing strategy should be the website in that sense. Besides that, think what is also important is the fact of data analysis. It's going to be more important to analyze like, hey, this specific part of the website is not working. This is how we're going to optimize it. It will be more important to do more updates over time.
Do you have some expectations from your site maybe?
Joachim Eeckhout (33:09)
Now, I think you mentioned the AI, I think that's an interesting aspect. And like you, I don't know, but I think it will go in the right direction. That's what I feel because as you said, like if you look at the last five, 10 years, the websites in life sciences, they like gained three generations ⁓ because they were maybe lagging behind, you know, but now you start seeing some...
Maurice Van Rotterdam (33:17)
Yeah.
Mm-hmm.
Yeah, yeah, no, definitely.
Joachim Eeckhout (33:32)
really nice websites. There are also really great web development teams like yours, like others as well, who are doing an amazing job. So yeah, it's becoming much more modern, pleasing to the eye. And I expect this to keep going, basically, seeing more and more websites that look better.
Maurice Van Rotterdam (33:51)
think if you're currently like a CDMO or a CRO, then this is actually the right moment to jump on the train. Because if you're now the first one implementing an AI agent that could, for example, or like a chat on your website with all the information in there, you could really be a front runner, right? So then you can have the advantage of being the first. Because in the end, it will really disrupt. It's also something that we see.
For some of our clients, I already mentioned earlier, like in terms of ending up in search engines or the one that you end up in large language models, we see quite a difference in spend time on the website from people that land directly from a large language model. They spend much more time than when someone reaches their website from Google. So how we're going to use the website in general, I think is going to be different because you're going to, all the basic information you will probably find out.
via the large language models. But then the more in-depth questions you can ask in the website itself. So I think that that's really something that also from my end, I'm really looking forward to it. Because if you look at the buyer buying process in pharma outsourcing, most of the people are, there's like, it takes like five to six years actually to really select, right?
Let's say you're about a company and you start and you, I know you go to CPHI BIO Europe, you meet all these people and then you get a top three or top five. And then from that moment, you're, I know you have them in mind and you should stay top of mind as a service provider of all these people that might be your client in the future. think when you actually use your website in a way that is currently possible.
Joachim Eeckhout (35:21)
Hmm.
Maurice Van Rotterdam (35:29)
then it's also more easy to end up in that kind of top three because you can provide all the information. You are the one that can actually provide all the answers to the questions they have and that builds trust, right? Because in the end, it's all based on trust. So if you have something on your website or the usability of your website is far more optimal than from your competitors, then you have the advantage of building the trust online. ⁓
except for only the events where you can shake hands, drink a beer and have a good time and have a very good conversation. But I think it's well, with AI joining the game, think websites and other online platforms will be more dominant in how buyers will buy in our industry. So it will also change not only the website, but really how we buy in our industry.
Joachim Eeckhout (36:13)
Good.
Yeah, great point to conclude the podcast. Thanks a lot for joining.
Maurice Van Rotterdam (36:22)
Nice. Thanks for the fun questions, Joachim It's really a pleasure. It's really great, right? It's such a topic. I think we could continue for hours about this topic, ⁓ but it's really interesting. So yeah, that's good. Nice. Thank you.
Joachim Eeckhout (36:31)
Yes, I have to stop.
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