Business Development Agencies: The Underrated Partners in Research Advancement
You’re dedicated to helping the researchers, doctors, and program leaders at your institution drive innovation in bioscience and healthcare, and the agency you hire should have the same priority. Let’s take a look at how a business development agency can serve as the essential “ingredient” in your organization’s research advancement efforts.
Common challenges with agency services
Maybe you’ve partnered with an agency for digital marketing, website design, sales support, or business consulting services. Traditional service agencies can be a great partner when your organization requires specific services–but many leaders in healthcare express frustration with the limitations of their partnered agencies. You can’t settle for agencies who fail to see the big picture when it comes to your team’s research and development goals.
You need a partner with:
- A diverse range of services - It’s not efficient for managers within your institution to juggle a variety of different vendors for one-off services. Rather, you need a business development agency who can provide all of the support needed to drive progress with community engagement, funding campaigns, and research projects.
- An innovator mindset - It doesn’t make sense to hire an agency that’s stuck in the past with its tech stack, methodologies, and understanding of todays’ rapidly evolving business landscape. You need an agency dedicated to developing solutions to maximize your organizations’ funding and research efforts flourish.
- Extensive knowledge of your industry - An agency with proven experience working with hospitals and research institutions will understand the way that grants and funding cycles dictate research initiatives and be more equipped to support campaigns that ultimately help your organization secure more funds.
Here’s where a business development agency can serve as a key player in the growth of your organization’s research. Unlike traditional agencies, who often specialize in isolated services, business development agencies aim to address organizations’ needs more comprehensively. Full-service business development agencies employ multi-departmental teams that can offer services that range from website support, to CRM strategy, to funding enablement. They aim to serve as a one-stop-shop to equip your institution with better tools, strategies, and digital infrastructure to drive progress.
What can a business development agency do for you?
A business development agency can drive your institution's research progress with strategic initiatives to maximize the potential of research teams. By leveraging cutting-edge tools, methodologies, and insights, they can support the growth and expansion of research capabilities, helping your institution achieve groundbreaking results in your field.
Not all business development agencies provide the same services, but a full-service agency can often help do the following:
Optimize tech stacks
Research projects often rely on multiple digital platforms and softwares to organize funding campaigns, create progress reports, plan events, and unify their team. A good business development agency will help cut down on unnecessary subscriptions, implement automated processes to save time, and help research and funding teams optimize their use of any necessary platforms so they work seamlessly together. This means automating routine tasks, simplifying workflows, and ensuring that every digital component of your organization is functioning at peak performance.
Business development agencies might be able to streamline and optimize your use of softwares such as:
- Data management platforms like Airtable
- Marketing and sales automation
- Customer relationship management platforms (CRM)
- Learning management systems (LMS)
Some agencies also provide UX and UI design, website development, and overall CMS support services.
Unify your data
Centralized project data is crucial for making informed decisions in funding outreach strategies. A business development agency can assist in integrating disparate data sources, ensuring that all information is consolidated and easily accessible.
Facilitate HIPAA and ADA Compliance
While working with you to improve your tech stack and data visibility, an expert business development agency should make it easy for your organization to adhere to regulatory compliance requirements, such as HIPAA and ADA compliance. An agency with extensive knowledge of these standards can help you navigate which applications meet your security needs and which ones to avoid. They can also help you develop data-driven growth strategies without jeopardizing your data compliance.
Improve reports
Reporting is crucial for measuring the success of your outreach efforts, as well as tracking important milestones in your institution's research discoveries. Business development agencies can leverage campaign data to create custom reports that provide insights into audience behavior and preferences. Ultimately, this allows for more informed improvement of educational offerings and clearer indications of when teams hit landmarks in their research.
Increase engagement in webinars and educational material
Communicating your research successes to funders is crucial for securing grants. A good business development agency will work with you to boost webinar attendance and engagement with educational content.
By leveraging targeted outreach strategies, such as personalized invitations and follow-ups, an agency can help you attract the right audience to your webinars. Additionally, they can assist in crafting compelling content that resonates with viewers, ensuring that the material is not only informative but also engaging and memorable.
Leverage AI to increase bandwidth
By cutting down on manual tasks, AI can empower research teams with limited bandwidth to make more progress on their work. A good business development agency should be committed to leveraging emerging AI tools to help research teams expand the reach of their funding campaigns. Those with experience in your industry might assist you in determining which AI tools are most effective for fostering growth within your organization.
Ready to find a top quality agency?
Business development agencies can vary in their provided services, in-house skillset, pricing, and approach to strategy. Most importantly, only some business development agencies are equipped to provide services tailored to the unique needs of hospitals and research institutions. Don’t hesitate to reach out if you’d like more guidance finding an agency that’s a perfect fit for your organization.
