How to sell to Heads of Marketing at Biotech companies
Heads of Marketing in biotech are primarily measured on lead generation metrics, particularly the number of qualified leads entering the sales funnel. They respond to outreach that demonstrates a clear understanding of the complexities of marketing within the life sciences sector, such as regulatory hurdles and the need for compliance in messaging.
Written and maintained by the SoloRiff team, who build outbound software and run outbound with it. The figures below are our own: we measured 573 biotech company domains over public DNS on 2026-09-03. Last updated 2026-09-03.
What actually hurts
- navigating regulatory hurdles
- limited lead generation
- competing for attention in a crowded market
- understanding complex clinical data
The playbook
- 01
Identify recent funding announcements
Search for biotech companies that have recently secured funding, as they are likely ramping up marketing efforts. Use databases like Crunchbase or PitchBook to filter for companies that raised over $5 million in the last quarter.
- 02
Analyze their product pipeline
Review the company’s clinical trial results or product launches, focusing on those in late-stage development. This insight will help you tailor your messaging around their marketing needs for specific products that are nearing market entry.
- 03
Address compliance challenges directly
Craft your outreach to highlight how your solution can alleviate specific regulatory compliance issues that biotech marketers face. Mention recent changes in FDA regulations that may impact their marketing strategies.
- 04
Leverage industry events participation
Identify if the target company is participating in upcoming biotech conferences or webinars. Use this as a hook in your outreach, suggesting a brief call to discuss how they can maximize lead generation before the event.
- 05
Propose a tailored marketing strategy
In your follow-up, propose a specific marketing strategy that aligns with their current goals. If they recently launched a new product, suggest discussing targeted campaigns that could drive awareness and engagement among healthcare professionals.
Can biotech companies even receive your mail?
We measured the DNS of 573 biotech companies, sampled evenly across company sizes, to see how many authenticate their own email. It matters in both directions: a domain that does not authenticate is a domain whose team is used to mail going missing — and if your own domain is in the gap, yours is the mail going missing.
Publishes a DMARC policy of quarantine or reject — the domain actually asks receivers to act on failures.
The gap is the finding: 27% of 1–10-person companies against 84.3% of the largest — 57 points apart. Small companies are where the unauthenticated domains are, and small companies are who most cold outreach is aimed at.
Where does your domain sit?
Same three lookups, run live against your domain. Nothing is stored and nothing is emailed to you.
How this was measured
Company domains were sampled within employee-count bands, then queried over public DNS for SPF (TXT at the apex), DMARC (TXT at _dmarc.) and MX. One domain per company, deduplicated. Anyone can reproduce any single row of this with dig.
DKIM is deliberately absent. A DKIM key lives under a selector that cannot be enumerated from outside the domain, so a company with flawless DKIM under a name we did not guess would be counted as having none. That would measure our guess list, not the industry.
Domains with no MX record are excluded rather than counted as failures — parked and redirect-only domains would otherwise drag every figure down and make the result an artefact of the sample.
Sampled within bands, so this describes the population of companies, not of employees: a 10-person company counts once, as does a 10,000-person one. Each band is at least 60 domains; bands below that are not published. Figures are percentages of the sample, not of the whole industry, and we publish no company names — only counts.
Measured 2026-09-03. Re-measured monthly.
The full census across every industry — sortable, with sample sizes, free to reuse under CC BY 4.0.
Subject lines that fit
- Boost your lead generation
- Navigating biotech marketing challenges
- Strategies for clinical product launches
Questions
- Why do Heads of Marketing in biotech avoid cold outreach?
- Heads of Marketing in biotech often receive numerous unsolicited messages and may prioritize established relationships or referrals. They are wary of outreach that doesn't demonstrate a clear understanding of their industry-specific challenges, such as regulatory compliance and clinical data interpretation.
- What marketing channels are most effective in biotech?
- Digital channels like webinars, targeted email campaigns, and content marketing are particularly effective in biotech. These channels allow for the dissemination of complex information in an engaging format, crucial for reaching healthcare professionals and decision-makers.
- What challenges do biotech marketers face with lead generation?
- Biotech marketers often struggle with generating leads due to the lengthy sales cycles and the need to educate potential clients on complex products. Additionally, they face challenges in differentiating their offerings in a highly specialized market.
- How do compliance issues impact biotech marketing strategies?
- Compliance issues can significantly limit the types of messages and channels that biotech marketers can use. Marketers must ensure that all communications adhere to strict regulations, which can restrict creativity and increase the complexity of campaign planning.
Or have it run itself
SoloRiff does every step above on its own — finds the companies, finds the people, writes each of them individually, and handles the replies. Drop your URL and watch it work before you sign up for anything.
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