Mastering CDMO Digital Marketing in 2025: Sciential’s Maurice van Rotterdam Shares Expert Playbook

Maurice van Rotterdam, Co-Founder of Netherlands-based digital marketing agency Sciential, believes many pharma suppliers and CDMOs are still missing the mark when it comes to effective digital marketing.

“If I look at CDMO or pharma supplier websites, they have a broad service portfolio and multiple target audiences that need to land on a specific website… You can attract a lot of leads, but then they land on a landing page that is not working.”

In the latest PharmaSource podcast, Maurice shares his playbook for how pharma suppliers and CDMOs can level up their digital marketing game in 2025. He explains key strategies for developing a strong brand identity, distributing highly relevant content, and building personal connections instead of just pushing for leads.

Why Has Pharma Marketing Lagged in Digital?

Historically, the pharma industry has been slow to adopt digital marketing compared to other sectors. Business was primarily conducted at in-person events.

“Nobody wanted to shift that, because you did the business at the events,” says Maurice. “But during COVID and after COVID, we’ve seen that creating synergy between online and in-person events is like one plus one is three instead of two.”

He notes that many companies are now optimizing their websites as a first step, but argues there is much more they can do to get their message across and stand out from competitors.

Positioning Your Brand for Success

For pharma suppliers undergoing mergers and acquisitions or expanding their capabilities, branding becomes especially critical. Maurice advises:

“Most of the time, when these companies receive or go through an M&A, or they combine multiple companies, you need to put that under one umbrella. And then you have all these different target audiences. For each of these divisions, you need to develop a specific plan.”

“It’s not just one message that will fit all. Use the umbrella brand but also be exceptionally relevant for the specific target audience that you’re serving.”

Rather than just listing technical capabilities, Maurice recommends personalizing the brand. “In the end, people are talking to your competitors as well. They’re going to decide for the one they most trust. You need to translate the culture and basically the soul of the company inside out.”

Identifying the Right Target Audience

Targeting the ideal customers at the right stage is crucial but challenging for CDMOs. For very early-stage companies, Maurice suggests a hub-based approach:

“80% of the biotech companies are clustered in 10 hubs in Europe and maybe 4-5 in the US. Use these things to highlight yourself in these clusters.”

For later-stage companies, he advises using account-based marketing to reach the most promising leads. “Make lists of these companies. Besides your general marketing campaigns, use ABM to really reach your most ideal clients.”

Crafting Compelling Content

To capture attention in a crowded market, Maurice offers tips for creating effective content:

“Put all the information into one infographic. People can look at the infographic and translate it from there.”

“Webinars are still very important, especially in the late stage buyer journey, because you’re building up a preference with them, a personal connection. It’s not only sharing content, but it’s also building the personal connection.”

He suggests involving subject matter experts to provide valuable insights. “The business developers, they learn when they go to events. They distribute that to marketers and also to the experts. You get a lot of new ideas to share relevant and unique content.”

Generating Demand vs. Just Collecting Leads

Many marketers still focus on gated content and gathering email addresses as a primary metric. But Maurice advocates a different approach:

“I’m a true believer that when they have the feeling that you can provide value, because they read these papers or one-pagers, that’s the moment they reach out to someone from a company. It’s a much stronger base to start your customer journey.”

“There’s much more value in the people that you already have in your database and nurturing them down towards the ready-to-buy state than just capturing new leads.”

He recommends measuring uplift in brand awareness and preference over time through surveys. “In a quarter to six months, you can see the uplift in brand awareness level, and you can see the uplift in preference.”

Channels to Watch in 2025

Looking ahead, Maurice predicts LinkedIn will remain the most important platform for B2B pharma marketing in 2025, but notes some key trends to leverage:

“If you can create personalized videos, just take a short video, explain something about the trend that you see yourself, post it on LinkedIn, and you will see it yourself. It’s going to be distributed quite broadly, because that’s where LinkedIn wants to go.”

He also sees continued opportunities in search advertising, particularly on Bing, as well as more targeted email marketing. “Don’t overload, but be very precise, relevant, and maybe do it more on a personal note. Use very segmented emails that are tailormade.”

Finally, Maurice advises aligning digital campaigns with a more selective approach to events. “Companies are investing more in fewer events, being more specific. If you’re attending an event, you invest in a booth, then you could also use digital marketing in terms of advertising, to make sure that you boost traffic to your booth.”

PharmaSource Podcast

Listen to the PharmaSource Podcast  to stay up-to-date with the latest trends and best practices shaping biopharma outsourcing.

Every episode interviews experts, researchers and innovators who share their perspectives on the essential issues you need to know about.

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