Breaking the Marketing Mold: Holley Miller Of Grey Matter Marketing On 5 Innovative & Non-Traditional Marketing Strategies That Can Engage Audiences Like Never Before
An Interview with Chad Silverstein
Define a Category, Don’t Just Compete
Stop trying to beat the competition on features or price. If you’re just a slightly better version of what’s already out there, you’re playing the wrong game. Instead, create a category that forces a choice, not a comparison. Legendary companies solve new, critical problems that make the competition irrelevant.
Traditional marketing methods are no longer sufficient in today’s dynamic and fast-evolving market. To truly engage and captivate audiences, businesses need to think outside the box and adopt innovative and non-traditional marketing strategies. What are these strategies, and how can they transform audience engagement? I had the pleasure of interviewing Holley Miller, President and Founder of Grey Matter Marketing.
Holley Miller is a top-performing and award-winning commercial growth expert with a distinguished 25-year life sciences career. She has a proven record using brain science and category design to accelerate revenue growth and company valuations. Since founding Grey Matter Marketing, Inc. in 2006, Holley has partnered with dozens of life sciences companies to disrupt the status quo, drive commercial performance, and ultimately advance the standard of healthcare.
Thank you so much for joining us in this interview series! To start, could you share when and how you got started in marketing?
I was pursuing a double major in political science and visual arts. The former was my practical degree, the latter was my fun degree. The game plan was to go to law school, but I realized that was not the career I felt passionate about pursuing. I told my parents I was going to defer law school for a year and ended up at a big advertising agency in NYC. I worked on a Big Tobacco account, which I found very unsatisfying, but the experience also confirmed that law school was not the career path for me.
After a detour working at Club Med in Mexico and the Caribbean, I ended up in California and found myself in the marketing department at the world’s first surgical robotics company. It was serendipity, but I found my calling. It was marketing, but in the context of advancing healthcare.
What has been the biggest shift in the marketing industry, and can you give us an example of how it impacted you?
It probably goes without saying that COVID-19 marked a pivotal time in history. The pandemic forever changed the way life sciences companies do business. Prior to the pandemic, change was already starting to shake up the industry, and now a new healthcare economy has fully emerged.
The life sciences industry has historically followed a sales-centric business model. The more revenue you want, the more sales reps you hire. Marketing was often considered a sales support function, responsible for tradeshows, collateral, sales decks, etc. Marketing was seen as a P&L expense.
But the efficacy of this legacy sales-led model is dwindling in the realities of this new healthcare economy. Let’s look at the key performance metrics at large in the life sciences industry right now:
- Two-thirds of CEOs report less than 60% of sales reps are consistently hitting quotas which is probably why earnings guidance is wrong about 70% of the time.
- The estimated number of job cuts across the sector has surpassed 20,000 in just the past four months.
- Bankruptcies have increased 3x in the past 10 years.
Those are dismal stats. And when business wasn’t going well, marketing expenses and programs were often the first to be cut.
We were able to show clients and prospective clients that marketing is a crucial driver of the business strategy, given changes in the buying process for hospitals, providers, and patients. The companies that are not among the causalities mentioned above have made an intentional decision to chart a different path to unlock different outcomes — with marketing taking center stage.
Life sciences companies are now selling to a buyer-driven economy. If you want to make big revenue, your company must begin solving big problems for high-level executives. The world of business is no longer about communication or relationships; it’s about engagement and expertise. Relationships are built on trust, not physical presence of a sales rep, and trust is cultivated through expertise that helps business leaders navigate this new reality.
These marketing-driven companies do not allow themselves to compete against legacy solutions in the current healthcare landscape because they’re not trying to be incrementally better than something that already exists in the market.
Instead, they focus on solving a problem that, if solved, would drive people to rapidly reject the current standard of care and embrace something new to transform them from today’s suboptimal experience to a different and better future.
Can you explain why it’s essential for businesses to break away from traditional marketing and embrace new strategies?
In August of this year, we published the 2024 State of Life Sciences C-Suite Report, in which we assessed how successfully, or unsuccessfully, the legacy commercial strategy was in helping them navigate the new healthcare economy. What was clear was that companies continue to struggle to meet revenue goals, even despite an 11.75% Compound Annual Growth Rate (CAGR) in the global life sciences market.
Two-thirds of C-Suite executives reported that less than 60% of sales reps are consistently hitting quotas, leaving a significant amount of possible top-line revenue on the table. In addition, in a report published by McKinsey, data revealed that more than 50% of failed product launches didn’t solve a valid customer problem or showed little to no differentiation. This is a major reason that two-thirds of product launches fail to meet pre-launch forecasts in their first year on the market. Of forecasts that lagged in year one, 78% continue to lag in year two, and 70% lag in year three.
Savvy leaders know they have no choice but to break away from the legacy commercial model if they stand a chance of turning around their business performance.
Could you share and briefly explain the first major change you made to break the trend of traditional marketing that was not so common?
We leaned into this sobering statement: Successful companies don’t get people to buy or use your product. They get people to change their behavior.
Because the faster you can get people to reject the current status quo and embrace a different solution that can transform their world, the faster your business grows.
We met with a lot of resistance early on because the life sciences industry is built on data, so to tell a CEO their clinical data didn’t matter was pretty alarming to them. We had to do a lot of educating, about how market adoption is built on a human’s ability to change behavior, which has very little to do with data.
This required companies to rethink marketing, rethink sales, and embrace an entirely different lens in order to increase their odds of a successful product launch and commercial growth.
What specific results did you see after implementing this change?
Having this new lens and being very clear about what we believe and why it produces legendary results for our clients helped us assess if a potential client would be a good fit for Grey Matter and category design.
We changed how we approached and engaged with potential new clients, which was more selective. We would say, “We work exclusively with life sciences CEOs who want to transform the standard of healthcare. We specialize in category design which is fundamentally about creating a different future in healthcare with radically different products that unlock exponential value for providers and patients — as well as for your company. It’s a very specialized business, so we would welcome the opportunity to speak with you further to learn more about the company’s goals and needs, and to see if you would be a good fit.”
It helped us understand who really bought into this idea of category design as a new commercial growth strategy. Because most companies choose to compete in an existing category. This forces a comparison between features to try to demonstrate you are better, instead of different. Better is negotiable; different is not.
Category design is a proven business strategy that helps create a unique company, an unrivaled product solution, and an entirely new market space or segment. This matters because “Category Kings” who introduce new categories grow revenue 4x faster and market cap 6x faster than other companies and have the potential to own 76% of the market valuation.
We made it very clear we were offering them a proven pathway that delivers outcomes worth millions, not thousands, of dollars. By doing this, we are forcing a choice between an outcome they desire that we could help them achieve, or the legacy model focused on competing and leveraging traditional marketing vendors. They’re two very different things.
How do you ensure that these new marketing strategies resonate with your target audience?
Listening is one of the most underrated skills in business. Pay careful attention to your audience’s word choices. Listen to how they describe their life, their job, their challenges, their fears, and their vision of success. “Tell me more” is one of the most effective questions to ask your customers or stakeholders to extract the deepest insights when they share feedback and suggestions. Then consistently use their exact lexicon in all forms of communication. This will drive your audience to believe you understand them better than any other option, and therefore, you can uniquely solve their problem to unlock their desired outcome.
Can you share an example of something you tried that didn’t deliver expected results or ended up becoming a financial burden, and what you learned from that experience?
As part of a comprehensive business development effort, we invested in sponsored speaking opportunities at several life sciences marketing conferences. Our goal was to amplify the problem that we were helping our clients to solve, and to demonstrate how category design was an optimal solution to overcome their challenges. While these endeavors were successful in certain respects — we received a very positive response to our presentations, including the highest ratings based on attendee feedback — they ultimately did not translate to securing new clients.
When we looked deeper into the attendees, we realized that the specific job functions of the audience members did not have the buying power we needed. Despite them being engaged in our content, it was not within their scope of responsibilities to bring in a commercial growth strategy partner like our firm. While this wasn’t a financial burden for us, it also didn’t deliver the ROI we expected. However, it did reinforce an important learning — it’s critical to know exactly who your audience is, and to ensure they are the ones you’re selling to during every encounter.
Great. Now, let’s dive into the heart of our interview. Could you list “5 Innovative & Non-Traditional Marketing Strategies That Can Engage Audiences Like Never Before”?
(Video: https://drive.google.com/drive/folders/1ZB9dNWC86zh5SccSOYA910_RdgcD2aRO)
Everything we help our clients do is designed with a singular goal in mind: to make them a legendary company.
Most life sciences companies think their problem is telling a better story. CEOs come to us when they’re facing unreliable revenue, struggling to raise capital, or watching their valuation stay lower than it should be. But when I ask them, “What makes your company legendary?” — I usually get crickets. And that’s the real issue.
It’s not about being better. To paraphrase Steve Jobs, “what kind of dent are you going to put in the universe?” Said another way, “how are you going to change the world?” So, if you’re looking to engage your audience in a way that’s not just flashy but actually transformational, here are five strategies you should consider:
1. Define a Category, Don’t Just Compete
Stop trying to beat the competition on features or price. If you’re just a slightly better version of what’s already out there, you’re playing the wrong game. Instead, create a category that forces a choice, not a comparison. Legendary companies solve new, critical problems that make the competition irrelevant.
2. Lead with What You Make Happen, Not What You Make
Here’s the thing: your product isn’t the hero of the story — what it enables is. When you communicate the outcome you create, not just the features of your device, drug, or therapy, you turn a “nice-to-have” product into a “must-have.” Focus on how your solution radically changes the world for your customers.
3. Harness the Power of Real-World Impact Stories
Data is great, but humans connect with stories. Use real-world case studies to show how your product transforms patient outcomes, reduces costs, or expands access. Make it personal. If clinicians and investors can’t see the tangible impact you’re having, they won’t care about what you’re selling.
4. Create Urgency Around a Big Problem
If there’s no sense of urgency to change, you’re not going to move the needle. Clearly communicate the massive problem you’re solving and why it matters today. If your product doesn’t address a critical issue that’s impacting patient care or clinical outcomes, then why should anyone pay attention?
5. Align Your Company’s Purpose with a Radical Vision
Your audience (investors, clinicians, patients) needs to believe that your success will radically change the standard of care. Don’t just talk about how you’ll improve outcomes — that’s table stakes. Paint a picture of the future where your solution transforms the landscape. That’s what people will rally behind.
Bottom line? It’s not about what you make — it’s about what you make happen. The more clarity you have around the big problem you solve and the transformative outcomes you deliver, the more you’ll engage the right audience like never before. They will join your worthy cause to change the standard of care — which, in turn, will change your business outcomes and company’s trajectory.
What challenges might companies face when transitioning away from traditional marketing strategies, and how can they overcome them?
Mindset Shift: From Competing to Creating
One of the biggest hurdles is the mental shift required to move from a “competing” mindset — where companies focus on being incrementally better — to a “creating” mindset, where they aim to create a new category. Many life sciences companies are entrenched in the belief that product features or price will drive market share. However, creating a new category involves identifying an urgent problem and providing a solution that redefines the market, making existing competitors irrelevant.
Building Organizational Alignment
Successful category design requires alignment across all departments, especially sales, marketing, R&D, and the C-Suite. Without this, even the most innovative product will experience anemic adoption in the market. Life sciences companies often struggle to create this alignment because traditional sales-led models silo these functions, making it difficult to integrate and execute a cohesive category-building strategy.
Wrong Priority: Brand vs Category
Most companies don’t realize that the category makes the brand; not the other way around. They default to the legacy lens of always leading with the brand. However, the more valuable the category, the more valuable the brand. Google’s brand is only valuable in the context of the category it created and dominates, which is Search. Intuitive Surgical’s da Vinci brand is only valuable in the context of the category it created and dominates, which is soft tissue surgical robotics. [Note: Google’s market cap is $1.8 trillion. Intuitive Surgical’s market cap is $172 billion.] Branding should be used in conjunction with the new and different category you are creating. The category and brand have to come together in some meaningful way for the customer, consumer, or user.
How do you measure the success and ROI of these new marketing strategies?
Category design is a marathon not a sprint. So there has to be executive alignment around this longer-term. You’re not going to be able to flip a switch at scale. And not all commercial strategies will generate traditional ROI, which CFOs don’t like to hear. One of the most effective techniques for assessing value is to continue to ask the question “to what end?” until you connect the activity to a line on the P&L statement. Even if you can’t distill each activity down to a numerical value, it’s important to understand the business and financial motivation behind it. For example, if you want to fund a webinar series, how might you determine if this is a worthwhile investment beyond the number of participants you might expect to generate? If you can determine that webinar participants are 2x as likely to request a product demo than those that attend an industry tradeshow, then you can point to a material connection between the investment in webinars and revenue.
And one proven fact that we spoke about earlier, but is worth repeating, is that when companies successfully create a new category, they can grow revenue 4x faster and market cap 6x faster than other companies and can earn 76% of the market valuation.
Looking forward, how do you see the role of innovative marketing evolving in the next 5–10 years?
I know we hear and talk a lot about the role of AI, but I want to talk about Gen Z. These are people born between 1997 and 2012.
They represent:
- 25% of the world’s population.
- $7 trillion or more in purchasing influence.
- And will comprise 27% of the workforce by 2025.
They’re the “most” generation in history: most racially and ethnically diverse, most educated, most digitally savvy, and the most nonconformist. They’ve also faced numerous challenges other generations haven’t. In time, they will redefine politics, the economy, the workplace, marketing, and certainly, healthcare.
A growing mistrust among American adults, and GenZ’ers in particular, is leading them to turn to their community of peers and expert influencers online for help with everything from cold remedies and mental health advice to demystifying complex diseases.
- GenZ’ers are 2X more likely than their 26+ year old counterparts and 4X more than people 50+ years old to turn to social media before going to their doctor.
- In fact, only 50% say they turn to medical professionals for health advice.
- 40% have tried at least one form of alternative medicine.
- 50% are being treated for at least one mental health issue. (2x more than other generations).
- And more than half of GenZ’ers say they would share wearable device data with either their health insurer, a third-party app, or retail health clinic — way more than other generations.
So why does this matter? With growing distrust in the American healthcare system, easy-to-use technologies and democratized information sharing online are shifting trust away from medical experts and traditional systems and toward people and spaces that feel more approachable.
These are clearly big issues, but what opportunities does this open up for marketing in the life sciences space to meet Gen Z where they are and build trust?
- Embrace media channels and content strategies that help democratize and demystify the healthcare journey.
- Lean into online communities that have become essential resources for many.
- Stay abreast of health-related topics trending on social media to address them proactively or be ready to discuss if asked.
- Diversity matters: When GenZ’ers do interact with medical professionals, they want to share characteristics with them — whether that is ethnicity, gender, or sexual orientation. As such, be sure to educate and train a more diverse group of healthcare providers.
- Ensure all communications are written in as straightforward, easy-to-digest wording as possible.
- Additionally, be sure to use language that is inclusive, affirming, nurturing, soothing, and restorative.
This represents some seismic shifts in the way many life sciences companies develop and market new devices, drugs, and therapies.
But ignore this segment at your own peril.
What advice would you give to business leaders who are hesitant to move away from traditional marketing methods?
Honestly, if keeping your job is important to you, you don’t really have a choice. The industry is in turmoil. Overcoming the revenue reliability crisis requires more than just adjusting financial incentives for sales reps or moving manufacturing offshore. Addressing these hardships demands a holistic reevaluation of how companies engage with their markets and innovate within their commercial models.
If you want to connect with your target audience and drive adoption, let me give you one piece of advice: Stop explaining and start inspiring. In healthcare, focus on how you can make your customer (the physician) a hero and propel them and their patients into a better future. Theodore Levitt, Harvard Business School Professor and an iconoclastic figure in the field of marketing, famously said, “People don’t want quarter-inch drills. They want quarter-inch holes.” But companies are obsessed with promoting their latest and greatest product features. They (wrongly) believe that features are what people buy, but in reality, people don’t care what you make. They only care about what you make happen for them. Their only interest is in what fixes their problem, and the greater the problem you can solve, the more irreplaceable you become.
This is the heart of what we do for our clients as the exclusive life sciences category design firm — we create a new category that forces a choice and makes the competition irrelevant. Understanding what motivates buying behaviors, so that you can successfully change it, is critical to de-risking your strategy and driving meaningful change, so you can ultimately create value for the community you’re dedicated to serving.
Can you share any upcoming initiatives or plans you have for further innovating your marketing strategies?
I mentioned earlier that, in August of this year, we published an original piece of IP, in the form of a survey of life sciences industry C-Suite executives. This was an important milestone, because we brought to light critical real-world perspectives about the revenue reliability crisis and provided actionable insights regarding how it can be effectively overcome. To further our commitment to providing the industry with intelligence that can advance commercial marketing strategy, we’re pleased to be undertaking the challenge again, and plan to publish an additional, new report in 2025, in which we’ll explore more of the challenges impeding the success of commercial marketing strategies, in order to help more life sciences executives learn how to catalyze and sustain reliable revenue and generate market cap growth.
How can our readers follow your work and learn more about your approaches to modern marketing?
I’m committed to ensuring the industry has access to our firm’s resources and insights. I invite people to view these for free through my LinkedIn at https://www.linkedin.com/in/holleymalia, as well as the Grey Matter Marketing website — https://www.greymattermarketing.com — and LinkedIn page — https://www.linkedin.com/company/grey-matter-marketing-inc-. I would also be pleased to speak to anyone interested in learning more about how category design can help their company overcome the reliable revenue crisis. Please feel free to email me at [email protected].
This was great. Thank you so much for the time you spent sharing with us.
About the Interviewer: Chad Silverstein, a seasoned entrepreneur with over two decades of experience as the Founder and CEO of multiple companies. He launched Choice Recovery, Inc., a healthcare collection agency, while going to The Ohio State University, His team earned national recognition, twice being ranked as the #1 business to work for in Central Ohio. In 2018, Chad launched [re]start, a career development platform connecting thousands of individuals in collections with meaningful employment opportunities, He sold Choice Recovery on his 25th anniversary and in 2023, sold the majority interest in [re]start so he can focus his transition to Built to Lead as an Executive Leadership Coach. Learn more at www.chadsilverstein.com
Breaking the Marketing Mold: Holley Miller Of Grey Matter Marketing On 5 Innovative &… was originally published in Authority Magazine on Medium, where people are continuing the conversation by highlighting and responding to this story.