Sophion Bioscience needed a new website to communicate their new position, promote their quality products in a more inspiring way, and drive sales efforts more effectively. Sophion delivers ion channel technology to some of the biggest pharmaceutical companies in the world and in the beginning of the year, they prepared for a separation from their mother company Biolin Scientific. As a part of this separation, Sophion was looking to establish their own position and identity in the market. We helped Sophion achieve this by developing a new, modern sales-oriented website that positions them as a key player in the market.

Creating a new position

Based on an explorative workshop with Sophion and analysis of existing material, we identified four potential strategic positions:

Specialist

The leading specialist within ion channels guaranteeing the best solution to the customers’ specific needs.

Optimization

The alternative that optimizes the customers’ test periods and development of new products.

Partnership

A long-term partner that helps the customer through relations, quick, and effective service.

Enabling

The alternative that makes the customers’ job easy – before, during, and after the purchase.

Together with Sophion, we chose the specialist position and designed the new website to communicate Sophion as the leading ion channel specialist.

Creating specialist position through information architecture

As the strategy for the new website was to position Sophion as a specialist brand, we devoted a lot of attention to the information architecture of the site. Deciding what information to prioritize and what to tone down is always crucial when developing websites, as the content that are in focus forms the brand and the users’ immediate opinion. Thus, the information architecture allows the brand to communicate and take different positions, by prioritizing certain content over others.

In this case, we wanted to guide the user to Sophion’s products in the fastest and most intuitive way, as we believed that their top quality products were the best way to express their specialist position. This is due to the fact that the two products reduce the complexity of a highly technological field and make it more easy to operate in.

Displaying your strengths in the right away

One of the key challenges for brands operating in complex areas, is to reduce the complexity and make it easy for the user to understand and navigate in. To meet this challenge, Sophion works with two entries to the field of ion channels; product-based and disease area-based (i.e. areas of disease in which ion channels can be used). This way of working with ion channels is much more customer-oriented, as it allows customers to find the right ion channel and product based on either technology or needs. As this unique approach emphasize Sophion’s specialist position, we placed both Sophion’s two main products (QPatch and Qube) and the disease areas on the front page. By doing this, the front page works as a menu that gives the users easy access to relevant information.

Digital experience boosts business

Since the launch in May, Sophion has already experienced a significant increase in the number of requests to buy a product compared to last year.

“Since the new website was launched, we have experienced an impressive increase in the number of requests for pricing and tenders. The new website has indeed optimized our sales noticeable and created a unique position for us in the market.”

Thomas Binzer, Vice President of R&D and Marketing
Sophion Bioscience

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To boost sales, we implemented “call to action” elements on every relevant page. On all product related pages, we placed a contact button and the opportunity to request the price on the specific product right away. This function allows Sophion to identify new leads and face-to-face meetings with potential customers, and to meet their needs more effectively. Likewise, through a smart use of internal links, the user is easily guided to relevant information, such as related products, recent publications, and other areas of application to maintain and foster the curiosity.

From wireframes to final website

The overall development of the website fell in four phases:

1. Positioning

Initially, we developed the future position for Sophion and used it as the guiding principle in every following phase

2. Information architecture and wireframes

We designed the overall structure of the website – what pages are primary and which are secondary – and developed wireframes to determine the hierarchy and structure of the individual page

3. Graphic design

We designed the visual look of the website and focused on achieving a clean, clinical look without it becoming boring

4. Implementing the website

We coded the new design and functionalities from scratch with relevant Google Analytics measures allowing Sophion to track the traffic and performance of each page

Expressing the brand through visual elements

To further strengthen Sophion’s position as the leading ion channel specialist, we developed a photo brief and had both close-up and full-scale product photos taken for the website. As a specialist brand, Sophion has deep and detailed technological knowledge, and manage to reduce otherwise complex operations into easily operated products. This deep and detailed knowledge was exactly what we wanted the close-up photos to show, and as a result they zoom in on the details and complexity of the products.

The full-scale photos were photoshopped into a clinic environment to create the same clinical but sophisticated look as the rest of Sophion’s new website. Combined, the new photos emphasize Sophion’s position as the leading specialists.

Targeting customers by design

As another component to the visual expression on Sophion’s new website, we designed a series of icons for the different disease areas within Sophion’s expertise. The purpose of the icons was to reduce complexity and present the disease areas in a easy and relevant way to potential customers. Thus, the icons was a central part of the customer centric approach of the website.

Are you looking to establish a new position in your market, or to strengthen your current presence? Don’t hesitate to call our CEO Nikolaj Stagis to hear how we can help – whether it is a new strategy, brand brand positioning, visual identity, or communications effort.