An advanced medical device marketing agency will mix fact-based and relationship based marketing, communicating value propositions, and moving online.

The professionals at a successful healthcare marketing agency know that they can’t compare medical device marketing to promoting typical consumer goods and gadgets. While it’s helpful to understand marketing basics, a medical marketing agency needs to appeal to a very different and specific sort of customer.

To attract the attention of medical device customers, it takes creating the right message about a complex, vital, and typically expensive product while maintaining a human connection. To develop this skill, consider three important aspects of modern healthcare marketing.

Adding a human touch to medical device marketing

Naturally, the best tactics for marketing various medical devices can also differ in some details. Examples of this important kind of technology can range from pacemakers and infusion pumps to MRI machines. Even though devices and customers may vary, certain principals can help engage customers for a variety of different medical technology.

Balance relationship-based and evidence-based messages

In the medical field, customers may include doctors, researchers, and medical engineers. That’s why reaching them generally calls for a combination of evidence-based and relationship-based marketing messages:

• Evidence-based marketing: As the name implies, evidence-based marketing relies on the results of tests, studies, and other sources of hard data.
  
• Relationship-based marketing: While medical professionals will certainly care about facts, they’re still people and will also respond to emotional drivers, just like everybody else.

Relationship-based marketing can help establish a human connection by telling stories about other customers or even patients. Customers may want to know that a product has a 99-percent success rate, but a story about an individual success or two can help them understand how the purchase will help them, their patients, or their healthcare facility.

Establish competitive differentiators and value propositions

Anybody who works for a healthcare or pharma marketing agency knows that they’re rarely the only representative that customers communicate with. Value propositions succinctly outline why the device provides a good solution, touches on benefits, and explains how it compares to major competitors.

Presenting this information early in the process can quickly gain attention and in some cases, motivate buyers to act.  For instance, a hospital executive may hesitate because of concerns over the cost of retraining medical staff to use the new device. It’s important to understand these concerns and explain how this better solution can save money in the long run, reduce risks that could lead to poor outcomes, and other important benefits that outweigh drawbacks.

Add online marketing to the mix

All kinds of companies advertise online these days. This includes B2C companies. At the same time, it seems like medical device marketing has moved slower to transform parts of their marketing from offline to online. In-person visits still may work very well, but an internet platforms gives marketers a chance to scale their efforts to reach a much wider audience.

Consider a few of the main benefits of online marketing for medical devices:

• Busy prospects can research information whenever their schedule allows, without always having to set aside time for an appointment or a phone call when they have questions.
  
• Social media and blog posts can develop relationships and communicate value propositions with a global audience.
  
• Video demos and online meeting software can help educate prospects without having to spend extra time and money on travel.
  
• Website analytics and other tracking tools make it simple to see how well marketing campaigns perform at each step.

Generally, an experienced medical marketing agency won’t suggest skipping office visits, trade shows, or other productive types of in-person marketing. At the same time, they will help you understand how much easier it is to scale your marketing to a national and even an international audience when you take advantage of online communication.

Through the use of various media, reaching customers online won’t mean losing a human connection. In fact, such marketing channels as webinars, videos, blog posts, and social sites can help develop relationships with a lot more people. Because the internet is always turned on, it also provides the perfect way to satisfy the demands of busy customers.

The importance of medical device marketing

While marketing medical devices can prove tricky, a good healthcare marketing agency can enjoy a large market. According to the U.S. government, American healthcare agencies spend $156 billion on a variety of devices, and that’s expected to grow to over $200 billion within a couple of years. In addition, the country exports over $40 billion in medical devices, and the overall industry supports missions of jobs.

Marketing medical devices may have challenges, but it also offers plenty of opportunities. Effective tactics include offering both relationship-based and evidence-based marketing messages, quickly establishing the value proposition, and taking advantage of additional online marketing channels.