Category: Advertising & Marketing

INTRODUCTION

Content marketing can help grow your company’s brand visibility, build its reputation and draw prospects through your sales funnel. According to Demand Metric, content marketing generates three times as many leads as traditional marketing and costs 62 percent less.

However, a 2016 HIMSS survey on the state of B2B content marketing in healthcare reveals a gap between goals and efficacy. While lead generation was identified as the primary objective of content marketing, only 4 percent of respondents with a strategy in place thought their efforts were “very effective.”

The same study identified the main reasons for this disconnect, including: challenges producing engaging content, lack of content consistency, limited variety and difficulty measuring success. The best content marketing in health tech involves overcoming these obstacles and establishing expertise.

Following are some content marketing tips for health tech companies.

Develop and document a content strategy. As with other forms of marketing, content marketing requires a specific plan of action to be effective. Consider your business goals, target market, audience needs and overall branding initiatives when developing your tactics. Once established, publish your plan and share it with your marketing team. Every piece of content they create must align with your overall strategy.

For example, if your company is focused on brand awareness among primary care providers, your team should create content that is highly tailored to them instead of the industry as a whole.

Create relevant and engaging content. Producing consistent, high-quality material proves to be a challenge for many health tech companies. This is where your subject matter experts (SMEs) can help. They are a valuable, knowledgeable resource that should be involved in content curation and creation whenever possible. For instance, Cleveland Clinic uses its in-house experts to review and approve technical content before it is published on its Health Essentials blog.

SMEs should participate in interviews or brainstorming sessions with your marketing staff, or they could even create content of their own. Before you embark on a strategy, make sure to establish expectations. If you’re conducting an interview, have your marketing team research the topic and create an outline to help stay on track. If your SMEs have a hand in writing, include a disclaimer that their work is subject to edits. Have the SME review the final draft and share feedback with your marketing team to help guide future efforts.

Use appropriate distribution channels. Take advantage of the various digital and social media platforms available to connect with your target market. Remember, it is better to excel at a handful of channels than to be partially present on many. Research where your audience gathers online and go from there. For example, if your target market is primarily on LinkedIn, your team should spend time developing white papers, slide decks and informative articles to help peak interest.

Hashtags such as #HealthTech and #MedTech should be included with your content to make it easier to find. Similarly, your team should join relevant LinkedIn groups to participate in discussions and further establish your company’s brand within the industry.

Health 2.0, for instance, is a collaborative group dedicated to the advancement of new health technologies. Members have access to resources such as global conferences, thought leadership roundtables and leading market intelligence. Innovations in Health is another LinkedIn group focused on improving quality and process within healthcare organizations. Its members include industry experts, consultants, administrators, executives and other healthcare professionals.

Integrate content marketing with sales efforts. Equip your sales team with valuable content to help them establish relationships with prospects, and eventually, convert more leads to sales. Social selling, for instance, incorporates content with the salesperson’s social media networks to help educate potential customers and answer questions before they are ready to buy.

Your marketing team should emphasize the role content plays throughout the buying cycle and provide sales staff with tips about how and when to use it. At the same time, sales staff can provide insight into prospect trends, such as pain points, recurring questions and concerns to help direct content marketing efforts.

Be patient. Content marketing will not produce immediate results. Instead, think long-term when setting your goals and allow 12-18 months to see results. Most B2B health tech buyers need to interact with your content regularly throughout their buying cycle before making a decision.

FOR MORE INFORMATION

Revelation PR, Advertising & Social Media offers healthcare IT companies and startups services related to media relations, email marketing, investor relations, tradeshow marketing, content marketing and social media management. Please contact Brian Lee, brian [at] experiencerevelation.com or 608-622-7767.

INTRODUCTION

Disruption, according to Wikipedia, is innovation that creates a new market and value network that eventually disrupts an existing market and displaces established market-leading firms and products. It seems these days that tech startups, especially in healthcare IT, have to be the next Uber or AirBNB of their world to experience success, when in fact, they don’t.

In the slow-moving industry of healthcare, often times building a builder mousetrap–in other words, developing a new solution to an old problem–is the key to seeing your product or service get adopted. Let’s take a look at how you can market them.

HOW TO POSITION YOUR SOLUTION

One of your primary objectives should be to identify healthcare systems that have purchased a product or service to satisfy their problem, but that product or service has been insufficient. These prospective customers are likely to re-enter the marketplace for a new product or service since their problem remains unsolved.

When contacting these healthcare systems, use a “beacon” approach to describe your product or service. This means you compare your product or service to a competitor’s, but then explain why yours is better. For example, “We’re like (a competing product) but easier to integrate into your EHR and maintain.” This approach gives your prospective customers a frame of reference (beacon) along with the value proposition.

Also, don’t feel like you have to undercut your competitors. A Forbes magazine article cited a study that consumers will spend more when switching to a new solution that solves their (healthcare) problems.

REACH THE DECISION-MAKERS

It comes down to two general marketing principles: you need to build brand awareness, and you need to stay top of mind. To accomplish these tasks, you will need a sustained effort of PR, marketing and/or advertising. This means don’t just pitch one publication or run online ads for two weeks.

Why? In marketing, there’s the “Rule of Seven,” which says that someone needs to see your marketing message at least seven times before they take action. Even then, the hospital CIO, for example, may not be in the buying mode or cycle. So you have to maintain your brand’s presence in front of them so when they are ready to buy, you’re the first company they think of.

FOR MORE INFORMATION

Revelation PR, Advertising & Social Media offers healthcare IT companies and startups services related to media relations, email marketing, investor relations, tradeshow marketing, content marketing and social media management. Please contact Brian Lee, brian [at] experiencerevelation.com or 608-622-7767.