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Marketing medical technology is far from simple. Healthcare is a changing landscape with many components, including doctors, administration, insurers, regulators and of course, the consumer. Sometimes it’s easy to lose sight of the Individual Consumer while Marketing because there are so many other hoops to jump through, but at the end of the day, it truly is all about your user’s experience. In this article we provide some tips on how to refine your marketing to appeal to the individual consumer.

Results, Not Features

In today’s technology landscape, it’s easy to fall into the trap of loading your product or application up with features. However, keep in mind that the user experience is based on results, not gimmicks. When designing your product, ask your target audience what they want the outcomes of using it to be, and not what features they would like to see in it. This will help you to design a user experience, and not a bundle of features. That being said, your product doesn’t have to be bare bones either; just make sure every added component is doing something to achieve the primary goal for your user.

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Show Users What Others Like

The individual user is the expert on what your product should be — after all, they’re the ones who will be purchasing it. Consider having an area on either your website or the product’s interface to showcase the best purposes users have found for the product, or what aspects and features are used by the most people. This will help users discover the best ways to use what you have made, and will also help you visualize the direction your development should take.

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Keep Your Vision In Mind, But Don’t Be Afraid to Change

It’s important for any Medtech brand to have a clear vision and direction. This will help your brand have its own identity, and you will be able to best decide what needs to change to keep development moving in that direction. However, if users strongly prefer a component of your design that wasn’t initially its primary focus, or if you receive negative responses to your image, don’t hesitate to change. Brands must develop their own character, but they need to adapt and evolve to find their best niche in the complex MedTech ecosystem.

Clear, Consistent Branding Across Platforms and Devices

This goes hand in hand with the last point. Not only does your brand need a clear, distinct image, but this image needs to be maintained across everything your company does. Social Media teams need to be heavily briefed on branding, personality, and image; products and/or software need to be clearly branded and identifiable; and your applications, mobile websites, and marketing must be consistent. But as much as the brand must be carefully maintained, don’t project an artificial image either. Let users know what your company is really about, be authentic.

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Recognize the MedTech User’s Unique Path to Purchase

The user’s path to purchase is convoluted in every industry these days, but MedTech is even more complicated than others. Users will be learning about your product from different devices over a fairly long period. Since healthcare is so personal and important, users usually take longer to make consumption choices. They won’t be as experimental as they may be with other industries’ products. In MedTech, a lot of purchasing decisions are based on trust, and trust comes from recommendations over time on all platforms. Make sure you’re advertising on social media, desktop websites, mobile, physical ads, anywhere you can help develop the image of your brand and your product for the user.

Pepper Gang can help your business develop a marketing strategy that reaches your target audience at many points of contact to create an accurate, appealing image of your brand for users.

Want more marketing tips? Check out our guide on the Future of Marketing; What You Need to Know Now. 

Sources:

http://www.mddionline.com/blog/devicetalk/top-4-marketing-trends-2015-02-13-15

https://medtechengine.com/wp-content/uploads/2016/11/GIANT-marketing-presentation-4-1.pdf