Whether we’re talking ventilators, trach tubes, veterinary pumps, or vascular needles, the medical device industry is known for efficient engineering and innovative products. Marketing these devices might seem fairly straightforward at first. After all, these are quite literally life-saving products, and there will always be a need for them. Now more than ever, in fact, given the fears and uncertainties surrounding the COVID-19 pandemic.
But how can a medical device manufacturer boost visibility for new products and gain more loyal customers? Even with essential products, your digital marketing campaign can still provide a creative and compelling experience that sets your brand apart from other manufacturers and suppliers. Here’s how to do it.
Polish Your Brand Identity
The medical device industry is hugely competitive (as we here at Snap well know, being based out of Minneapolis, which has been dubbed “Medical Alley”). How can you make your business stand out from a crowd of similarly-placed companies?
Develop a Clean, Memorable, and Consistent Brand Appearance
Like any other product, your company’s aesthetic plays a significant role in self-promotion. If a hospital needs to choose between two medical device companies that do essentially the same thing, which of the following should they choose?
- The brand with the indecipherable logo, the bland color scheme, and the website that looks like it hasn’t been updated since 1997?
- The brand with the calming, consistent color scheme, curated to put busy shoppers at ease? What about clear typography, fast website-loading times, and clean product pictures?
We can only hope the answer is evident here! While your medical devices should undoubtedly speak for themselves, your brand image can enforce their quality and hammer home what you do—and why you do it.
Be Clear and Ambitious About Your Brand’s Mission
Develop a clear company mission statement so that prospective clients can quickly pinpoint what your company does. The obvious answer for many medical devices is to save lives or improve the quality of life for patients, but you can stand out here by being just a little more specific.
Don’t be afraid to be ambitious, too! After all, you are supplying life-saving medical products and devices—this is hardly the place for modesty. It’s okay (and frankly, encouraged) for you to shoot for the moon while still making medically-accurate statements about your devices.
Become an Authority in B2B Marketing
Medical device manufacturers often aren’t selling directly to patients. Instead, your customer focus is hospitals, nursing homes, and suppliers all over the globe—i.e., other businesses. That makes it crucial to understand how to communicate with those businesses in a way that’s engaging, coherent, and informative.
Create a Social Media Presence—Yes, Even For Appealing to Other Businesses
Many B2B companies (medical device manufacturers are no exception) suffer from a lack of social strategy. And companies that aren’t creating shareable content are, to put it bluntly, creating dead ends for themselves. We mentioned COVID-19 earlier; it’s especially important that businesses are communicating now on a global scale—sharing ideas and solutions—and that knowledge of innovative medical technology doesn’t just exist in a vacuum. If your target audience spends any amount of time on social media, you should cultivate a presence there, as well.
Keep It Factual, But Don’t Sacrifice Intrigue in the Process
Medical device manufacturing is a serious business, and you likely won’t be creating “fluffy” content or cracking jokes for your audience. But that doesn’t mean your written content has to be bland—your medical devices have unique, human stories behind them, and that makes for inherently compelling content.
Maybe you’ll create and share a case study about a patient whose life was saved by your device (while keeping in mind matters of privacy and consent, of course). Or maybe you’ll turn your digital marketing efforts to crafting articles about the history of your products, or generating informative pieces about how patients and hospitals can benefit from specific devices. Again, make it interesting, without deviating from the truth of what makes your brand unparalleled.
Develop Relationships With Your Distributors
Middlemen, whether they be hospitals or wholesale distributors, have a significant influence on how your products are marketed to end-users. With that in mind, be sure you’ve provided your distributors with the information and tools they need to succeed. For example, you could develop specialized online review courses or ebrochures for your B2B clients, ensuring that they’ll be your brand’s biggest and most well-informed cheerleader.
Medical Device Marketing Made Easy With Snap
We’re living in incredibly uncertain times, and now more than ever, people all over the globe need to know of, and have access to, the appropriate medical technology for coronavirus and other medical concerns.
The team at Snap is eager to put our digital marketing experience in the medical device industry to work for you. We’ll help you raise awareness of your brand, devices, and products, appealing to both other businesses and directly to consumers. Our web designers and web developers can help you create a visual brand identity and a consistent brand voice while our talented team of bloggers and copywriters will allow you to tell real-life stories in a way that’s both captivating and factual.
Send us a message, and we’ll get started!