By Rachel Mele
As the healthcare industry continues to grow, it is vital that marketers adapt their messaging and find differentiators in their products to meet the wants and needs of medical professionals. With doctors maxed out – 80 percent report being overextended – marketers must create concise messaging that not only inform but, set their products apart to sell better than those of competitors. Based on a recent survey of more than 9,000 healthcare professionals, I’ve outlined the top five attributes that medical professionals deem as important when reviewing medical devices to better your marketing strategy.
1. Communicate consistent outcomes
Before getting started, it is important to consider your audience. Physicians must feel confident using a product that results in positive outcomes time and time again. Understanding how your offering delivers on this attribute is important to the doctors using the product and the healthcare companies creating the product.
Moving forward, manufacturers need to understand the voice of the market and changes that will occur today and in the future. Having continued success will require manufacturers to take into account what’s important to the people purchasing these products. One way of doing this is by including physicians earlier in the process to challenge one another and think of new ideas on how to ensure consistent outcomes.
2. Highlight positive patient outcomes and patient compliance
As more changes occur in the healthcare industry, healthcare providers are under a microscope now more than ever before. This type of scrutiny will put pressure on medical companies to develop products that improve and develop positive patient outcomes.
Consider investing in studies to show how the device your presenting speeds up recovery time, lasts longer than comparable products, or is easy to use. Make sure that your messaging focuses on how the product is impacting patient care in a positive and beneficial way. If you’re unable to deliver on this messaging, consider making plans to improve this attribute through product changes, new offerings in the pipeline or a combination of both. In doing so, you will find your business winning more sales when healthcare professionals know that you can deliver on what they want.
3. High wear resistance
While this third attribute may seem obvious, there continues to be a major disconnect between manufacturers and healthcare providers as many products significantly underperform.
Given the FDA’s Case for Quality program announced in 2011,marketers and manufacturers have an opportunity to tout the quality and high wear resistance of their products as a differentiator among competitors. According to the FDA, “manufacturers that focus on and manage those risks often become more productive, receiving fewer complaints, needing to open fewer CAPAs and investigations, and having lower quality-related product costs than their competitors.
Attributes such as high wear resistance are important to healthcare providers, especially as the healthcare industry continues to be pressed for time with patients and their facilities.
4. Showcase ease in usability
With most technology, frustrations occur when the product is too difficult to understand or use. The same can be said for healthcare products and services. If a patient needs assistance to use the product, then healthcare providers will have a difficult time in finding valid reasoning to recommend the product to patients. This misunderstanding often leads into messaging of the product as well.
If you’re unable to clearly explain your product to a provider in a clear, concise manner, then they most likely won’t be able to do the same for their patients. Just as doctors want to know the product is easy to use, marketers and manufacturers should focus on why it would be useful rather than explaining the science behind it. When messaging becomes too technical or complicated, the overall message becomes blurred.
5. Inform doctors of efficacy
With healthcare competition at its peak, it’s important that healthcare services and products go above and beyond its intended results. Some things to ask yourself as you start create messaging is will the product perform as expected? Does it take a long time for a patient to see results? Will the product offer long-lasting performance for customers?
Performing as expected is the bare minimum. Find differentiators in your product offering that are meaningful to your audience. What qualities will separate your product from the rest? By considering these five attributes into your messaging, you are sure to differentiate yourself from the crowd and help foster success in the customer journey.
Rachel Mele is General Manager at Vennli.
The Editorial Team at Healthcare Business Today is made up of skilled healthcare writers and experts, led by our managing editor, Daniel Casciato, who has over 25 years of experience in healthcare writing. Since 1998, we have produced compelling and informative content for numerous publications, establishing ourselves as a trusted resource for health and wellness information. We offer readers access to fresh health, medicine, science, and technology developments and the latest in patient news, emphasizing how these developments affect our lives.
