Medical Device Marketing  
Strategies For Brand Awareness

The medical device industry is expected to reach an all-time high of US$ 767,684.9 million by 2027. The first step is getting into the medical device market and having a viable product to sell.

Find the best marketing strategies to help your brand stay relevant and profitable.

Medical Device Marketing

Strategies For Brand Awareness

The medical device industry is expected to reach an all-time high of US$ 767,684.9 million by 2027. The first step is getting into the medical device market and having a viable product to sell.

Find the best marketing strategies to help your brand stay relevant and profitable.

Medical Device Marketing Strategies

 

Thanks to the rapid advancement in technology, the medical device industry has grown tremendously in the past couple of years. According to projections by GlobeNewswire, the medical devices market was valued at US $483,285.8 million in 2019 and is expected to reach an all-time high of US$ 767,684.9 million by 2027.1

It is speculated that the industry’s incredible growth is tied to the growing medical device industry and the rising prevalence of chronic diseases. In terms of international trade, the US department of commerce is regarded as the world’s largest device market with an estimated worth of $156 billion in 2017.

The first step of surviving in the medical device industry is getting into the medical device market and having a viable product to sell. The next step is finding the best marketing strategies to help your brand stay relevant and profitable regardless of your competition.

$156 Billion
value of medical device market in 2017

$156 Billion

value of medical device in 2017

What to Expect in this Article?

In this extensively researched and carefully curated post, you will learn how to use industry-tested medical device marketing strategies to increase brand recognition. We take you through the basics of branding, then slowly but steadily grow your knowledge in establishing your brand while developing effective medical device marketing strategies.

“Are you ready to play the medical device marketing game differently?”

What is Brand Recognition?

Before you begin using the strategies discussed in this article, you need to understand why you need these strategies. The point of the medical device marketing strategies is to help you increase your brand recognition, but what exactly is brand recognition?
Brand recognition, sometimes called brand awareness, is the extent to which consumers are aware of the unique properties of a brand. Brand recognition is the ability of a consumer to recognize one brand over another with ease.

“Simple right? However, why is it important that you build your brand’s recognition?”

Why is Branding Important?

 

There are over 200 million brands in the world, according to data collected by DATAPO, and this number increases every day. Therefore, brand recognition is an essential factor for any brand that intends to stand tall among the crowd of brands worldwide.

Effective brand recognition strategies ensure that a potential customer instantly recognizes your brand even without seeing the brand name. The goal of brand recognition is to ensure that your customers feel connected to your brand and the products that you have to offer.

Be Like Coca-Cola and Pepsi

Think of how you can recognize Coca-Cola or Pepsi by the shape of their bottle, and the colors and accents on it make you crave a drink; that is incredible brand recognition!

According to results obtained by marketing psychologists, brand recognition has more to do with how the consumer feels about the brand than it does about the products produced by the brand.

McDonald’s Great Branding Overcomes Its Mediocre Food

An excellent example of incredible branding is McDonald’s hamburgers. According to Consumer Reports Magazine, McDonald’s hamburgers are listed as the worst tasting among 21 major fast-food franchises, yet it is among the most visited.

Great Healthcare Brands

For more recognizable brands in the medical industry, companies like Johnson & Johnson, Medtronic PLC, and Cardinal Health, Inc. are brands that can be instantly recognized by anyone working in the medical industry due to their branding and products.

How to Establish a Brand for Selling Medical Devices?

Now that you understand the importance of brand recognition to your brand, the next logical question should be, how do I establish a recognizable brand for selling medical devices?

“In other words, how you build brand recognition?”

There are two fundamental elements of a brand; colors, and imagery. Some brands, however, can have colors, imagery, and sound as major elements of their brand that aid in their brand recognition.

How to Establish a Brand for Selling Medical Devices?

Now that you understand the importance of brand recognition to your brand, the next logical question should be, how do I establish a recognizable brand for selling medical devices?

“In other words, how you build brand recognition?”

There are two fundamental elements of a brand; colors, and imagery. Some brands, however, can have colors, imagery, and sound as major elements of their brand that aid in their brand recognition.

Colors

According to research compiled by Colorcom, it is suggested that consumers make a subconscious judgment about a product within the first 90 seconds of seeing it, and 62%-90% of that assessment is based on color alone.2 It is easy to see why using the right colors for your medical device company’s branding is a huge deal.

Several types of research further show that a brand can improve its recognition among its customers by using colors effectively throughout its marketing and design campaign. The key to having your customers instantly recognize your medical device lies in how effectively you use your colors and the uniqueness of their implementation.

Color Creates Impulses

To ensure that your brand chooses the right color to accompany your product copy and the product design itself, a little research on color and the impulses they invoke in consumers is always a good first step.

Imagery

While the color of a brand is essential to how it is perceived and received by potential customers it is only one aspect of the brand. The overall presentation of colors, shapes, and forms in your product’s branding is known as imagery. This is usually what attracts a potential customer to your product.

Your brand’s imagery is a significant aspect of your brand recognition as it communicates to the potential customer what to expect from your medical device. For instance, a defibrillator is a device that would be used by medical personnel; a brand producing this would want to show functionality over visual appeal.

However, a medical device designed for nonclinical environments would convey branding imagery that appeals to the public in a way that makes it seem easy to use and look like it would improve health. Of course, there is a part where functional design meets visual appeal that makes a medical device appeal to medical and non-medical audiences.

Sound

One brand that has effectively used sound elements in their branding is Nokia. At one point or another, most people have heard a Nokia phone come on before, or its ringtone comes to life during a call. Anyone can recognize a Nokia phone without seeing the phone. This is similar to what Apple has done with their iPhones’ ringtone; it is unique and widely accepted.

Adding a distinctive sound element to your medical device is an excellent way to solidify your brand recognition among your customers.

New Medical Device Marketing Strategies

 

Technology has come a long in changing the way marketing strategies are formulated and implemented. Gone are the days when you needed giant billboards, bills, and television commercials to market your medical device. Of course, all of the technologies mentioned above are still relevant, but there are new medical device marketing strategies used by various brands. They include voice search, interactive posts, and progressive websites.

Voice Search

One thing that we can all agree with is that medical practitioners have gotten very busy and occupied over the years. It has become increasingly challenging for medical device manufacturers to get a meeting with them.
A lot of people around the world, regardless of their profession, have access to voice assistant technology. It is estimated that in 2020, 50% of searches are conducted through voice technology.3 Therefore, brands that want to stay relevant in any industry, including the medical device industry, need to find a way to incorporate voice technology into their digital marketing strategies.

Understand the Right Questions

For example, when prioritizing your focus keywords for voice search, you should focus on the “which, what, why, how, and where” of your product to cater to your potential customers’ voice searches. A typical voice search on Google sounds like this – “Hey Google, what is the best BP checking device?” it is questions like this that you need to optimize your online branding recognition campaign for.

Interactive Posts

The information age has brought some very cool and engaging features to marketing and medical device branding in general. One of the cool marketing features the modern internet has brought to marketing is interactive posts.

What are interactive posts? In the simplest of definitions, interactive content is any type of digital content that can be added to the static content on the website or social media page of a brand to cause more dynamic engagement with the customer.

“Seems confusing? Okay, I’ll break it down.”

Webpages, for the longest time, used to consist of static content (words, and maybe some pictures); that was when the saying that “content is king” was considered valid. Now, interactive content is the gold-standard of medical device marketing for brand recognition.

Now, potential customers are used to seeing elements like IBM calculators, assessments, interactive infographics, virtual interactive 3D replicas of products, videos, and more on websites that they visit. Interactive content in a post is what makes it an interactive post. Interactive posts offer potential customers the opportunity to know your product well and increase the likelihood of a purchase.

Progressive Websites

Progressive websites or progressive web apps, as they are appropriately called, are the next evolutionary step in bringing your product to the customer with no lag in between. Progressive apps are websites built with the latest technologies to look, feel, and act as an application.

Why are progressive websites important? It is estimated that at least 20% of potential customers are lost for every step between the knowledge of the existence of an app and the first interaction with an app. Progressive apps remove the need for an app store; it allows anyone to immediately start using your progressive web app as soon as they find it.

Progressive websites help your brand retain more of your potential leads and increases the chance of turning them into purchasing clients.

More Established Medical Device Marketing Strategies

 

To be at the top of the medical device market’s food chain, your brand recognition needs to be incredibly unique. Therefore, you need more than the medical device marketing strategies discussed above; you need even more established or advanced medical device marketing strategies. Google search optimization is the most important tool for marketing your medical devices, but that process is well documented in other places. We want to discuss opportunities that you may not know about. These include Facebook and Snapchat stories, video marketing, and Microsoft Bing Advertising.

Facebook and Snapchat Stories

Social media continues to remain a popular platform for people to interact with. Here are a couple of statistics to start:

    • 78% of adults in the United States between the ages of 18-24 use Snapchat
    • 80% of adults in the United States between the ages of 25-29 use Facebook
    • 63% of Snapchat users check the app every day.4
  • Adults between the ages of 18-24 use Snapchat 78% 78%
  • Adults between the ages of 25-29 use Snapchat 80% 80%
  • Snapchat users check the app every day 63% 63%

The statistics above are interesting to us because it means that Facebook and Snapchats are two apps that have a considerable number of potential medical device customers that use them every day. As a brand that needs an effective medical device marketing platform, Facebook and Snapchat stories are great places to be.

Snapchat and Facebook Stories are designed to disappear after 24-hours, providing you with the advantage of not needing to worry about having old news up on the platform. Therefore, anyone using the platform can expect to see something fresh from you every day.

Facebook stories, as well as Snapchat Stories, are designed in ways that make them quite interactive to the point of being very effective marketing and selling tools.

Facebook Stories, for instance, allows a potential buyer contact for more information about a post or even share your post on their page. The possibilities are endless.

Video Marketing

In case you haven’t noticed, the world is huge on video marketing right now. Video marketing is an essential aspect of building brand recognition with medical device marketing strategies, and YouTube is at the forefront of it all.

Huge companies like SONY, ACER, ASUS, APPLE INC., JOHNSON & JOHNSON, and more have taken advantage of the general population’s gravitation towards video content. These companies have found creative ways to make engaging videos that pull customers to them and your brand should do the same.

“How do you start?”

You can start by uploading a video that describes your medical devices in ways that makes them interesting to the intended audience. Think of this as an introductory video.

For more content, you can create more videos that go in-depth in discussing the functions of your medical devices, its advantages over similar medical devices, and how it can help the intended audience be more productive or healthier.

Microsoft Bing Advertising

Did you know that Bing commands more than 34.7% of the total volume of online searches worldwide?5 This means that even though Bing isn’t the largest or most used search engine globally, it is a critical platform to have your medical device advertised.

Bing has a lot less competition between brands selling similar products than Google, which can be a huge advantage to your brand as it allows you to reach more people with minimal optimization. Also, Bing is the default search engine on the several billion Microsoft devices used by billions of people worldwide, making it an excellent resource for a medical device brand to advertise its products.

For more brand recognition, make use of Bing Ads.

 

34.7 %
Total volume of online searches Bing commands worldwide.

34.7 %

Total volume of online searches Bing commands worldwide.

Content Plans for Medical Device Marketing Strategies

 

For your medical device marketing strategies to be highly effective, you need to have planned content for your medical devices. Having content plans ensures that you are getting information about your product to potential customers as much as possible. Three popular methods are with the use of review pages, lifestyle articles, and comprehensive guides.

Review Pages Comparing Your Products

The concept of review pages is simple and straightforward. A review page allows your potential customer to see the strengths and advantages of choosing your product over other similar products in your industry.

You can create review pages that provide direct comparisons between your medical product and that of your competitor. The purpose of a competitor-comparison review landing page is to provide members of the public with an honest and comprehensive comparison of two or more products.

These reviews immediately tell a potential buyer, especially a busy one in the health sector, what they can expect to gain by choosing your medical device over the rest.

Lifestyle Articles to Show How Your Products Will Improve Someone’s Life

Lifestyle articles are some of the best marketing strategies that have been developed in recent times. Lifestyles articles sell your products and services without sounding like a marketing campaign. Lifestyle content is articles, stories, and even product descriptions that bring the buyers’ persona and lifestyle to life, helping to accentuate the interests of the buyer that transcend your medical devices.

The goal of developing lifestyle content is to show them how important your medical devices can be to the reader’s lifestyle.

Comprehensive Guides to Conditions Treated with Your Products

We live in a fast-paced world, and most people no longer want to talk to an expert before they know exactly what a product can do for them, but they still need to get verified information from legitimate sources. This is where your comprehensive guides come in.

By releasing comprehensive guides of your medical devices that show potential customers what exactly it is that your devices do, you are demystifying the concept of your device to your customers.

Therefore, your customers can make an educated and well-informed decision to choose your medical device over other products. Comprehensive guides can be an effective tool in medical device marketing when done properly.

Contact an Expert for Medical Device Marketing Strategies

 

We have provided you with the basics to build brand recognition through digital marketing. But medical device marketing strategies can be confusing and overwhelming. It is important to find a marketing partner who understands the medical device industry and is current on all the latest and greatest technological marketing opportunities.

Active Marketing: Proven Game Changers

Active Marketing has transformed addiction treatment businesses with our strategic horsepower. We have proven experience developing and executing marketing strategies that get your brand’s best messaging in front of the right people at the right time and place.

Our impact on our clients’ bottom lines changes the way they do business. We’d love to talk to you more about your potential.

Give us a call today: 1 (231) 946-2334

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Active Marketing: Proven Game Changers

Active Marketing has transformed addiction treatment businesses with our strategic horsepower. We have proven experience developing and executing marketing strategies that get your brand’s best messaging in front of the right people at the right time and place.

Our impact on our clients’ bottom lines changes the way they do business. We’d love to talk to you more about your potential.

Give us a call today: (877) 8145716