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5 Easy Steps to Winning Medical Device
Marketing Content!
Let’s face it!
Getting your marketing content ‘right’ can be a royal pain!!...especially in the medical device
market!
Are you frustrated wondering why your last/best marketing campaign missed the mark and
didn’t meet your expectations?
Do you sometimes feel that your creative talent just doesn’t ‘get it’? Were they actually
listening?
Does it seem they don’t understand what your company is trying to do with its product or
service?
Do you wonder what more you can do to ramp up your success rate?
Then this tip sheet is for YOU! It gives easy first steps to create winning healthcare marketing
content. White papers, case studies, or other marketing communication can get stale, stuffy,
and even unreadable.
These tools should make it much easier…and hopefully more successful!
But how do we start?
‘What we may have is ‘a failure to communicate.’
Those infamous words from “Cool Hand Luke” often ring true.
And, even more, the most critical communication breakdown may occur just at the project’s
beginning.
You see, we, as copywriters, are here to serve your marketing needs. But, without a doubt, you,
the marketing manager, are the most indispensable creative talent. You hold the keys, the vital
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‘facts’ about your product and prospect. Our job, as copywriters, is to massage those facts into
sparkling prose that targets, attracts, and sells.
But for that full-throated marketing copy to really sing, we need to read from the same sheet
music.
And your capacity to share your vision and insights can be crucial to our success in your
marketing project. But how do we make sure we’re both playing the same tune?
#1. “Just the facts, ma’am! Let’s stick to the facts!”
Two instruments can be effective in the initial communications. The first is the Creative Brief, a
document providing an overview of your proposed project.
Creative briefs can vary in both length and content, e.g. tone, formats, or writing style. But they
are not the only arrows in our information quiver.
A Copywriting Information Worksheet represents a second even more robust instrument. If
done well, Worksheets guides you and your writer through the process. They can give answers
to most, if not all, that's needed to write an effective marketing piece.
Writers, like me, often generate these Copywriting Information Worksheets. Yet, these are
questionnaire, which you, the marketing manager, may choose to complete.
The
Creative
Brief may
include
information
such as:
A description of what your writer is to create.
The desired goal the marketing piece is to achieve
The product/service featured and its primary features and benefits
Any special offers, pricing, or incentives and their details
Key target audience insights
Analysis of the competition
The project schedule with key milestones.
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Better yet, if time allows, you and the copywriter may work together on its completion. A
hidden benefit? Done this way, Worksheets often inspire a ‘brainstorming session’ that
enhances the final product.
Regardless, Worksheets can be an indispensable format in transferring critical creative insights.
(Sample Questions from a Copywriting Information Worksheet)
9. Which of those features and benefits are most important to the target audience?
10. Which specific problems, needs or aspirations does the product address for the
prospect’s business? (Example: Helps us increase sales.)
11. Which specific personal problems, needs or aspirations does the product address
for the prospect?
(Example: Saves the prospect time and frustration.)
12. Who are the primary competitors of this product?
13. How does your product differ from the competition?
2. Our Best Marketing Works with Simple Clear Language that Creates
Pictures with Our Words
I began ‘dabbling’ in marketing back ‘in the day’ when I was starting my first practice. Times
could not have been more different from now.
One marketing ‘guru’ of the period, was fond of starting his presentations with a provocative
statement about the tone of our messaging.
“In healthcare, you can use any traditional marketing tool. However, it must be ‘understated,
service oriented and accommodating”.
In times past, physicians were the primary healthcare buyers and prospects. In this ‘new day’,
the Affordable Care era, our healthcare prospects are no longer just physicians.
Indeed, our prospects are often buying committees that do indeed include physicians. Yet,
these committees are often also composed of business and operational types, as well.
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So, yes, clinicians still give strong influence to buying decisions. So, that maxim still has weight;
it still represents an appropriate tone.
But with ACA’s changes in reimbursement, our messages have a dual purpose. They must also
speak to business types and to their new ‘value-based payment models’. And their new mantra
is ‘affordable patient outcomes and customer satisfaction’.
So, hype will not work! Nor will corporate speak. Content that is rich in color, imagery, and
meaning will effectively win the day.
This, I might add, is NOT synonymous with cold and boring!
#3. Help us Target the Challenges, Needs, and interests of the Buyer
Or “Help me to help you”!
Tell me if you have this problem.
Are years of customer sales data ‘loafing’ in your corporate servers? Is that data just buried on
those motherboards…not earning its keep? If so, we can finally put those slackers to work!
Our goal, as copywriters, is to craft creative copy that speaks to the challenges, needs, and
interests of your buyer. Our messages must resonate with that specific buyer. And marketing
personas can be invaluable tools for hitting that target.
Personas, generalized fictitious characters, encompass those challenges, needs, and goals. They
may also describe the observed behavior of real and potential customers.
Those terabytes of customer's buying data can be a gold mine for creating personas and
content that targets and scores.
So, making good use of that idle data gives you a chance to “Help me to help you”!
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#4. What problem does the product solve for the buyer?
…and who ARE the buyers anyway?
Marketing healthcare has never been simple. But the Affordable Care Act (ACA) made the
marketplace more complex. Even more, ACA made our marketing messages more complex, as
well.
Let me explain.
Buyer groups are now far more
diverse. As I shared, now they are
often composed not just of
physicians, but business and
operational personnel, as well.
So, the problems solved in our
marketing messages must not just speak to our traditional persona, physicians. Now, our
marketing solutions must speak to other buyer group members, as well.
This again speaks to the value of data derived personas. This also can be critical to success in
the new committee-driven buying cycle.
So, what problems DOES your product solve for your buyer…and yes, who ARE your buyers now
anyway?
#5. Clarifying a Strong Call to Action
Or How Do We Measure Effectiveness?
Finally, a strong call to action can be decisive to a successful project. We all know this. But we
also know we can miss that target when we assume our prospects (or our copywriter!) already
know what we want them to do.
But how can you maintain that targeted focus?
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Two points of communication can be of
tremendous help. First, you may share with your
copywriter where in the business cycle you expect
to use his/her content. And, of course, you can
clearly let him know the precise action your
prospect should take. This can assist your
copywriter in crafting that directed call-to-action.
Is it to generate leads?
Will the content nurture relationships?
Is it to be a tool in closing the sale?
But it can be valuable to share with your copywriter the performance metric that you are
looking to improve.
Conversion rate?
Leads?
Click-through rate?
Sales?
