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5 Surefire Ways to Boost Medical Device Sales in 2021

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In this article, we will look at five ways to boost medical device sales in 2021.

The healthcare field completely transformed during COVID-19. Now medical device sales teams must change their reliable marketing methods to meet the new challenges in healthcare sales today.

Let’s get started.

Key Takeaways

  • Medical needs in 2021 are vastly different than a year ago, and sales tactics should adjust accordingly.
  • New technology allows reps to promote and sell products through AR, VR, and social media.
  • Additional sales and medical training will help your reps understand the new market.

What Changed in Healthcare Sales in 2021?

In 2020, hospitals mainly focused on COVID-specific equipment. Meanwhile, patients with other conditions often avoided hospitals because of higher infection rates. This avoidance resulted in a decreased demand for many devices unrelated to COVID.

Now that vaccines are available and people feel comfortable going out, the medical field is changing again. Those who didn’t get treatment during the pandemic will need treatment now, along with new patients. In addition, because of the increase in chronic illnesses from sedentary lifestyles, medical devices are in high demand.

Since people are restarting their regular healthcare visits and recovery financially, doctors will need to restock on non-COVID-related devices. You can help doctors meet this new shift in demand by providing medical devices that are relevant and convenient in 2021.

5 Ways to Boost Medical Device Sales

Here are five ways you can boost your sales in 2021.

1. Appeal to Current Medical Needs

Hospitals don’t function the same way they did before COVID-19. For example, telehealth is 38 times more prevalent than pre-COVID-19. So, sales reps need to adjust to doctors’ new needs.

One current sales challenge in 2021 is keeping equipment sterilized to meet current standards. If your device is easier to clean, focus on those details in the product value proposition to differentiate your product.

That differentiation factor is key to sales. Since most doctors have basic equipment, your sales reps need to identify why the new product is an improvement or solves a new need.

2. Adjust to Your Customers’ New Work Style

Doctors have also changed during the pandemic, so your customer data from 2020 is already outdated. If you want to boost your sales, then spend time getting to know physicians. Physicians are in a high-stress job. Over 75% of doctors know a colleague who feels burnt out. The stress of the pandemic has made burnout and mental illness even more prevalent in the healthcare industry.

Some of the effects of COVID that healthcare workers now face include:

  • Higher hospital infection rates
  • More financially struggling patients
  • Increased stress levels
  • An unknown future in healthcare

Doctors who were challenging to reach before the pandemic are nearly impossible to speak to now with the added workload. As a result, sales reps could explore alternative ways of reaching doctors, such as remote pitches. In addition, researching a hospital’s budget beforehand can save them both valuable time as they can get an idea of who can afford your devices. 

In some cases, your sales rep may address someone other than the physician, like a board room of hospital leadership. When this happens, they should research who will be in the room and what each person cares about. For example, if someone from the finance committee is in the room, discuss how your device saves money.

3. Creatively Showcase Your Products

Alternative sales demonstration methods using technology alleviate the stress of hauling around equipment and streamline the demonstration process. As you just learned, a faster demonstration is preferable for time-strapped doctors. Sales reps can also visit more leads in a day if they have less to bring from hospital to hospital.

Because of the introduction of 5G, augmented reality (AR) and virtual reality (VR) are two growing sales trends in 2021. VR uses headphones and a screen to place someone into an alternative situation. On the other hand, AR allows users to interact with items through a screen. Ecommerce stores use AR to enable customers to explore products and view them in their houses. However, healthcare has also found ways to use it in sales, training, and patient education.

Through AR, healthcare providers can interact with your products using their tablets or phones. They can also use the same AR to teach others how to use the products. So, sales reps can demonstrate products quickly and more conveniently, even remotely.

In addition to AR, other medical sales trend examples include showcasing your products and reaching customers through social media platforms and your website using blog posts, social media promotions, and networking in medical groups.

4. Offer Remote Communication Options

The pandemic opened a world of remote options, like Zoom meetings with 467,100 business customers and 3.3 trillion meeting minutes each year. Sales reps can take advantage of new advances in remote communication and use those lines to talk with medical professionals. Because they don’t have to travel in person for every meeting with a lead, they can use the extra time to meet with additional leads.

In addition, leads will have an easier way to get in contact with a sales rep. For example, they may put off an in-person meeting due to time constraints. However, they may be more willing to agree to a video conference to discuss a product.

Open lines of communication also keep the sales rep and lead connected and engaged through the whole sales process, which reduces the chance of the lead forgetting or losing interest.

5. Train and Educate Your Sales Reps

Doctors don’t have the time to research a medical device on their own time. So instead, sales reps should have all the answers or know how to find the answer. If they can’t give an excellent response to a doctor’s inquiry, they risk losing the sale.

However, if your sales reps have a thorough understanding of the product and medical issues it helps, they can give insightful data that will appeal to a highly trained medical professional. Extensive training helps prepare sales reps for every situation. Some of the best sales reps are previous nurses and doctors because they have already received training and understand their customers.

Boost Your Medical Device Sales with Our Content Team

Medical sales in 2021 bring a whole new era of possibility if you are willing to change your sales tactics. When you make a change, you will stand out from your competition who are still using their methods from years ago. You can also offer your leads relevance and a customized experience that fits with their current needs.

Are you ready to build customized content for your 2021 sales strategy?

Speak with an experienced team of healthcare content creators and start boosting your sales today.

5 Common Medical Device Sales Challenges for Reps

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Medical device sales is a rewarding career giving your reps a chance to help save people’s lives and work a flexible and fast-paced job. However, these benefits don’t come without an equal share of medical device sales challenges. This blog post provides tips that may help you minimize any negative impact these challenges might have on your business.

A way to combat these challenges is through a proactive approach versus a reactive approach. A proactive approach means equipping your sales team with the tools necessary to address challenges before they occur. 

Read on to know the proactive solutions that can help your reps and your company.

Key Takeaways

  • Medical device sales pose challenges unique from other sales fields.
  • You can build a strong sales team by teaching data management, customer profiling, and commercial excellence.
  • You can prepare your sales reps for medical device sales challenges through quality training.

5 Main Challenges for Medical Device Sales Reps

Data management, customer profiling, and commercial excellence are crucial for resolving medical sales challenges. Here are how those strategies work for five challenges sales reps face every day.

1. Creating a Unified Brand Awareness

Your healthcare sales reps are one of many sales channels. You may also sell products through your website, call center representatives, or in stores. However, having multiple ways for hospitals and healthcare workers to purchase products also creates unified communication challenges.

Keeping your sales channels uniform in their marketing message avoids customer confusion. When information doesn’t align, buyers may feel skeptical about purchasing because they don’t know if they can trust the sales rep’s information.

Solution: A strong communication strategy includes multiple channels of communication. Here are some ways to communicate with your team so everyone is up to date with the latest product and sales information.

  • Train each sales rep on a unified sales process
  • Send regular emails with business updates
  • Use business communication platforms like Slack
  • Purchase customer relationship management (CRM) software
  • Integrate online collaboration or productivity tools
  • Create a company app
  • Hold regular online or in-person briefing meetings

In addition, you can provide sales reps with direct phone numbers and emails to contact when they have questions about a product or lead.

2. Building Customer Relationships

Finding new customers is 5 to 25 times more expensive than keeping loyal customers. Therefore, when you have a lead, your sales reps should invest in those leads to build a strong relationship so the customer will buy from your manufacturing business in the future.

However, building a relationship with doctors isn’t easy. They are swamped, with little time available to speak with sales reps. Often, sales reps address receptionists and never have a chance to talk directly to the physician. But sales reps need conversations and feedback to find a doctor’s pain points, needs, and wants. This customer data builds the foundation for their sales strategy for hospital purchasing.

Solution: Sales reps need to learn how to pack the most content in the fewest number of words. For example, a doctor usually doesn’t need to know how much money a device will save the hospital. They typically aren’t part of the hospital’s financial committee. Instead, they want to see how the device will help a patient and make their job easier. Your sales rep’s first sentence should be a strong value proposition that differentiates the product and states why the doctor should take the time to listen to a sales pitch.

3. Understanding and Explaining Complex Products

Medical devices involve intricate technology that helps with even more complex medical situations, which sales reps need to learn. In addition, sales reps speak to highly educated medical professionals who will see through any fluff and know immediately if sales reps are knowledgeable.

Sales reps also need to be on top of the latest laws, regulations, and industry standards since they deal with healthcare devices affecting people’s lives. Inaccurate information is the fastest way to end all possibilities of making a sale.

Solution: Every sales rep needs training before entering the field. Training should include teaching industry-specific solutions for healthcare instead of general sales tactics.

4. Collecting and Organizing Sales Data

Sales and data rely on each other. In fact, on average, sales reps spend 17% of their day just entering data. Data is what helps representatives find leads, market products, and drive home a sale. However, organizing that data is a challenge all sales reps face, especially those in medical device sales, because of interacting with more complex products and customers.

Data includes all the information you collect about your customer from that first touchpoint through to the follow-up. It includes contact information, demographics, pain points, purchase history, and more.

An added challenge to data collection is protecting the data of your leads. A data leak will reflect poorly on the entire company and cost thousands of dollars in reparation and damage repair.

Sales reps also collect data on their products, current product updates, regulations relating to the product, medical device sales trends, and more. This data allows sales reps to give the most accurate information about the devices.

Solution: Sales reps should access and store data in a database with advanced security. This database will protect the data from leaks and keep it organized for representatives to access what they need at the right time. In addition, each rep should learn how to use database management systems to avoid privacy infringements.

5. Maintaining a Healthy Work-Life Balance

The medical device market is growing rapidly. In 2021, it grew by 4.7% and is projected to continue rising steadily due to an increase in chronic illnesses. Because illnesses like diabetes and heart disease require medical devices for diagnosis and treatment, the healthcare industry needs medical sales reps to meet this demand.

While the high demand for medical devices is positive for medical sales reps’ job security, they must work long hours to fill the need.

A medical sales rep’s job is not the typical 9 to 5 career. Instead, they are on-call to troubleshoot equipment or deliver life-saving devices at the right time. But this lifestyle can create an unhealthy work-life balance.

A typical day for a sales rep includes:

  • Calling leads
  • Pitching sales
  • Troubleshooting equipment
  • Training personnel on device usage
  • Traveling for hospital distribution
  • Joining a surgery to help with a device

Solution: Thanks to modern technology, sales reps don’t have to do everything in person anymore. Sales reps can cut back on travel by offering remote help and solutions. Manufactures can also help combat this challenge by adding diagnostic features to devices to identify possible product issues before they occur, so reps can resolve the problems faster.

In addition, you can offer additional sales training to reps to avoid costly errors and streamline the sales process.

Address Medical Device Sales Challenges with Quality Training

A common theme for all five solutions is proper training. A well-trained sales rep could save your business thousands of dollars while earning even more through strong sales tactics. However, regular sales training is not enough. They should have training specifically for the healthcare industry.

Contact Share Moving Media to talk with a representative about our sales rep training resources and courses to help your sales reps overcome common challenges.

Introductory Guide to Content Marketing for Healthcare Distributors

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Content marketing for healthcare distributors is one of the best ways for you to connect to medical facilities and hospitals while building trust. However, developing a marketing strategy specifically for the healthcare industry doesn’t happen overnight.

That’s why we have this introductory guide for you. First, we will look at what content marketing for healthcare entails then how you can start using it in your business.

Key Takeaways:

  • Content marketing is a top priority for most B2B marketers today.
  • Create an actionable strategy with set goals before creating marketing content.
  • Healthcare marketing requires an extra level of empathy than other B2B strategies.

What is Content Marketing?

Content marketing is using online mediums to connect to your audience. It differs from traditional sales approaches because you often aren’t selling a specific service or product. Instead, you build brand awareness and develop relationships with your clients and potential leads through quality content.

Consumers respond favorably to content marketing because it is a breath of fresh air compared to the bombardment of over 5,000 ads a day. Instead, content marketing gives something back to consumers through information, free products, and community.

Common types of content marketing include:

  • Websites and blogs
  • Emails
  • Ebooks
  • Videos
  • Social media posts

Why is Content Marketing Important for Healthcare Distributors?

Healthcare distributors can use content marketing to build trust with hospitals, pharmacies, medical professionals, nursing homes, and more. You can have a virtually limitless reach and connect to leads you may not have connected with through other sales and marketing tactics.

Content marketing uses around 26% of B2B marketing budgets and is the top priority of 80% of marketers. If you effectively execute a quality marketing strategy, you will see:

  • Broader brand awareness
  • Higher quality leads
  • More loyal customers
  • Better search engine ranking
  • Higher industry authority

How to Create a Content Marketing Strategy

You would be unwise to drive around a new city without a map. Yet, that is what you are doing if you begin using content marketing without first establishing a strategy. It will save you time and resources by showing where you are, where you want to go, and the most effective route to achieving that goal.

Often, businesses will hire a content marketing manager to help in strategy development to ensure they consider all angles of their approach.

Here are the six essential steps to creating an efficient content marketing strategy for the healthcare distribution industry.

Step 1: Decide on your mission and goals. Begin by asking yourself what you want to accomplish in the long run.

Step 2: Choose a metric for measuring your success to know how well your strategies are working. Tracking your progress with measurable key performance indicators (KPIs) also alerts you to potential issues so you can resolve them before they hurt your growth.

Step 3: Decide on an audience based on the type of healthcare facilities most likely to purchase from you, who the decision-maker is within the department, where the facilities are located, and the size or budget of the facility that is most likely able to afford your products.

Step 4: Take inventory of what content marketing practices you already have in a place like your website or social accounts. You may even have some posts or blog articles written that you can spruce up.

Step 5: Decide what channels or content you still need to add to reach your goals.

Step 6: Create an actionable plan including a content calendar, specific deadlines, and managers for each marketing task. 

Now you are ready to start creating consistent, quality content.

5 Tips for Content Marketing for Healthcare Distributors

Here are five tips to apply to every piece of content you create so that you are reaching your intended audience, creating relatable content, and increasing your conversions.

1. Target Your Audience

Your ideal customer profile will help you create content targeted to your intended audience. You can educate, promote, and build trust with your market through engaging blog posts, social media content, and videos. Then, by implementing keywords specific to the healthcare industry, you are more likely to attract quality web traffic.

Your customer profile will also tell you where to locate possible new customers. For instance, LinkedIn has over 722 million professional users and 61 million senior-level decision-makers – making it the leading B2B marketing platform today.

2. Capture Their Attention

Creating content doesn’t guarantee your audience will read what you’ve written. That’s why understanding current content trends is essential, as that will guide you in choosing how you will capture your audience’s attention through optimized content, so they read past the headline.

Startling statistics, images, short paragraphs, and creative headlines are just a few ways you can reel your audience into your content.

One study showed that video content will be the top area of content marketing investment for most B2B in 2022 due to its high rate of engagement.

3. Back Your Claims with Statistics

Doctors and medical professionals aren’t wowed by fluff. They can see right through empty sales talk. Instead, they want proof of claims you make. Statistics and facts build trust with your audience and raise the quality of your article.

When you write an article on how your new device will transform a patient’s life – back that claim up with case studies, measurable metrics, and real stories of changed lives.

4. Have Empathy for Your Audience

Healthcare professionals have emotionally draining jobs, compounded by the effects of COVID-19. Therefore, this is one area where healthcare marketing differs from other B2B marketing tactics since your audience needs more empathy and emotional awareness.

You can show you truly understand and empathize with your audience by being sensitive in your wording, focusing on your product’s positive impact on their patients, and showing you understand and empathize with their work.

5. Create a Call-to-Action

The best marketing content always offers the next step. For example, you don’t want your audience to get to the end of an engaging blog post, then close the tab and never interact with your business again. Instead, give a call-to-action that tells your audience what steps they can do next, such as signing up for a newsletter, purchasing a product, or calling your business to find out more.

Start Creating Your Marketing Content

Share Moving Media has been working with healthcare distributors for over 27 years. Our communication and educational services help you grow your marketing strategy and achieve greater success.

Contact us to learn how we can help you create content that moves market share.

Draw Inspiration from the Best Ads and Commercials of 2021

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Between a pandemic and the world struggling to get back to “normal,” ads and commercials in 2021 have transformed through the year. While savvy marketers remained focused on the overall strategy and audience targeting, creatives needed to deliver a memorable ad experience with more prospective buyers consuming media faster than ever before.

From all industries ranging from healthcare to industrial, the global crisis shaped a new digital experience for consumers to stay connected and connect with brands across multiple platforms and media types. It’s even affected the advertising trends and budget spending on new channels, with 44% of marketers stating that they’ve completely changed their channel approach in 2021.

In this post, you’ll discover the top ads and commercials in 2021 to help you determine your future strategy. This past year brought new trends and debuted a fresh collection of campaigns to excite and convert consumers into customers. After all, 37% of brands have increased their TV ad spend since 2019, and it shows no signs of slowing down next year.

Ready to boost your creative strategy next year? Let’s dive in. 

Key Takeaways

  • The top 2021 ad trends included sustainability, representation, and user-generated content to drive results.
  • Advertisers use various channels like out of home, TV, and print to engage with audiences.
  • Campaigns that leverage authenticity and meaningful content often result in better performance.

The Biggest Ad and Commercial Trends to Watch

Developing ads and commercials isn’t a nice-to-have for healthcare businesses. With more people consuming video content and ad campaigns than ever before, it’s one of the best ways to build awareness and credibility with potential customers. 

Before diving into the latest and most significant campaigns, it’s essential to understand how trends this year impacted the creative strategy and drove improved results. Here are the top trends brands took advantage of in 2021:

  • Programmatic and AI advertising: Using real-time data, you can connect with hyper-targeted consumers across multiple channels based on their patterns and behaviors.
  • Going green: Highlighting your environmental impact and sustainability practices show consumers that you care about the greater good.
  • Mobile-first: Designing your campaigns for the 9:6 vertical ratio encourages more engagement on digital and social platforms. 
  • User-generated content: Leveraging your customers to create campaigns on platforms like TikTok and Instagram Reels allows you to better connect with your audience in a more authentic way.
  • Authentic representation: Featuring campaigns that display a diverse spectrum better represents and amplifies your entire audience. 
  • New colors: Staying away from neutrals and embracing natural colors, like teal and orange, evoke more emotion.

Moving into 2022, the trends you will implement will vary depending on your services and target audience to drive high-performance results. Next year, some common trends you can expect to see include inclusive photography, data visualizations, branded memes, and colorful illustrations. 

4 Top Ads and Commercials in 2021 for Your Brand to Leverage

Looking back at 2021, ads and commercials might remind you of all the twists and turns this year took. Brands unable to adapt to trends might have encountered new obstacles to building long-lasting relationships with customers. However, there wasn’t a shortage of creativity for brands willing to innovate and take a chance.

Here are the top 2021 campaigns to help inspire your future ads and commercials:

1. McDonald’s – “Lights On”

During the pandemic in the United Kingdom, McDonald’s closed its doors before offering the beloved Big Macs and Sausage McMuffins through at-home delivery. Once the company established online ordering, they introduced the three posters in popular geographic locations that show the “M” arch over common residential areas. 

While the design is relatively simple, the powerful message of being available for customers in the comfort of their own homes was fitting for the time. 

Takeaway lesson: When evoking an emotional response, a minimalist design allows your audience to focus more on the message. 

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2. Relief – “A Better Way to Get Out of Debt”

When Netflix released the hit “Squid Games” series, many brands attempted to leverage the sudden popularity but often failed due to the nature of the game-show murder context. However, Relief took an interesting view of the series by printing out cards that say, “There’s a better way to get out of debt.”

By Relief handing these cards out in key geographic regions like Miami and New York, the company quickly resonated with fans of the TV show and drove more app downloads.

Takeaway lesson: Leverage culturally relevant events to highlight your products and services, but make sure it’s meaningful to avoid trying to jump on the bandwagon without reason. 

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3. Amazon – “Alexa’s Body”

Since most people recognize the “Alexa” voice, Amazon explored the idea of Alexa having the body of this year’s hottest celebrity actor, Michael B. Jordan. With voice assistants rising in popularity and Alexa earning 26.7% market share, Amazon displayed this ad in the 2021 Super Bowl by testing the creative limits of the family-friendly event.

What makes this commercial particularly successful is not only highlighting a successful product, but also co-promoting Jordan’s upcoming Amazon Prime movie, “No Remorse.” While the focus was Alexa, Amazon successfully promoted two products and delivered even more impact to viewers.

Takeaway lesson: Utilize your ad campaigns to highlight a mix of products and services relevant to your target audience. 

4. Heinz – “Draw Ketchup”

Regardless of your industry, brands that define the category so much that consumers can only think about them are the ultimate flex. This proves true with Heinz’s commercial, which challenged people worldwide to “draw ketchup.” The result? Everyone drew the Heinz bottle. 

Not only does this commercial highlight Heinz’s global impact, but it also showcases the brand in a transparent light through user-generated content. Heinz also utilized multiple ad cuts across digital channels and created a contest for consumers to win a customized bottle of ketchup to keep the campaign interactive.

Takeaway lesson: Don’t be afraid to be more playful with your ad campaigns to pique interest. 

Boosting Brand Storytelling with Ads and Commercials in Healthcare

If you’re ready to create a new ad campaign or commercial in 2022, you’ll want to learn the lessons of past advertisements to make the most out of your resources and budget. Depending on your goals—brand awareness, lead generation, etc.—your campaign will need to evoke emotion, leverage current trends, and utilize user-generated content to drive results. 

Share Moving Media is a leading publishing and content production company that proudly partners with manufacturers and distributors in the medical field. We would love to help you grow your audience, crush the competition, and win new customers for your business. Contact us today to learn more.

9 Changes in the Purchase Behavior of Healthcare Providers

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The healthcare industry has completely transformed because of technological advances in medicine and the supply chain. 

In addition, it saw another drastic change during COVID-19. The purchase behavior of healthcare providers evolved along with the industry to meet the growing demand for telemedicine, value-based technology, and preparedness for future crises.

Here are ten of the ways providers are changing the way they purchase supplies to match the advances in the healthcare industry.

Key Takeaways:

  • Emerging technology and COVID-19 are the greatest influencers on today’s healthcare purchasing trends.
  • Healthcare providers are seeking value based on data over cost-efficiency.
  • Technology is changing the way providers treat patients and manufacturers deliver products.

9 Ways the Purchase Behavior of Healthcare Providers is Changing

Technology and the experience gained from COVID-19 are leading the way for most healthcare changes. Let’s look at ten ways those changes have impacted the purchasing behavior of providers.

1. A Focus on Data-Backed Decisions

The modern world is built on digital tracking and lead nurturing data that businesses acquire. Data availability has helped healthcare providers make more informed decisions when purchasing.

Gone are the days where physicians purchase products that serve them the best or are most affordable. Bruce Johnson, CEO and President of GHX, said that the previous focus on cutting costs had laid the foundation for current initiatives that now focus on quality patient care.

In today’s healthcare market behavior, providers use data to study trends in patient care and responses to find what appeals to their patients. These trends tell them what equipment and supplies have value and what is not necessary.

As manufacturers, you can meet that need by backing your claims with data that gives your device or supplies value.

2. Trust Built through Transparency

Along with value, healthcare providers want more transparency from sales representatives and manufacturers. They can confirm any information you share, so giving fluffy sales pitches will not impress providers. Additionally, 62% of consumers will remain loyal to businesses they trust.

What will catch their interest is a detailed layout of all the costs, including maintenance and upkeep fees, additional equipment they need, and any product weaknesses. When you lay out all the information for providers to examine, they will trust you more, and you have a higher chance of making a sale.

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3. Higher Interest in Product Testing

Since healthcare providers want products with value, they often request user testing before investing in new products. This trial period is a way for them to gather data on how the product gives value to the healthcare facility by improving care or cutting costs.

4. Implementation of Standardized Care

Healthcare providers are moving towards standardized care. Standardized care is a time-saving method of using approved standards known to be the most efficient and effective treatment.

By standardizing care, healthcare providers can:

  • Cut down on errors
  • Provide timely care
  • Spend less time trying ineffective treatments
  • Cut down on wasteful or inefficient products and processes

When healthcare providers make purchasing decisions, they are more likely to choose products backed by standardized processes rather than experimenting with new devices

5. Supply Tracking Using Technology and AI

Technology has revolutionized the healthcare industry and healthcare buying behavior through modern devices that can diagnose and treat patients with a high level of care. In addition, AI automates data collection, business organization, and supply tracking processes.

AI can keep a log of the supplies each hospital has available. Then, when supplies are low, it will notify the appropriate person or automatically reorder the necessary supplies. This technology helps providers maintain a consistent demand plan and helps streamline the purchasing process with established suppliers.

6. A Demand for Personalized Medicine

Patients who visit healthcare facilities also expect a certain level of care made possible by technology. For example, medicine, products, and implants are not a one-size-fits-all solution. Instead, doctors can scan people using advanced technology and offer solutions specific to their needs. Consequently, patients will often explore different medical facilities based on what each offers.

For hospitals to meet this healthcare consumer trend, they want more options from their suppliers, so they have more to offer their patients.

7. The Adoption of Telehealth and Virtual Care

COVID-19 pushed healthcare providers to adopt new technology into their processes quickly. Telehealth and virtual care implementation was the most significant area where digitization took hold in healthcare. While healthcare providers used to reserve these for emergencies or special cases, they have now become common.

Many patients use telehealth for routine visits and minor care. Additionally, 76% of U.S. hospitals provide a form of telehealth for their patients.

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Therefore, healthcare providers are finding ways to provide the necessary tools to support this shift. For example, hospitals are no longer the bridge between manufacturers and patients. Now, many medicines and supplies go directly to private homes. However, not all manufacturers are prepared for commercial shipping.

In addition, healthcare providers need more devices patients can operate remotely. For example, glucose monitors are becoming popular, allowing diabetes patients to monitor their levels continually and remotely send information to their providers through apps.

8. Preparations for Future Crisis

COVID-19 was a wake-up call for many providers who realized they were underprepared to meet the crisis. Now, healthcare providers are reexamining how they stock supplies in preparation for another unpredictable future event.

The implementation of preparedness storage planning means providers are not just purchasing products they need now. They also want supplies for unforeseen future events. For example, one standard for preparedness storage recommends hospitals always have 90 days of PPE inventory in storage.

9. Implementation of Alternative Sales Approaches

Selling medical supplies is becoming increasingly more complex. Instead of sales representatives going to hospitals to sell products, many providers prefer alternative approaches. For example, virtual sales using video conferences and AR product demonstrations are growing in popularity.

Another strategy you can consider is recruiting a healthcare worker as your advocate. In doing this, you strengthen your chances of making a positive impression. Often, an advocate physician will bring your product or device to a board and champion it for you instead of you sending a sales representative to the board.

Meeting the Changes in the Healthcare Industry

Is your company ready to meet these changes in purchasing behavior?

We can help you produce content that will appeal to the modern healthcare provider and promote your products and supplies to solve their current challenges.

Contact us to discuss how we can help with your marketing content needs.