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4 Ways Marketers Can Successfully Execute Audience Targeting in Healthcare

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The medtech industry continues to grow and is expected to have its worldwide sales reach $522 billion by 2022.

With an aging Baby Boomer population and Americans facing chronic illnesses more than ever before, medical facilities need the right technology to provide quality patient care. For healthcare marketers, this means you have to get your products in front of your niche targeted audience, at the right time, if you hope to land a sale. 

With a growing need and competition saturating the industry, it’s more important than ever for medical suppliers to develop a comprehensive marketing strategy that targets the right audience. Marketing to the right audience allows you to develop brand awareness, increase sales, and create trust between you and customers. 

Sounds good, right? But, what’s the best audience targeting in healthcare strategy that drives sales? Let’s take a look at a few ways you can boost brand recognition with audience targeting. 

Why is Audience Targeting in Healthcare Important?

Instead of the traditional one-size-fits-all marketing strategy, targeting specific audiences puts a clear focus on who your products will serve and why. In doing so, you’re able to allocate a budget that’s more likely to produce a high ROI. 

A target audience is a set of customers who share similar needs and pain points that your products will serve. The correct audience targets give you further insight into which customers of yours are long-term and which are one-time only so you can identify your most qualified leads to connect with. 

When segmenting audiences in healthcare, you need to not only consider the hospitals or facilities you sell to, but also their patients. The different ways you can segment your audiences include:

  • Demographic: Age, education, gender, race, etc.
  • Psychographic: Values, interests, personality, lifestyle, etc.
  • Behavioral: Brand interactions, purchase habits, budget, status, etc.
  • Geographic: City, area code, neighborhood, etc. 

4 Ways Medical Suppliers Can Market to Target Audiences

To get started targeting your niche healthcare audience, consider implementing the following tactics:

1. Produce Thought Leader Content

Did you know that 51% of B2B buyers search for educational content before making a decision? With technology that saves and improves the quality of lives across the country, your brand has a story to tell. Use your product’s story to develop thought leadership material that provides solutions to your audience’s pain points.

The right content will establish your credibility and further your brand awareness throughout the industry. Types of thought leadership content you can produce include:

  • Articles or whitepapers to demonstrate how your products benefit patients
  • Webinars that dive deeper into relatable subjects
  • How-to or about videos that speak to who you are

2. Utilize Social Media Advanced Targeting

Medical suppliers who are active on social media have a huge opportunity to improve their reputation with potential customers. With 46% of medical professionals engaging on social media, it’s essential to understand what platforms your customers spend the most time on and develop valuable content that speaks to their needs.

For healthcare sales, consider spending time on LinkedIn to connect with niche medical professionals that will buy into your brand. LinkedIn also provides advanced targeting features that allow you to advertise to specific organizations, job titles, and more to ensure you’re reaching the right person. These additional touchpoints will help you increase engagement and improve lead generation to potentially result in a sale. 

3. Develop a Website that Provides Solutions

Dealing with complex technology that saves lives, your website can’t rely on flashy imagery and witty one-liners. It needs to answer who you are, what products you sell, and why your audience should be interested. Within your website:

  • Display your mission statement on an about page 
  • Discuss the features and benefits of your product pages
  • Highlight past customer success stories and testimonials
  • Showcase thought leadership content to display your credibility
  • Drive conversions by allowing users to schedule consultations

Within your content, make sure you’re using search engine optimization best practices so your target audience can find you with a quick Google search. Consider what keywords your audience might search for and use them throughout your website to earn more organic website traffic. 

4. Stay Top of Mind with Email Marketing

Of course, audience targeting in healthcare wouldn’t be complete without mentioning email marketing. Not only does email marketing produce an ROI of $42 for every $1 spent, but it allows you to send personalized messages to your leads and customers to build loyal relationships. 

With email marketing, you can send valuable content directly to your customer’s inbox about your brand or products. When targeting a specific audience, utilize segmentation to send relevant messages that speak to their challenges. For example, if you have a consultation with a family doctor, send targeted emails about how your products help family members of all ages. To sweeten the deal, include testimonials from past customers in the same audience segment. 

Additionally, utilize a customer relationship manager (CRM) to create email workflows that automatically send the right emails to a relevant audience segment. 

Target the Right Audiences with Strategic Marketing Campaigns

Developing a marketing strategy for your medical supply company has never been more important. In the ever-evolving healthcare industry, the right audience targeting is the difference in providing patients with the best technology or failing to stand out amongst the competition. 

To start developing valuable content for your target audience, contact Share Moving Media today.

3 Things Your Medical Manufacturing Ad Should Have

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Digital advertising is a booming industry as more people head online to find solutions to their various problems. So, it comes to no surprise that digital advertising in healthcare is continuing to grow at a steady rate. In fact, research has shown that healthcare companies’ global advertising expenditure has grown by 3.6% and reached approximately $36 billion.

For medical product manufacturers, transitioning to digital advertising is critical in 2020, especially with the current pandemic slowing down more traditional advertising methods, which include attending large in-person conventions and sending sales individuals directly to IDNs or physicians to speak about new or upgraded products. 

Sure, while current restrictions have made healthcare advertising difficult, for those who work in the healthcare advertising field, it is just another challenge in an ever-changing arena. 

Digital Advertising in Healthcare: What Sets It Apart from “Traditional” Advertising

While digital advertising in healthcare looks a lot like digital advertising in any other industry, it’s actually considered one of the most challenging areas of marketing. This is especially true for those in charge of medical manufacturing ads, as they are under strict supervision and must abide by various rules and regulations set by the state, various licensing boards, and even the FDA. 

So, while most ads are allowed a wide birth of creative freedoms, digital advertising in healthcare requires a little extra creativity. 

3 Things Every Medical Manufacturing Ad Should Have

While medical manufacturing ads need to adhere to various rules and regulations, that doesn’t mean they can’t make use of the most successful aspects of any digital advertisement, including the three aspects outlined below:

1. A Storytelling Aspect

The goal of any good advertisement is to get the consumer interested in your product or service. To do this, you can’t merely throw facts and data at them, even if your primary audience is a team of medical professionals. 

Storytelling is an essential element to any good medical manufacturing ad because it helps your audience put a face to the product you’re trying to sell them. For example, take the current COVID-19 pandemic. The topic of wearing a mask has been a hot one, and many brands are capitalizing on the “Wear a Mask” campaign. 

This campaign has allowed millions of individuals to express WHY they choose to wear a mask during this pandemic, and it quite literally puts faces to the campaign. These stories put all the facts and figures to shame because they are more relatable to consumers than anything else. It’s these stories that will help influence the public on the mask-wearing debate because mask-wearing is transformed into an act of humanity.

2. An Educational Aspect

Now, that’s not to say the facts and figures don’t matter, but they need to be sprinkled in appropriately. That same campaign also works to educate the masses about different topics, including:

  • COVID-19
  • Why masks can be beneficial in fighting the pandemic
  • Who the masks are really protecting and more

Many companies have taken their own twist on the “Wear a Mask” campaign and turned it into “ask why I wear a mask.” It not only helps to educate the public but helps include personal testimonials into the mix, which can play to a consumer’s emotional side as well.

This is the part of the ad that should include the facts and figures, and they should be coming from the mouths of those telling the story because it will have a more profound impact on the audience than say having Dr. Fauci talk about the data. 

3. An Emotional Aspect

Studies have shown that 95% of purchasing decisions are not only subconscious but an emotional process. That’s why so many individuals turn to testimonials before they make their purchasing decisions. They want to be able to convince themselves that the purchase is:

  • Worth spending the money on
  • Will benefit them in some way/solve some sort of problem

Medical manufacturers would be wise to make a note of this because those testimonials are where the real magic happens. With 70% of consumers stating that they trust reviews and recommendations from strangers and another 88% stating that reviews influence their online purchasing decisions, adding this emotional aspect to your medical manufacturing ad can prove extremely beneficial. 

Some key things to remember when including an emotional aspect to any ad include:

  • Make it authentic to your audience. Play to their needs.
  • Give value. Don’t simply list your features and “why they work.”
  • Show, don’t tell. The human brain processes images 60,000x faster than text.

Digital Advertising in Healthcare Doesn’t Stop Here

The goal of any good digital advertisement is to capture the audience’s attention and influence them into taking action. This is no different for the healthcare industry, which is why so many of the digital advertising best practices can work for medical manufacturers. 

Just remember, digital advertising in healthcare is only one step in the broader healthcare marketing strategy. So, when creating your medical manufacturing ads, keep the rest of your digital marketing strategy in mind.

Want to stay up to date on the latest healthcare marketing trends? Then make sure to subscribe to SMM’s Marketing Minute today!

What You Need to Know When Searching for a Medical Manufacturing Marketing Agency

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Marketing budgets aren’t limitless. That’s a fact.

When deciding where to put your marketing dollars, you’ve got to be smart. This is especially true for the hyper-competitive medical manufacturing field.

Do it right, and you can tap into a vast market. In medical devices alone, the United States remains the world’s largest supplier, claiming 40 % ($156 billion) of the global market in 2017. By 2023, the U.S. market share is expected to equal $208 billion. Some of the bigger device manufacturers in the U.S. are Medtronic, Stryker, Boston Scientific, BD, Baxter and 3M just to name a few.

A medical manufacturing marketing agency can help you get a bigger piece of that pie by boosting your brand to grow your market share. Finding the right agency is the first step.

Here’s what you need to know when searching for a healthcare product marketing agency. 

Not All Healthcare Marketing Agencies Are Created Equal

Look for a marketing agency that specializes in medical manufacturing and intimately understands, IDNs, GPOs and Medical Distribution. They should either be dedicated to healthcare marketing or, at the least, have a dedicated healthcare vertical.  

To verify this kind of expertise, you can:

  • Check Former Clients: Many marketing agencies include the logos of big-name clients on their websites. This is an easy first stop when researching a medical manufacturing marketing agency. If this info isn’t available online, ask directly.
  • View a Portfolio: Request to see a portfolio of relevant work. Medical manufacturing covers a huge range of products, from hearing aids to catheters and stents. Ideally, the agency will have experience in your niche.
  • Request Resumes: Ask for resumes of team members who will handle your medical marketing needs. Their experience should be clearly healthcare-focused – maybe they even used to work in the field in a “boots on the ground” role like medical device sales.

All of this adds up to expertise – and that’s precisely what you want. You don’t want generalist marketing. You want medical manufacturing marketing, provided by people who are passionate about the field. They will bring valuable knowledge because they know the industry from the inside out. 

They’ve been in hospitals, at doctor’s offices, and at R&D facilities, talking to the people who matter: the Supply Chain Leaders. And guess what? Harvard Business Review reports that the most successful brands focus on users, not buyers.

What to Look for in a Medical Manufacturing Marketing Agency

Once you’ve narrowed down the field to a selection of healthcare marketing agencies with dedicated experience in medical manufacturing, it’s time for a more detailed assessment. 

1. Digital Knowledge

Digital marketing is already dominating other industries, from fashion to food. It’s also the future of medical manufacturing marketing. The field has been slow to catch up, but it’s making progress. With the COVID-19 pandemic restricting large-scale healthcare events, digital will gain more ground.  

Find out what digital-specific experience the agency has, requesting samples of campaigns and asking what healthcare marketing tools they use. Look for media diversity, from social platforms to online trade publications and email newsletters.

2. Comprehensive Strategy

It’s not all about digital. Physical marketing still has its place. Cross-platform capability offers the best of both worlds. The messaging of an e-publication can also be adapted to a print magazine found in a physician’s office, for example. Different audiences have different needs and wants, and the right channel depends largely on the intended audience.

Look for examples of innovation across multiple channels. Inbound and outbound marketing work best together. Digital and physical media might be complemented with educational seminars, lectures, or investigator-initiated studies, for instance.

3. Knowledge of Market Segmentation

An understanding of market segmentation and buyer intent is essential to success. Attracting the attention of best-in-class supply chain leaders or high-interest IDNs like Mayo Clinic will arguably get you further than attracting the attention of rural physicians in the Midwest.

The best marketing agencies not only have the knowledge and tools to execute campaigns across multiple channels, but they also know which channels to use to reach the desired audience. Discuss your target audiences with the agency to see how they would approach each one.

4. Measurable Results

Marketing success is measurable. Don’t let anybody tell you otherwise. From quantitative metrics like clicks on digital campaigns to qualitative methods like surveys on brand reputation, it’s possible to see the difference good marketing makes. Then there’s always the bottom line: sales figures. 

Ask what tools and metrics the agency will use to measure success and how these results will be reported to you. You deserve to see whether those marketing dollars you’re investing are reaping the rewards. 

5. Innovative Mindset

The fact is that marketers fight an uphill battle. Only 4% of consumers believe advertisers and marketers act with integrity. Creativity is the key to overcoming that doubt. Less “sexy” markets like medical supplies can learn from other fields – like the 2020 Superbowl ads, an example of authenticity in action.

That might seem like a wild statement to make. But it’s that kind of unconventional thinking that leads to success. Choose a medical manufacturing marketing agency that isn’t afraid to think outside the box.

The Latest Medical Marketing News

Share Moving Media helps best-in-class medical manufacturing suppliers increase market share. Subscribe to our weekly newsletter, The Marketing Minute, to stay up to date on best practices.

Interested in working together? Contact us.

What Medical Suppliers Can Learn from the Backlash Against Ellen DeGeneres

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Seen as progressive – in part due to being an LGBT personality – Ellen DeGeneres has up until recently maintained a positive public persona. However, it seems like there are new “working for Ellen” horror stories every day.

Medical suppliers might ask, “What does this have to do with us?” We can learn a lot from paying attention to current events, whether it’s by observing Super Bowl ads or following celebrity news. 

What Happened to Ellen DeGeneres — and Can It Happen to Medical Suppliers?

It’s easy to forget that The Ellen DeGeneres Show is relatively new. She’s been in the limelight since the ‘80s. When she came out as a lesbian, it was a huge deal. Ratings of her sitcom dipped, and the series was canceled. It wasn’t until 2003 that DeGeneres found her footing in Hollywood again. 

America empathized with DeGeneres as she rose, stumbled, and got back up. That’s a compelling story! But it also laid the groundwork for what’s happening today. 

In a sense, 2020 marks her second fall from grace. 

Building trust is powerful – but when people fall in love, betrayal can sting. What could be more hurtful than finding out that someone preaching kindness is a mean person?

What her plight teaches us is that even great brands aren’t untouchable. Anyone can be brought down by a bad reputation.  Bad things usually happen fast, just think of 3M getting called out by President Trump a couple months ago in the Rose Garden.

3 Tips for Medical Suppliers to Avoid a Fall from Grace Like Ellen’s

When business leaders think of reputation management, their minds often go to damage control after the fact. The idea is actually to get ahead by influencing what people think of you in general.  

This way, unexpected messes can be cleaned up with ease. An excellent reputation could also be the deciding factor that gets a consumer to choose your hospital equipment over those offered by your competitors.

How do you take care of your reputation? Here are three tips gleaned from observing Ellen DeGeneres’ current PR battle.

1. Track What People Say About You Online

In 2016, comedian Kathy Griffin wrote a memoir. The book revealed that it was an open secret in Hollywood that a well-loved daytime TV host had a mean streak. Griffin later confirmed that she was talking about DeGeneres.

That wasn’t the first time people heard unpleasant descriptions about DeGeneres. Remarks on social media platforms surfaced from time to time, finally coming to a head this year.

So medical suppliers: Listen to your audience. Did you know that a business can lose over 20% of its customers if users find even one negative post about their brand online? 

That doesn’t mean you need a full-blown social media presence. Just know where your target audience hangs out online and monitor that space. 

You can also work with key opinion leaders to boost awareness. Let people know the basics, like:  

  • What types of products do you manufacture or distribute? 
  • How can IDNs learn more about your offerings? 

2. Don’t Ignore Customer Feedback

Respond to comments, especially if they’re bad reviews. 45% of consumers note that they’re most likely to visit a business that takes the time to address negative feedback. 

Rumors of the toxic work environment on The Ellen DeGeneres Show have been going around for more than a decade, but the TV host never confronted them. It took an official investigation into the franchise’s workplace culture for DeGeneres to apologize to her staff and acknowledge the issue.

Allegations of sexual harassment and misconduct by the show’s top executives also surfaced. Some former employees believe executives shielded DeGeneres from the gory details and controlled what she knew of the set’s day-to-day activities.

Ignore a problem, and this is what happens. It grows! Medical suppliers, let this be another teachable moment. Do you read the Amazon reviews of your products?

It’s not enough to know what goes on online. The real world is still out there. Participate in industry events. Subscribe to and get your name in trade publications. Volunteer in industry workgroups, and most of all: respond quickly and recalibrate your work processes when needed.

3. Build Trust and Get to Know Your Audience

This is not so much an observation as it is advice for DeGeneres. Building trust back with her fans — not to mention her current staff — is key, but it’s not going to be easy. 

Whether you’re avoiding having something similar happen to you or you’re in the middle of some reputation troubleshooting yourself, the key is to know these two things: your target audiences and value propositions unique to each one. 

Decision-making during a B2B transaction involves six people on average. Do you have custom-tailored value propositions for those six stakeholders, or are you only focusing on clinicians making medical equipment purchases? Do your reps come from diverse backgrounds, able to deftly interact with different consumer bases – or are they all middle-aged men? 

Brand messaging in healthcare is crucial. When you know your audience, it’s easier to figure out your brand identity. When you know who you are, you’ll be that much more convincing when you talk about why your company matters and why your customers should remain loyal. 

How Can Share Moving Media Help Medical Suppliers?

Share Moving Media is a full-service content and media company committed to helping medical suppliers gain or increase their market share.

Interested in finding out more information about what we do and how we do it? Contact us and let us know what you need.

The Share Moving Media Blog: Your Marketing Resource for Healthcare Contracting Professionals

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The Share Moving Media blog is the ultimate marketing resource for healthcare contracting professionals, such as medical suppliers, manufacturers, and distributors. Our goal is always to help you increase your customer market share through value-added content and opportunities for increased visibility and brand awareness.

Your feedback is important to us. If there’s a topic you’d like to see covered here, let us know. Meanwhile, be sure to subscribe, so you don’t miss important content that can show you how to create ideal customer relationships, boost revenue, and increase your authority in the field.

Healthcare Industry Challenges

A new world

At Share Moving Media, we believe now is the perfect time to launch our new blog series. Healthcare industry challenges have perhaps never been greater than in the last six months. However, we see this time as a window for rethinking business practices and creating new methods for addressing customer needs.

You’ve no doubt experienced some of the hurdles brought on by the novel coronavirus and the ensuing COVID-19 pandemic:

  • Supply chain disruptions at all levels for equipment, pharmaceuticals, raw ingredients, and materials
  • Supply/demand imbalances, shortages, and allocations
  • Increased marketplace competition in some sectors
  • Abrupt price changes and quality control issues
  • Development of nontraditional distribution pathways
  • Formation of government consortiums
  • Reallocation of medical and support staff, as well as budgets
  • Timeline shifts for mergers, acquisitions, and reorganizations
  • Stock market volatility and unpredictability
  • Shift from B2B to B2C selling and vice versa
  • Expanded focus on COVID, PPE, and vaccines
  • Decrease in non-emergent medical care
  • Implementation of telemedicine for routine care
  • Reduced onsite personnel and more remote work
  • Customer workplace visitation restrictions
  • Retail outlet closures and an increase in online business
  • Academic institution shutdowns
  • Patient loss of insurance coverage with unemployment

The healthcare industry as a whole has been reeling since the start of 2020. While the remainder of this year may seem shrouded in mystery, many companies are starting to see the fog clear. We want to assist you in developing marketing strategies moving forward, to the degree we are all able to plan for the future. Therefore, we will be addressing these challenges and much more in upcoming blog posts.

Introduction to Share Moving Media

Our publications and services

For readers not yet familiar with Share Moving Media, we are a full-service media and content company dedicated to medical providers, manufacturers, and distributors. Through our associations, educational services, and publications, we provide news, information, and brand visibility via advertising and sponsored content.

Our high-quality content includes:

  • Articles
  • Blog posts
  • Ebooks
  • Videos
  • Webinars
  • Podcasts
  • Graphics

We produce multiple publications in the healthcare contracting vertical. You may already be familiar with Repertoire, our magazine for the healthcare distribution channel focusing on physician offices, hospitals, surgery centers, and long-term care institutions. We also publish The Journal of Healthcare Contracting for healthcare supply professionals. This popular publication features content for healthcare systems and facilities, manufacturers, suppliers, distributors, and group purchasing organizations.

Pillars of our mission

We’re confident that Share Moving Media stands out from other healthcare contracting media companies by virtue of our three mission pillars:

  • To provide and promote marketing excellence in healthcare
  • To enhance healthcare brand communications via storytelling and unique case studies
  • To use persona-based marketing to help clients finetune consumer demographics and to identify and address evolving industry demands

Healthcare Contracting Help Where You Need It

How our blog will elevate your business

Whether you’re a small niche supplier or an integrated delivery network, our blog will help you take your business to the next level. In future posts, we’ll be discussing diverse topics in the industry, such as:

  • Contract management software
  • Medical device innovation
  • Integrated delivery networks
  • Equipment purchasing
  • Hospital inventory management
  • Healthcare marketing analytics
  • Brand messaging
  • Thought leadership

Through examples and best practices, we want to help you:

  • Tell the story of your brand and earn an audience
  • Guide your brand through its lifecycle, from launch to customer conversion and retention
  • Demonstrate how your products are beneficial
  • Evaluate different content forms (blogs, white papers, videos, etc.) to determine which one is right for your varying needs at any given time
  • Develop one-of-a-kind marketing content to set you apart from the competition and to provide invaluable tools for sales staff
  • Discover how to use content and advertising together to complement each other

We’ll be talking about health insurance trends, group purchasing, medical distribution, supply chains, sales creativity, and more.

Reach Out to Share Moving Media Today

Interested in how you can start working with Share Moving Media to help your business reach its goals? Contact us today and let us know how we can assist you. And we look forward to welcoming you as a new blog subscriber.