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7 Best Strategies for Digital Advertising in Healthcare

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Digital advertising in healthcare is how your manufacturing company reaches more leads through online avenues. Examples of digital avenues include paid ads, content marketing, and social media.

On average, for every $1 you invest in advertising, you will receive $8 in profit. However, you don’t have to pay for all types of advertising. Continue reading to  explore seven ways, both paid and free, to advertise your healthcare manufacturing business online.

Key Takeaways

  • You can use SEO to promote your website for free or get immediate results through PPC ads.
  • You can use social media to post marketing content, paid ads, and influencer promotions.
  • Email marketing allows you to connect personally with your customers.

7 Digital Advertising Strategies for Healthcare Manufacturers

Here are several digital advertising methods that you can implement in your marketing strategy to reach a greater audience.

1. Paying for Display Ads

Display ads are banners and sidebar ads that people encounter during their online activities. These ads are often customized based on consumers’ internet behavior and interests. Therefore, your healthcare supply ads are most likely to appear to healthcare professionals.

For paid display ads, you usually only pay when people click on the ads. Since 65% of consumers regularly click on ads, you are likely to regain any investments in the ads.

Here are some common places to display your paid ads.

  • Website banners
  • Website Popups
  • Facebook sidebar
  • YouTube videos

2. Using Search Engine Marketing

Google processes about 75,000 searches every second. It is the most popular search engine. If you want to attract healthcare providers to your manufacturing company, you will need to increase your presence in their searches.

As hospitals and healthcare facilities search for supplies online, they will use specific terms to find what they need, like “healthcare supplies” or the name of specific equipment. Therefore, you can market your products by using those terms in your website content and product descriptions, so they are more likely to rank higher in searches in a process called search engine optimization (SEO).

Sometimes SEO is not enough to get your products seen, primarily if many other businesses compete for those exact words. While you can wait for your online ranking to improve, you can see immediate results by paying for a top position in online searches through pay-per-click ads (PPC).

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3. Designing a Website and Ecommerce Store

Your website has the potential to become your most effective healthcare advertising tool. It is a fully customizable space for you to promote products, announce sales, and provide valuable information that encourages healthcare providers to purchase from you.

You can use your website for every stage of the sales funnel. First, it attracts leads through SEO or PPC. Next, it informs your leads about your products and business. Then, it allows them to purchase those products right through your website. Lastly, it gives a place for healthcare providers to submit feedback about the medical supplies they purchased.

4. Writing Blogs with a Call-to-Action

Your blog is an organic part of your website that provides a platform for educating your customers about your products and business. You can also use your blog as an advertisement. You do this by promoting products throughout your content and adding a call-to-action (CTA) at the end of each post. Sometimes you may even want to add several CTAs throughout your piece. However, be careful of how often you include them, as too many will make your content sound like a lengthy sales pitch which is off-putting for your readers.

A CTA tells your readers what you want them to do next. Here are some examples of common CTAs.

  • Sign up
  • Buy now
  • Learn more
  • Contact us

They usually are written along with a link that leads your customers to the next step. The most effective CTAs offer something beneficial or free, resolve a pain point, create a sense of urgency, or show how many others have already completed the action.

If you want to reach more consumers, you can guest post on other people’s blogs. For example, you can find a website that reviews medical devices and supplies and ask them to feature some of your products.

5. Interacting on Social Media

You can reach about 72% of adults through social media. Some of the most popular social platforms include Facebook, Instagram, Snapchat, YouTube, Twitter, LinkedIn, and TikTok.

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You can use those platforms for advertising new products through paid ads, promotional posts, and tagged posts from satisfied customers.

Social media is also a place to interact with customers through forums and groups. For example, when healthcare professionals ask for recommendations, you can post links to your products and promote your brand.

6. Asking Influencers to Promote Your Products

Sometimes the best way to advertise your products is by getting someone else to do the promotions. About 90% of people believe influencer marketing is effective. It is even becoming a popular healthcare marketing trend.

The reason influencers are often more effective than business promotions is because influencers are more authentic and build better trust. Customers expect a business only to share the benefits of their products. However, when an outside person also backs products, other consumers are more inclined to listen.

Some healthcare influencers include nurses who post tips on YouTube, doctors who show their daily lives through TikTok, and medical professionals with large followings on Instagram or Facebook. You can pay these influencers to use your products in their content as a means of advertising your business.

7. Sending Marketing Emails

Nearly 90% of marketers use emails to distribute content. Some types of content you can include in your marketing emails incorporate:

  • Product promotions
  • Sales notices
  • Business updates
  • Industry news
  • Abandoned cart reminders

In addition, many of the people on your email list have already expressed interest in your business. They did so by signing up for your newsletter or previously purchasing products. Therefore, you have a higher chance of them responding positively to your email ads, especially since 49% of consumers like to receive promotional emails from brands they love.

One of the most significant benefits of email marketing is your ability to customize emails for each consumer, such as where they are in the sales funnel, their geographic location, or the type of healthcare facility they operate.

Find a Partner to Help with Digital Advertising in Healthcare

Are you ready to invest in digital marketing for healthcare? Contact us for more information on how we can help with your advertising content.

How to Build Lasting Manufacturer and Distributor Relationships in Healthcare

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An effective supply chain management system relies on a healthy manufacturer and distributor relationship in healthcare. Manufacturers and distributors are the first two parts of the supply chain before products reach the customer.

Investing in a relationship with your distributers benefits both parties because you can support each other. Ultimately, you will see a greater return in profits and experience fewer frustrations from supply chain disconnects.

Are you ready to learn how to develop this relationship? Then let’s get started.

Key Takeaways

  • Effective communication is foundational for building a lasting relationship with your distributors.
  • A relationship is built on both communicating and listening to the other party’s needs.
  • You may often find your challenges align with your distributors’ challenges and mutually beneficial compromises are possible.

Use Effective Communication

Communication is foundational to building a manufacturer and distributor relationship. 97% of workers say communication impacts their daily tasks. For companies with over 100 employees, miscommunication costs them about $420,000 annually.

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All the other strategies we will explore for building a manufacturer-distributor relationship will be pointless without first establishing efficient supply chain communication channels. These channels are the ways you contact your medical distributors, and they respond to you.

Some ways to foster open and efficient communication is through:

  • Collaboration software
  • Regular emails
  • Company chat platforms like Slack
  • Meetings either live or through video software like Zoom
  • Direct phone numbers to contact management

You should use these communication channels regularly to keep both sides of the supply chain on the same page. When you reach out to one another, you need to remember to spend as much time listening to the other party as communicating your wants and needs.

In addition, keep your information in any shared systems up to date, such as your product data. In this way, your distributors know what products are available and the latest information about the supplies you offer.

Automation makes communication easier by sending alerts and regular emails to your distributors so they all know the latest product updates.

Support Each Other’s Needs

Manufacturers and distributors can come in conflict because you are often not exclusive to each other. However, you should still find ways to support one another to give the additional party flexibility to work with their other connections. For example, you may use multiple distributors, and your distributors sell products from several manufacturers.

For example, a sales tactic you would prefer might not work well with your distributor, who has multiple different types of medical equipment to sell. Both sides should learn to compromise so you can mutually benefit.

One way to foster a supportive environment is to take time to understand each distributor’s situation properly. This means that manufacturing should regularly visit the distributors at their physical stores to see how best to work with each distributor. These visits also allow each party to talk face to face about their needs and what the other person could do to support them better.

Understand Each Other’s Challenges

During your meetings with distributors, take time to know their challenges and share your marketing challenges. While both parties will have roadblocks that make their job more complex, you don’t need to compete with each other.

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Sometimes you might find your challenges are similar, in which case you can work together to solve them in a mutually beneficial manner. For example, manufacturers struggle to keep their branding consistent. Since you often work with several different distributors, you may find that each distributor is promoting your products differently. Unfortunately, customers may lose trust in your company when you don’t have unified branding because they won’t know which message to believe.

However, you can resolve this challenge by providing all the marketing materials for your distributors. Doing this ensures a unified brand appearance while relieving some of the pressure on your distributors because they don’t have to create the materials themselves.

Other times, your challenges may contradict each other. For example, manufacturers focus on selling specific products and promoting new devices. In contrast, distributors want to raise their profit margins. Therefore, distributors concentrate on making sales rather than selling a particular product.

Effective communication can help you find a compromise where your distributor won’t lose money from old supplies they haven’t sold yet while still promoting your new products.

Provide Necessary Materials

You can avoid miscommunication in healthcare distribution by ensuring your distributors receive all the necessary materials for understanding and using your supplies. Creating materials to send over with products also saves your manufacturing team time as you will have fewer phone calls from distributors asking for clarification.

For example, you can create training videos and booklets on your products. This training material will tell your distributors what your product is, how to use it, and how to market the product. In addition, you can provide videos that your distributors can show healthcare workers when demonstrating medical devices.

In the end, your customers will be more satisfied with their experience because they received accurate information and thorough training straight from the manufacturer.

Other marketing materials you can pass along to your distributors include:

  • Signs for their shops
  • Product brochures
  • PDF ads for their websites
  • Product descriptions for their ecommerce shops
  • Product images for their promotions.

Create a Lasting Partnership

Always remember that you and your distributors are on the same team. Ultimately, you both want the same results: to sell your products. While you may feel strongly about certain expectations, you should not push your agenda to the point of compromising your partnership with your distributors.

Not every interaction has to relate to work. Sometimes the best way to invest in a healthy relationship is by investing in your distributors personally. You can send gifts to your distributors, invite them to events, and take time to thank them for their work as a way to show you appreciate their support in your partnership.

Investing in Your Manufacturer and Distributor Relationship in Healthcare

Efficient communication with your distributors begins with quality content that gives a clear and concise message. Share Moving Media helps you develop a stronger relationship with your distributors through better communication like training videos, RepConnect, articles, and advertising campaigns. If you want to reach 95% of the distribution rep community, Repertoire Magazine and Share Moving Media can help!

Contact us for more information on how we can help you connect with your distributors.

How to Create an Online Medical Supplies Product Catalog

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The online medical supplies industry is increasing rapidly as more and more people continue making purchases electronically. From 2015 to 2020, the sector grew at an annualized rate of 17%. 

A medical supplies catalog is another marketing piece you can share with potential buyers to encourage them to purchase. A product catalog should include all the details a prospect needs to make an informed buying decision. Essential features include product descriptions, images, pricing, colors, customer reviews, and much more.

Throughout this article, we’ll explain why you should consider offering a catalog that includes the medical supplies you provide and how to create one from scratch.

Quick Takeaways:

  • The online medical supplies industry is growing rapidly as more and more people continue making purchases electronically.
  • Having an online product catalog allows you to look up technical information quickly, generate more sales, and keep inventory updated in real-time. It also helps enhance the user experience.
  • To design your new catalog, start by conducting research and identifying your supply system. Next, choose which elements you want to include, choose software, and design your catalog.

The Benefits of Having a Medical Supplies Catalog for Clients

Having a medical supplies catalog on hand is not only helpful for marketing and sales purposes. Yes, it’s an excellent piece of collateral for sales reps to use to communicate with customers. But it’s also beneficial for internal warehouse managers, operators, and partners. Everyone can refer to it as a manual or guide to making purchases, selling, taking inventory, performing demos, and sharing it as needed.

Here’s a rundown of several other benefits your business can experience by producing a detailed product catalog online.

  • Always have complex or technical information on hand.
  • Keep inventory updated in real-time.
  • Generate sales by having all product and service information readily available.
  • Share information quickly and easily online.
  • Generate sales from anywhere at any time.
  • Improve the user experience.
  • Promote your brand with a well-designed product catalog.
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How to Design an Online Medical Supplies Catalog in 9 Steps

So you’re ready to start selling medical supplies to your clients online. Here’s how to develop an online product catalog that stands out and converts.

1. Conduct Preliminary Research 

Before you begin, ensure you are updated with the licensing and regulations the FDA has set for medical device distributors.

2. Identify Your Supply System

Compile a list of your current vendors (or shortlist vendors if you’re setting up a new system). Factor in resources and manufacturing capacity for each vendor. That way, you can strategically work toward your sales goals.

3. Incorporate the Right Elements for Your Online Catalog

Before developing your catalog, choose the elements you want to include based on your business, goals, and resources. Here are several pieces to consider: 

  • Product names
  • Product descriptions
  • Certifications 
  • Customer reviews
  • Product dimensions
  • Product features
  • Product guarantees or warranties
  • High-quality images
  • Return policy
  • Safety information
  • Year and version of each product
  • Terms and conditions 
  • Front cover
  • Table of contents
  • Introduction 
  • Closing summary
  • Back cover
  • Calls to action 
  • Branding 

4. Choose the Right System or Template

After you’ve decided on the elements you want to include, you can choose a system and template that supports your plan. Look for a system that’s secure and powerful enough to support your catalog while giving your customers the best online experience you can muster.

You’ll also want to choose a tool that’s easy to navigate. While the back end of your catalog may be complex, the front end shouldn’t be. Many ecommerce product catalog tools exist. Choose the best one for your business needs and catalog complexity.

5. Choose an Automated Configuring Process 

Look for software that includes product configuration technology. That way, you can track items for planning and inventory automatically. Standard configurations include prices, part numbers, and a spec doc.

6. Professionally Design It and Add Branding

If you want people to associate your online catalog with your business instantly, incorporate branding elements. These should include your logo, brand fonts, colors, and graphics that reflect your company’s styles and personality.

Hire a professional designer to lay out the pages, incorporate branding, and create a cohesive design for best results. Pages should appear balanced, photography should be pristine, and the catalog as a whole should attract your target audience. Every page and element should work toward a common goal: to encourage users to buy.

7. Tell a Story and Build Trust

To make your catalog engaging for browsers, you can incorporate messages that resonate with readers and storytelling. This will help people get to know your brand and connect with prospects on a deeper level. You can include client stories, testimonials, and case studies that resonate with potential buyers.

8. Include Filter Functionality

Finding a specific item can be tricky and time-consuming if you have a massive catalog with hundreds or thousands of products. Giving people the option to locate a particular product or add a filter to narrow down results will enhance the user experience. You can do this by tagging and categorizing products.

9. Incorporate Key Conversion Components

Incorporating key conversion elements is crucial to getting more sales. Adding calls to action (CTAs) strategically, offering prices upfront, and making the buying process as simple as possible are all ways to increase conversions and move people through the sales funnel.

You can also aim to upsell and cross-sell by suggesting related products throughout your catalog. Offering alternatives to what a user is considering is another way to get people to continue shopping to find the best product to meet their needs.

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Ready to Enhance Your Online Marketing Results?

Share Moving Media is a premier publishing and content marketing company. We love partnering with manufacturers and distributors in the healthcare space. If you want to expand your market share, grow meaningful relationships with potential buyers, and improve your brand image, we want to help. We can also help you create an epic online medical supplies catalog that converts.

Reach out to get started!

Creating a Healthcare Vendor USP in 8 Steps

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A unique selling proposition (USP) will help you differentiate yourself from other businesses in your industry. As a healthcare vendor, a strong USP can help you stand apart from competitors. Leveraging your USP through branding, marketing, and sales is foundational to your success.

In today’s article, we’ll cover the basics of USPs, why setting your business apart is essential, and how to craft a USP your clients can’t resist.

Quick Takeaways:

  • Your unique selling proposition is what makes your company different from every other business.
  • Without a USP, potential customers could see you as bland, untrustworthy, or outdated.
  • To craft your USP, you must know what makes your business unique, understand your target audience, and address a prevalent problem.
  • Collect customer feedback, brainstorm ideas with your team, combine and cut down essential points, and then test and solidify your USP.
  • You can use your finalized USP for marketing, advertising, and communicating about your business – both internally and externally.

What is a Unique Selling Proposition?

Your USP, also called a value proposition, is what makes your company different from every other business. If you’re in a competitive market, setting yourself apart is vital. If you don’t, you could get buried beneath all the other businesses vying for your clients’ attention.

In a nutshell, your USP should instantly tell people:

  • What makes your brand, product, or service unique
  • How you can solve a relevant problem
  • The main benefits of your brand, product, or service

It should also focus on what your clients value most while assertively articulating your position. It’s where what your business does best overlaps with what your customers want most.

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How to Create a USP as a Healthcare Vendor

Without a value proposition, potential customers could see you as bland, untrustworthy, or outdated. Follow these eight steps to build a USP that helps you stand out, get noticed, and win and retain loyal customers.

1. Answer “What Makes You Different?”

What is it that makes your company truly unique? You may know instantly. Or you may have to do some brainstorming and research to determine the element(s) that makes you different from others in your space. Studying your competitors’ USPs can help.

Your USP could have to do with your customer service, technology, how or why your business started, or a specific niche you serve as a healthcare vendor. Maybe your service is faster, your products are of the highest quality in your industry, or your company is highly innovative. Whatever your differentiator is, make sure it resonates with your target market.

2. Study Your Audience

Continue your research by learning more about your target audience and current customers. Who are they? Hint: you’re not here to serve everyone. Narrow down on a specific niche of customers you can serve best.

Get inside their heads to learn what they want, the challenges they face, and how you can solve their problem. Why should they choose you over a competitor? Make sure you know who you’re targeting with your USP so you can be specific and authentic.

3. Solve a Relevant Problem 

What problem is your business solving? Again, look through your customers’ eyes to understand the challenges they face and how you can step in and make their lives easier. As Simon Sinek says, “They don’t buy what you do. They buy why you do it.” People don’t simply desire your product or service. They want you to solve a pressing problem. Explain how you can meet an immediate need through your USP.

4. Get Client Feedback

Another resource for discovering your USP is your current customer base. You can speak directly with your sales and customer service teams for quotes and customer feedback. You’ll learn about what your business is doing well and what you may need to work on. Chances are, more than one client has brought up the same reason your business stands out to them.

You could also send out surveys, review call transcripts and customer feedback forms, and look at reviews. More than likely, you’ll find some gold nuggets to support your USP.

5. Brainstorm What Makes Your Company Irresistible

Get your marketing team together for a brainstorming session. All hands on deck! This is where you can take all of the research you’ve collected so far and put it together. Throw as many ideas up on the whiteboard as you can. You’ll likely go through several versions of your USP before nailing it.

At this point, there’s no wrong answer. You’re just getting everyone’s ideas out in the open so you can analyze everything at once. In the next step, you’ll organize the information into a clear, concise summary.

6. Write Your Elevator Pitch

Pull the best elements of your brainstorm into a clear-cut elevator pitch. Remember to address each of the following questions:

  • Who do you serve?
  • How can you solve a problem?
  • What makes you unique?
  • Why should someone choose you over every other competitor?

Once you combine your best information into a cohesive, 1-3-sentence blurb, work it and rework it until it’s what you want. Often, the shorter, the better. Short USPs can be easier to remember, catchy, and easily identifiable.

7. Review and Test Your USP

Next, it’s time to test your USP by bringing in other team members, managers, departments, and stakeholders. Gather constructive feedback, and then make edits to finalize your USP. Don’t rush the process. Your USP will represent your business and influence your future marketing and sales campaigns, so it’s essential to get it right.

8. Communicate Your USP

If you’ve made it this far, congratulations! Forming a strong USP is no walk in the park. It takes focus, intent, lots of research, and patience. Your organization can now use your powerful USP to communicate effectively, target potential customers, and reiterate what makes you different – while keeping everyone on the same page. You can use it for healthcare marketing, advertising, and messaging.

Content Marketing for Healthcare Vendors

Share Moving Media is a leading content and publishing company for healthcare manufacturers and distributors. If you’re looking to increase market share, profitability, and mind share, we’d love to partner with you. 

Contact us to learn more.

5 Freight & Shipping Challenges in the Healthcare Supply Chain

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There are over 2.14 billion consumers around the world who shop online. Even those who shop in a physical store may still order a product online because it’s out of stock. In addition, healthcare and medical personnel are also turning to online stores to make purchases.

To meet the growing demand for shipping products, you also need to meet the accompanying challenges.

Getting healthcare products from medical suppliers to the customer isn’t always easy. Here are five common freight and shipping challenges in healthcare to address for a seamless supply chain.

Key Takeaways

·       Fast and reliable shipping is essential to the healthcare supply chain

·       Costs and requirements for shipping often fluctuate

·       Communication and support should be customer-focused

Continually Changing Costs and Requirements

The added cost of shipping isn’t pleasant for anyone to see, especially in a society where free shipping is becoming the norm. Sometimes, extra high shipping costs are so off-putting to the point that you could lose customers over them.

One reason why the cost is a significant shipping pain point is that it’s unpredictable or unclear. It changes depending on a product’s:

  • Dimensions
  • Weight
  • Location
  • Carrier

In addition, healthcare workers often need special services for their products, such as temperature-controlled shipping or fragile labels. In the end, shipping costs may sky-rocket, leaving customers wondering if the price is fair or the manufacturer is just trying to make a profit.

Your Solution: You can create charts and shipping calculators for your customers to use. These estimates will give your customers a better idea of what to expect and where the added charges came from, so the costs don’t catch your customers off guard when they arrive at the checkout.

You can also do your part to cut shipping costs so your customers aren’t as startled by high prices. Plan your freight routes and location of supplies to cut back on unnecessary shipping charges.

Increased Errors Due to a Lack of Automation

When humans are involved in a process, errors are inevitable. As a result, the more humans do, the more errors will occur. On the contrary, the more tasks you automate – the fewer errors will occur.

Already, 62% of businesses use automation in their workflow. One of the top workflow challenges that automation solves is communication issues.

Errors in shipping lead to returns. In the U.S., returns peak in January at 1.75 million packages returned a day.

Your Solution: Through automated systems, medical suppliers and healthcare facilities can cut down on returns and shipping errors. These systems can:

  • Log inventory needs
  • Communicate purchases
  • Streamline orders
  • Track packages

Lack of Communication within Departments

A healthcare supply chain involves many pieces that link together. However, when one link breaks, the entire chain falls apart.

For example, the healthcare worker ordering supplies isn’t usually the same person who uses the supplies. So, often, what they order and what workers need are very different. In addition, the person doing the ordering may select the wrong shipping speed and either spend too much on fast delivery for unnecessary supplies or neglect to purchase expedited shipping on urgent supplies.

In companies with over 100 employees, miscommunication costs the business an average of $420,000 each year.

Your Solution: Communication is key to keeping your supply chain together with effective supply chain management. While you can’t control a healthcare facility’s inter-company communication, you have one way to help eliminate errors due to communication. Encourage healthcare workers to consolidate their medical suppliers to one or two companies.

In this way, as the medical supplier, you can track their purchasing history and identify errors and inconsistencies. With timely communication, you can save both yourself and the healthcare facility money by confirming flagged purchases. One way to promote consolidation is by letting healthcare businesses know that they save money when only one company ships their supplies versus paying for shipments from multiple locations.

Unreliable Shipping and Handling

In the U.S., over 1.7 million packages disappear every day, resulting in a total of $25 million in lost goods. A lost package is a big deal for healthcare workers, especially if it includes life-saving equipment or time-sensitive supplies.

Healthcare facilities also need to know that when their packages arrive, the contents will be safe. For example, a broken piece of equipment could be life-threatening. Also, many supplies need a temperature-controlled environment or other special shipping instructions.

If a healthcare facility can’t trust that their supplies will arrive undamaged, they will lose trust in the entire medical supplier.

Your Solution: You shouldn’t feel stuck to one shipping supplier. Instead, find a fast and reliable shipping solution that can handle all your special requests and address your freight challenges in healthcare.

Lack of Customer Support for Shipping Challenges in Healthcare

When things go wrong, your customers need to know you have their back through reliable customer support. About 95% say customer service is vital for brand loyalty.

Healthcare providers need to know they can count on you when their package is lost, damaged, or wrong. However, all too often, customers can’t get ahold of someone capable of remedying the mistake. Alternatively, customers end up struggling to find a solution through an automated phone system.

Your Solution: You can build trust with your healthcare customers by offering easy-to-access customer support. Providing 24/7 support is essential in the healthcare industry as many medical workers are on duty around the clock. They need to know they can count on your support no matter when their product issues arise.

One way to eliminate many issues is by creating a patient-centric supply chain. In this system, you provide a reliable tracking system that alerts your customers where their package is, along with updated arrival predictions and a way to give customized delivery instructions.

Contact us to learn more!