The Best Medical Marketing Strategies
to Sell DME (Durable Medical Equipment)
The medical device market is expected to be $208 billion by 2023, according to the Department of Commerce. There are medical marketing strategies that can help you stand out.
Having a great marketing strategy in the current digital world helps you stand out, says Phillip Kohler in his book “Principles of Marketing”.
The Best Medical Marketing Strategies
To Sell DME (Durable Medical Equipment)
The medical device market is expected to be $208 billion by 2023, according to the Department of Commerce. There are medical marketing strategies that can help you stand out.
Having a great marketing strategy in the current digital world helps you stand out, says Phillip Kohler in his book “Principles of Marketing”.
Medical Equipment Marketing: Introduction
The United States Department of Commerce projects that the medical device market is expected to be $208 billion by 2023. It goes without saying that there is a lot of investment in the medical technology market.
However, it is one thing to be in a sector with so much value, and it is another thing to carve out value for yourself and your business. Having a great medical marketing strategies in the current digital world helps you stand out.
Marketing is not just about selling. Phillip Kohler, in his highly regarded book “Principles of Marketing,” states
“Marketing aims to create value for customers to capture value from customers in return. Value creation is the most critical deliverable any marketing strategy should have. More importantly, creating value is not really about the exact product you are selling. It is about your customer. Think of your customers first.”
– Phillip Kohler
Let’s examine the best marketing strategies for adopted from best practices. Get ready to up your marketing game.
$208 Billion
value of medical device market by 2023
$208 Billion
value of medical device by 2023
Content Marketing for Durable Medical Equipment
What is Content Marketing?
Content is king. Nowhere is this statement truer than in the world of marketing.
The Content Marketing Institute defines content marketing as “a strategic marketing approach focused on creating and distributing valuable, relevant and consistent content to attract and retain a clearly-defined audience – and, ultimately to drive profitable customer action.”1
In simpler terms, content marketing is about telling the right stories to your customers – stories that continuously reflect how valuable medical equipment is to people’s lives. Unlike one-off advertising, content marketing is one way to show your customers that you care about their exact needs, and you’re not just throwing information at them.
Forms of Content Marketing for Durable Medical Equipment
Content marketing for durable medical equipment can take many forms. Of the many forms of content marketing, the following have had a huge success that can also be used to market DME:
Infographics
By using charts and other pictorial guides, you can create equipment-specific content that helps your customers understand your medical products better.
For instance, say you wanted to market a new wheelchair. An infographic that explains the features that make this wheelchair better and how to take advantage of those features helps people understand the products better.
Web Content
Creating valuable web content on your blog or website about DME’s can do a lot to help you stand out.
Videos
Explainer videos can be a superb way of marketing devices and equipment. Tech companies like Zoom, Microsoft, and Google all use explainer videos to create and market content in a way that keeps customers interested.
Why Should you Adopt Content Marketing as one of the Medical Marketing Strategies?
Get Ahead of the Buying Cycle
Getting ahead of the buying cycle through content marketing was outlined adequately by an article written by Josh Steimle on Forbes. There are four steps to a customer’s buying circle;
Awareness. Research. Consideration. Buying
Getting ahead of the buying cycle through content marketing was outlined adequately by an article written by Josh Steimle on Forbes. There are four steps to a customer’s buying circle;
Increased Traffic and Increased Conversion
he best thing about content marketing is that it gets you out there. By putting up content like videos, podcasts, and web content, you make it easier for people to find you. For example, creating video content on YouTube puts you in a direct position to attract traffic, turning consumers of your content into customers
Create Inbound Campaigns for Selling Durable Medical Equipment
Creating content is good but creating a content system is better. That’s why you need to focus on inbound marketing campaigns, too, so that you can sell more durable medical equipment.
What are Inbound Marketing Campaigns?
Hubspot defines inbound marketing campaigns as concentrated efforts that align all of your marketing channels around a single message and goal. Making marketing offers, promoting these offers through your marketing channels, and nurturing leads from these offers are instrumental in inbound marketing campaigns.2
- Content creation and value offering
- Preparing a page on your website to help customers view that offer
- Using e-mails to get all your subscribers aware of the offer
- Promotion through social media outlets
- Running targeted ads on Google, Facebooks, Instagram, etc.
- Repurposing content
- Measuring and analysing the results
Three Central Keys to Effective Inbound Marketing
Here are three things that should be central to an inbound marketing campaign geared towards selling durable medical equipment.
Alignment with Your Overall Values
An inbound marketing campaign should reflect the general values that hold your company together. For instance, your business offering might be to sell all medical equipment necessary to make life easier for anyone with a mobility issue. This would mean that your campaign must restate these values over and over.
Thought Leadership
Think of the most common questions in the medical technology market and create content using the most in-depth answers to these questions. Then use these answers to formulate an inbound marketing campaign.
Social Media Posts
Social media is central to any marketing campaign in the 21st century. It is the most effective way to generate leads, nurture them, and retain customers.
Branding to Sell DME
Branding to Sell DME
The importance of branding in marketing can not be overstated. Different businesses combine design strategy, logos, images and communication style to achieve effective branding.
Nike is perhaps the most prominent brand globally, and it heavily reflects on how much sales they make.
Understanding Inbound Marketing Concepts
Certain concepts are crucial to gaining clarity on how inbound marketing works. Unlike outbound marketing that uses stuff like billboards to popularise the brand, inbound marketing is all about using valuable information to attract and retain customers.
Take a look at these components of inbound marketing and how effective they can be in selling DME:
Buyer Persona
Inbound marketing is all about the customer. An effective inbound marketing campaign must grow around the buyer’s persona. A buyer persona is an almost-perfect representation of your target customer. Through market research and information from all the data you have on existing customers, you can draw up what your everyday customer wants: what their goals are, what gives them maximum satisfaction, and what makes them interested in your product.
Some may point to this and say that millennials are quitters, or unable to keep a job when the reality is more likely that they are working to overcome the deficit that works against them.
Buyer’s Journey
The buyer’s journey is all about the buying cycle: awareness, research, consideration, and buying/decision. Inbound marketing campaigns must get ahead of the buyer’s journey and start at the very top, which means helping the buyer realize that there’s a problem they want to be solved.
The Funnel
Inbound marketing is about creating valuable content that draws customers towards you. Unlike traditional outbound marketing, inbound marketing presents a higher percentage of converting leads to customers. This is because inbound marketing makes the sales funnel a lot shorter. Here’s how it does that:
When a lead downloads your free content, you ask for their information so you can keep up with them. That’s the awareness stage.
Then, you start to provide them with your product and service information and answer any questions they may have. That’s the consideration stage.
Finally, the leads will most likely be satisfied with your service and will then be ready to make a buying decision.
Impressing Your Brand on Customers
Establish a Brand
The first question you need to answer when you set out to establish a brand is
“What stands you apart?”
There are so many brands out there that the average customer finds it tasking to remember them all. That does not mean your business can’t stand out. Every person has a unique quality and a unique point of view. The secret of branding is to leverage that uniqueness to be seen positively by customers.
Build Brand Loyalty
Consistency is critical in building brand loyalty. By consistently delivering quality and value, you are imprinting the idea that your brand can be trusted to provide top quality services.
Build Brand Recognition
Brand recognition depicts how close your target audience is to your brand and how well they recognize it. Brand recognition is essential for several reasons – it facilitates trust, and it creates a sense of association.
Getting customers to recognize your brand means that you have to put off the “company” uniform and put on the “person” uniform. People are more likely to remember you when a personal connection between you and them is established. One way to be intimate with customers is through non-company related social media posts. Suppose a part of your target audience loves watching the NBA Playoffs. In that case, you can put up social media content like memes about the playoffs.
Advertising for Selling
DME
Advertisement is a highly useful marketing tool for selling anything, including durable medical equipment. Often, businesses use advertising and marketing interchangeably, but they are really not the same.
One way to think about the difference is this:
All Advertising is Marketing, But Not All Marketing is Advertising
Advertising is a single marketing strategy directed at sending a specific message on one or multiple platforms. An advertisement has everything to do with ads.3
The digital nature of the world has made traditional forms of advertising like billboards and flyers underhanded and unable to achieve the true advertising goal. These days, advertising your products and services relies not just on the message but on the platform you choose to express that message.
Forms of Advertising
Here’s a list of platforms that you can choose to run your ads for selling DME:
LinkedIn is a great medium to reach a professional audience and have business-inclined discussions.
There are several types of LinkedIn ads, including:
- Sponsored Content
- Direct Sponsored Content
- Sponsored InMail
- Text Ads
- Dynamic Ads
Advertising on LinkedIn requires you to create an account and complete a registration form.
Video Ads
Video Ads are non-negotiable, especially if you’re trying to sell durable medical equipment. Video Ads provide the perfect place for you to fully display the aesthetics and capabilities of the medical technology you’re trying to sell.
YouTube is the top spot for videos on the Internet, and over 2 billion people use YouTube every month. Big companies like Amazon and eBay have already admitted to how much video ads help them convert sales. Because videos can pack so much information, it is definitely the place to advertise DME.
2 Billion
people use YouTube every month
2 Billion
people use YouTube every month
Other forms of advertising include Facebook Stories, Pinterest campaigns, Instagram Posts, and Local SEO.
New Advertising Opportunities to Sell DME
Technology appears to be boundless in its ability to simplify tasks. The impact of technology on advertising is growing so well. New opportunities for your business to share the right message to the right people keep popping up.
Here are some of the recent advertising trends that can help your business sell DME:
Geofencing
Geofence advertising is basically location-based advertising. Once a geofence is set up, a mobile device within the barrier will receive targeted ads or other events. Geofencing can be a great way to advertise durable medical equipment.
SMS Marketing
As of 2019, 81% of adults in the United States had smartphones. SMS marketing presents a fast and straightforward way of reaching the smartphone-holding population in an instant.
Instagram Influencers
On its own, Instagram is a very influential social media platform majorly because of its visual appeal. However, navigating the world of Instagram on your own may not be enough, influencers help too. Instagram influencers are a growing form of advertising today. Working with these influencers can help you sell more durable medical equipment.
- Adults in the United States had smartphones as of 2019 81%
Getting Through to Busy Doctors
Doctors are perhaps the most relevant people you must get in touch with to sell durable medical equipment. After all, patients are more likely to purchase a medical device if recommended by their doctor.
Here are some ways you could try to get through to busy doctors:
E-mail Campaign and SMS Marketing
Even doctors find the time to open their e-mails and read messages on their phones. Businesses in the United States spent over 350 million dollars on e-mail advertising in 2019 because it works great. Around one-third of B2B marketers say that e-mail newsletters present the most effective way to nurture leads.
$350 Million
on e-mail advertising in 2019
$350 Million
on e-mail advertising in 2019
Webinars
A little bit of knowledge here and there is never hurtful. By organizing detailed and well-structured webinars, there’s a strong chance that more medical officers will begin to trust you, your brand, and ultimately your product.
Podcasts and Forum Commenting
Making podcasts, Creating and marketing content and establishing online forums are all great ways to get your business offering heard.
Active Marketing: Proven Game Changers
Our impact on our clients’ bottom lines changes the way they do business. We’d love to talk to you more about your potential.
Give us a call today: 1 (231) 946-2334
Active Marketing: Proven Game Changers
Active Marketing has transformed addiction treatment businesses with our strategic horsepower. We have proven experience developing and executing marketing strategies that get your brand’s best messaging in front of the right people at the right time and place.
Our impact on our clients’ bottom lines changes the way they do business. We’d love to talk to you more about your potential.
Give us a call today: (877) 8145716
Resources
- https://contentmarketinginstitute.com/what-is-content-marketing/
- https://blog.hubspot.com/marketing/inbound-marketing-campaign-under-100-words-sr?__hstc=23038436.d8b9f0483abfe46cc2dfccc0f757d827.1605521599749.1605521599749.1605521599749.1&__hssc=23038436.1.1605521599753&__hsfp=3008436378
- https://www.canva.com/learn/difference-marketing-advertising/