Medical device marketers, do these challenges sound familiar?

With special thanks to Gerard Bradley from Epsilon who kindly shares this blog post. Gerard will be presenting at our forthcoming (and currently in production) 2020 MedDev eMarketing Summit on May 5-7 2020 in San Diego.

• Rep detailing to HCP’s and administrators is no longer effective
• You’ve heard about the buyer’s journey but don’t know where to begin the mapping
• Multiple data sets prevent a single source of truth, creating inconsistent messaging

You are not alone as a medical device marketer

Medical device detailing is not getting any easier. Decision making at a targeted account is multi-layered. Identifying the correct decision makers and understanding their buying behavior is essential to acquiring new business.

Relying on a rep detail as the sole vehicle for influencing doctors and administrators is no longer the best approach. Face-to-face detailing will always be part of the process, but adopting an omnichannel approach to achieve revenue and profitability objectives is necessary.

For B2C marketers, this concept is part of every marketing plan. However, in an industry like medical devices, the implementation and execution of an omnichannel approach is still unfolding.

Why you need a digital marketing strategy

Developing a digital marketing strategy allows for a series of actions that help make omnichannel marketing easier to execute. In the omnichannel world, the customer is at the center of all outreach.

At Epsilon, we take the omnichannel approach to a new level of personalization called 1:You. We do this by breaking down silos of data providing identity resolution techniques that allow you to create that unique customer. And, this unique customer is communicated to in the manner that makes the most sense.

I know what you might be thinking: What does a B2C omnichannel model have to do with a B2B audience?

The approach is relevant because a B2B customer is no different from a B2C customer. The calls to action (CTA) might be different, but the objectives are similar: To reach a targeted audience with a very personalized message that creates behavioral change.

A digital marketing strategy to include all digital channels where the customer seeks information needs to be developed. The online channels—combined with offline marketing approaches—keeps the customer at the center of all outreach.

Perceptive marketers in industries such as retail have been using technology solutions for social and online monitoring for quite some time. These solutions allow for gathering market analytics necessary to pivot from message to message. The medical device sector needs to implement similar tools.

Again, physicians, administrators and purchasing teams behave the same way as retail customers. Using our proprietary consumer data sets allows for precise segmentation and personalized messaging. The combination of data sets is also able to analyze online and offline buying habits. These data sets are critical when developing the personalized campaigns that influence decision-making.

So does this approach eliminate the need for rep detailing? Not at all.

Sales and marketing functions must complement each other in order for the organization to reach its financial goals. In the best medical device companies, they share information that enhances each other’s strengths while covering their weaknesses. Marketing has access to research and analytics information that can help arm sales with knowledge, while sales’ experience in the field provides the final verdict on what works and why.

That brings us to disparate data sets. Details such as facility address or name are critical when analyzing campaigns. More importantly, identity resolution is of the utmost importance when creating personalized messaging.

For example, Dr. John R. Smith and J.R. Smith, MD are the same person but might be contained as two separate records in your CRM. Not only will this create additional marketing costs, but it will also miss the opportunity to understand Dr. Smith’s buying journey.

In summary, medical device marketing should look like a consumer model in many ways. Creating a marketing model that includes sophisticated segmentation and streamlined data is a capability that we have helped many organizations implement. So do not wait….switch your marketing cap from B2B to B2C and watch your market share increase.