3 min reading timeMy friend, the Medical Devices and Minnesota Reporter at MedCity News, Arundhati Parmar caught me after my three-hour workshop at the 2nd Digital Marketing for Medical Devices conference in Minneapolis asked me to sum up everything about marketing medical devices in five minutes.
Here it is, with video and transcript. Enjoy.
Arundhati: Alright. Hey Joe, so you are in Minneapolis for the Digital Marketing of Devices Conference. You had a workshop today; in five minutes tell me what you taught the class for three hours?
Joe Hage: You are an ambitious woman, Arundhati.
Arundhati: (Chuckles)
Joe Hage: Five minutes for three hours about marketing medical devices, but I will boil down what I think is the most important thing I said today. So, for the benefit of your viewers, I specialize in marketing communication and strategy and lead generation for medical device companies.
Get Found
And what I said, the most important thing in marketing medical devices is that you are found. So I talked a little bit about search engine optimization for medical devices which I think many, still are afraid of term.
It’s kind of voodoo, what does it mean?
What it means is, whether or not you get to the top of the rankings with the terms you want to rank.
It means big business, and my advice were I still in industry, would be to set aside some of your annual budget for SEO. I am giving you permission to believe that is a valid use of your dollars, and it is an annual use of your dollars. Because there are agencies out there gunning for the number one, two, three, four spots on Google for the terms that are relevant to you.
So, of course Boston Scientific will win the term ‘Boston Scientific’ but will they win, a long tail of all the type of stents when a physician or a hospital is just looking to add something to their product line, for example, or looking for pros and cons.
Will they land on your content? Which is your opportunity to engage them.
Be Engaging.
So first is get found, second is be engaging while marketing medical devices. They have the opportunity to come to your site, and they have the opportunity to hit the back key.
So when they get to your site, will you keep them there by having a voice that is familiar or are you going to – and it’s not wrong necessarily, it’s not for everybody – but, I personally have a pet peeve against companies and agencies that feel so desperately needy to look corporate and smart and important.
Imagine their figurative ties are all the way up and tight.
And I’m saying, Perhaps my style won’t appeal to you watching this video others it will, I’m just talking. Because I’m casual and I’m sitting up here on a bench enjoying a beer, that doesn’t make me any less intelligent. It makes me, I think, arguably, confident.
You can be confident and casual, and talk with me not at me.
Recognize that marketing has kind of changed, and this is nothing new to anyone watching this video, but viewers are in control.
And, sadly for us marketers, all of our very pretty adjectives, are just that.
Because yes, I can read the thing that you wrote that’s the official thing, but then I’ll Google and see, what about the recall? And what about the comparison of this versus that?
If you are courageous enough, write about it in a familiar way that people are going to find this information with or without you, would you rather be the one that they find it out from?
So, my invitation to you is to be engaging and talk to them with what they really want, not what you feel you need to show them, because they are going to find the real answers anyhow.
Number one, get found.
Number two, be engaging.
Number three, collect information.
Collect Information
And that is, when they come to your site, will you give them an opportunity to raise their hand part of the way and say, “I’m kind of interested, but I’m not sure?” Because I know that all of you watching this video have a ‘Contact us’ page. And typically, either (a) a contact us page has about 14 fields that you have to fill in which is, about you and not about me or (b) anyone who fills on a ‘Contact us’ page is probably ready for a sales person to call which isn’t bad.
But I think you’ll agree that you want to get them while they’re young. They are just beginning to do their research on a cardiac stress system. If you could give them, right there when they are on a page where it’s relevant, a video about it or white paper about it, an upcoming webinar about it, some education-based something, I’ll give you my email address for that to be sent to my inbox.
And that gives you an opportunity to begin a dialogue. Don’t ask me everything about me, I don’t want to fill that in, that’s about you not about me.
So, three hours in five minutes about marketing medical devices: number one, get found, number two, be engaging, number three, collect contact information.
