If you’re a biotech, pharma, or medical device marketer, you may want to give Seattle-based software-as-a-service (SAAS) provider Appature a look.
Some of the largest healthcare companies already have.
The five-year-old company helps healthcare marketers deepen brand relationships and grow market share with a proprietary technology solution called Appature Nexus.
CEO Kabir Shahani (pictured, right) and VP of Marketing Mike Lamberson (below) explained their innovation to #MedDevice.
Joe Hage: Welcome to #MedDevice, gentlemen. As a career marketer, I’ve been pitched a lot of “proprietary solutions.” What makes yours special?
Mike Lamberson: Ours is the only relationship marketing tool on the market that enables three scenarios:
Mike Lamberson: Other solutions, for good reason, have been designed to be generalizable and work across industry.
In healthcare, especially in medical devices, the need to support and go beyond the sales rep is crucial simply because the sales rep has historically been the primary channel to the customer.
Given limited access reps have to the healthcare professional (end customer), medical device reps need help from marketers. Traditional relationship marketing tools simply don’t have a high level of integration with the sales force, and that’s where we come in.
We enable an integrated experience across sales/marketing needed to drive sales in today’s environment.
Joe Hage: Sounds good in theory. I’m still not sure what I’d get if I worked with you.
Kabir Shahani: Thanks, Joe, that’s a good question.
Appature Nexus would have enabled you to integrate all of those channels and campaigns – including what those same individuals do with your medical device sales force when they are interacting offline. That integrated view helps you as a marketer drive a more integrated experience.
We believe you need to understand all of the touch points with your customer – across those programs and that integration is necessary to best understand how to engage with your customer (message, channel, etc.).
Joe Hage: We had Salesforce. Would that make you redundant?
Kabir Shahani: We are big @salesforce fans ourselves. In fact, we are a partner on the AppExchange – we love when customers have that toolset because it helps bring to life the integrated experience.
With our integration, marketers and sales reps can collaborate. The collaboration between marketing and sales is extremely effective when marketing has Appature Nexus and sales has Salesforce.
Kabir Shahani: That’s a great point about the firehose of data. We believe our job is to simplify the data and make it accessible in a “digestable” way. We believe it’s critical to have Appature Nexus integrate that data across online/social conversations and other channels/streams.
Joe Hage: And, unless senior management is going to actually DO something about what little(?) feedback there is then we have an expense that doesn’t yield much change. I don’t mean to give you a hard time … I want to give you this opportunity to CONVINCE my readers they need to contact you.
Mike Lamberson: What you seem to be referring to is social media data. Appature Nexus is far beyond that. We are not a social media listening tool – we are a platform across all customer touch points.
Joe Hage: Hi, Brian, thanks for joining us. Brian is an editor for Medical Device + Diagnostics Industry (UBM Canon), a great medical device resource (check it out).
Mike Lamberson: @brian_buntz we recommend people start to profile that information, and think about as it comes together – what that could mean. We have several partners that rely on our technology to do just that. When you piece that data together, you get great insight.
For example, our customers glean new insights about customer behavior/attitude, and find new segments quite often. It’s not about gleaning insight about a customer in only a social media context. It’s about insights across any and all points when they interact with your brand.
Kabir Shahani: Think sales call data, web traffic data, purchase history, and social media data – all rolled into one place.
Joe Hage: I see. That is impressive, Kabir.
Last question. What would to share with the Medical Devices Group (80,000+ members)?
Kabir Shahani: Our 40-person company plans double in size this year. Tell your readers we’re aggressively hiring! (See Appature’s overview and career page.)
Also, the time for relationship marketing has arrived. We’re excited it can finally be enabled in the medical device industry by @appature.
Thanks so much for inviting us to join you tonight, Joe!
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Join the Medical Devices Group on LinkedIn to network and grow your business. #MedDevice is held most Wednesdays, 4 p.m. EST. We interview the medical device industry’s best minds and cover issues including sales, reimbursement, distribution, EMRs/HIT, regulations, and Marketing Medical Devices.
