18 Jan 22
Digital marketing or traditional marketing? Which one is better to promote your medical device? Stay tuned to find out.
Hey there, Claudia here. So we all know traditional has probably been the main form of marketing in medical device for a long time because we’re such a regulated space. But since COVID, there’s been a big surge in digital, which is providing huge opportunities. So what are those opportunities? In this video, we’re going to look at the differences between traditional and digital marketing, and also the positives and negatives of each, so that you can decide which is best for your technology.
So what even is traditional marketing? Well, there’s lots of different definitions around what traditional marketing includes, but for the purpose of this, it’s any materials that are used by or distributed by your sales team in order to Enhance communications between them and their end customers. So it could be a sales aid in PowerPoint.
It could be a sales brochure, or it could be an exhibition stand that’s used at congresses.
So what are the benefits of traditional marketing? Well, really there are two benefits and they all focus around your sales team. So firstly, they really help your sales team to articulate a clear and concise and understandable story to your end user about how your device benefits them and their patients.
Secondly, they provide tangible assets to leave with the end users. So when they have a problem that you solve, they can immediately refer back to something in their hands. So what are the limitations of traditional marketing? Well, at the core of all your traditional marketing activities, you have your sales team.
Now your sales team are extremely effective at building relationships. However, they can only have one to one conversations. So your reach is limited by the size of your sales team. So secondly, how can you track the effectiveness of your traditional marketing activities? You might have QR codes on the back of your brochures.
You might have QR codes on your exhibition stand or track the number of leads. You could also track sales per hour of your sales team. But can you actually relate that back to that traditional marketing activity? This could be a downfall of traditional marketing. However, you wouldn’t be without it.
Because imagine turning out, turning up to an exhibition. without an exhibition stand or leaving a meeting without having any material to provide to your doctor. So these are still really important parts of the promotion of your medical technology, even though measuring can be difficult. And finally, traditional marketing is not quite as flexible as other types of marketing because once something’s printed, it’s printed.
So it can’t be changed quite as rapidly as maybe other forms of marketing. But actually this could be a positive because you don’t want to be changing your brands and your messaging on too much of a regular basis. So really this is a negative with a definite positive.
Digital. So what do we mean by digital marketing? Well, for the purposes of this video is anything that goes out over digital channels. So it could be your website. It could be social media. It could be emails and it could be anything included within those such as video and animation content as well.
So when we talk about digital marketing, what are the main benefits? So one of the immediate benefits is the reach that it provides you with. You can send one communication out to millions of people in a very short period of time. Additionally, you can segment your market extremely precisely. So you know you’re talking to the exact right people who have the problem that your technology solves.
Additionally, with digital, if your campaign isn’t working and you’re not quite sure why you can really dig into the data. Or you can check the effectiveness of your campaign doing side by side or A B testing. This means in digital you can really optimize what you’re doing and understand what’s working and what isn’t.
Something that normally would cost thousands pounds if you recruited a market research agency. This of course isn’t appropriate in all situations but it can be really good for refining some of your campaigns. So digital sounds great because you can increase who you’re speaking to, you can really target them, and you can analyze and optimize your data.
But there’s also negatives for digital marketing. So people think it’s a very quick activity, but actually it takes quite a long time to really drive effectiveness. If you take, for example, SEO, we know that experts say SEO takes really around seven months to start gaining traction. That’s a long time to wait.
Additionally, a social media campaign could take around three to seven months to gain traction. So, Digital really is a long term gain. The only time that you can do a more effective or faster campaign is when you’re looking at things like advertising. So LinkedIn ads or Facebook ads would get you much more immediate results, but otherwise it takes a lot longer.
And probably a lot more money than people realize. Secondly, there’s one big thing missing from digital campaigns. So you haven’t got that person there and you haven’t got that emotional connection that is so strong from your sales team in your traditional marketing. This is why when you’re doing digital, an excellent content strategy is really important so you can include those emotional elements.
And that might be just content around behind the scenes, what your team members are doing. So it’s not all about your technology. It’s also building that relationship as you go. Finally, one of the biggest perceived issues with digital marketing is the regulated space that we sit in, in medical device.
However, I say perceived because these regulations often aren’t as strict as we believe them to be. So if you have a look at a country where you can advertise to patients and you can advertise to physicians, then actually, as long as you stay within your intended purpose, you’re pretty much good to go.
There are other restrictions in other countries. For example, in Denmark and France, it’s much harder or you cannot advertise to patients, especially with the higher class devices. Such as 2B and 3. So you do need to be more careful within those geographies. There are other nuances, such as when you’re advertising for healthcare professionals, especially in countries like Germany, where you need to use a higher level of comparative clinical data.
So, although there are these challenges with digital marketing around the regulations, if you understand the country guidelines and you understand your intended purpose, you’ll You’re going to be good to go. If you have any other questions about traditional or digital marketing, then head over and check out the other articles on our learning hub.
Or alternatively, if you’d like to speak with an agency who’s dedicated to medical device marketing, then click the book my call button. So time to sum up. Which is better for the promotion of your medical device? Is it traditional marketing or digital marketing? Digital may sound extremely exciting because you can rapidly reach a large population.
and optimize your campaigns using data. However, traditional is where really strong relationships are built. Depending on the structure of your company, you may need a little more traditional or you may need more digital marketing, but in reality, you’re going to need a combination of the two to address all the touch points and maximize the revenue growth from your marketing activities.
Marketing, as a whole can be broken down into two sections, traditional marketing and digital marketing. Traditional marketing encompasses a lot of the tools used by sales professionals while digital marketing is defined by your company’s online channels.
To someone outside of the medical device industry, they might assume that digital marketing is what they should be focusing on but this article is here to explore the role that both these have to play in the medical device industry.
This article has broken down both the benefits and drawbacks of both traditional and digital marketing in the medical device industry and what this could mean for your company.
Traditional marketing encompasses any marketing materials that are designed to help your sales team. Some of these included:
All of these are tools in your sales team’s arsenal, that can be used when meeting potential clients, networking at medical device events and other meetings.
As a marketing strategy in the medical device industry, traditional marketing takes up a very crucial space in the sales funnel. While in other industries the role of the sales team might be losing importance, in medical devices it’s a fundamental part of the end process.
The adoption process, coming at the end of the medical device sales cycle is very much guided by the sales team, helping your clients understand and implement your device in hospitals and medical practices. To do this effectively informative marketing materials as a crucial aid, in teaching and educating HCPs to use your device correctly.
Additionally, conferences and networking are a key hallmark of the industry where traditional marketing techniques can help you stand out and make a great impression on your audience.
Alongside this, traditional marketing also helps to build credibility for your business. Professionally designed and printed ads, sales brochures, and event stands all require expertise to create, seeing these pieces of physical evidence will give potential customers the impression that your company is well established, and therefore they are left feeling more able to trust your company.
On top of that, these types of materials only have to be created once and can be used repeatedly until they are no longer relevant either because of a change in messaging or the publication of new data.
The main disadvantage of traditional marketing for medical device and healthcare companies is that it isn’t as measurable as digital marketing.
There is no way to directly track the success of materials such as brochures or flyers making it hard to decipher how well it has worked for bringing in customers and whether it is worth your investment in the future.
Equally, the lack of ability to track this information and lack of quantifiable evidence means that you are less able to improve on campaigns. For instance, with social media you can see which of your posts are performing the best, you can tell what your audience enjoys seeing and then you can do more of that in the future and see your results get better and better. Unless you get feedback directly from the customer, you can’t do this for physical materials.
As well as the lack of tracking, it is difficult to be reactive when it comes to traditional marketing. Although they will last for a long time so are worth the effort, traditional marketing materials take time and there are costs each time something needs to be reprinted.
For instance, if there is new data that you want to include in your materials, you will not be able to publish it straight away, instead, you have to wait until the brochure is complete and then wait again for the right event to be able to hand it out. At this time, you might miss valuable opportunities.
As an example, the same brochure can be handed out time and time again, so once it is designed and completed, it is finished, and you have something that can be used for several months. On the other hand, digital activities like social media need to be regularly updated with new content, almost daily.
Digital marketing in medical device is often defined by the different types of digital channels that can be used to reach and connect with audiences, there are as follows:
These digital channels are an excellent way to broaden audiences, spread your messaging and increase your digital presence. With the digital world growing faster by the day digital marketing in medical device is increasing in importance and value as in recent years there has been a significant shift in the self-education of buyers. What this means is that through digital marketing you’ll be able to push more of your audience through the sales funnel than ever before, aided by the creation of helpful and educational online content.
One of the main benefits of a digital marketing strategy is the ability to closely target specific segments of your audience based on factors such as intent and location. Whether it’s on social media or through email marketing you can attune your content to be specific to your audience.
As a result of this, digital marketers can tailor the content they show to their audience so that they will see content that will be most effective for getting them to convert.
Digital marketers can also report in detail on their activities. They can use analytics to gain actionable insights that will improve their marketing campaigns and therefore improve their outcomes.
For instance, if a website isn’t bringing in as many leads as expected, marketers can look at the data and troubleshoot. The data unravels the mystery, revealing how the website can be improved to bring in more leads.
As well as this, digital marketing campaigns can continue to bring in leads long after they are launched. For example, optimising your website for search engines through SEO (Search Engine Optimization) will continue to work in the background, even when you are not dedicating time and effort to it. This is often called content marketing and is a form of digital marketing.
Digital marketing isn’t necessarily a quick win. For instance, many experts say that it takes 7 months from when you start optimising your website for search engines to start seeing the results.
Furthermore, social media marketing and email campaigns may not convert straight away, and customers may have to be exposed to your content a few times before taking any action. Still, the effects build up over time and are long-lasting, meaning that after a while, your digital marketing campaigns will be running in the background like a well-oiled machine and bring in a stream of leads for you.
One of the criticisms of digital marketing is that the connection between the customer and the brand is lost. There is a belief that you cannot replicate the connection face-to-face, and whilst this is true to an extent, studies have shown that customers are still able to feel connected to a brand online. Our guide on digital marketing for Medical Devices delves into how companies can achieve this.
On a more technical, this industry is different to others as it is subject to medical device regulations. These rules and guidelines, as set out in things like the EU MDR (EU) and FDA (USA), explain what medical device marketers can and cannot do when it comes to their online marketing campaigns. These rules range from what you can say to the different types of imagery you can show. They vary from location to location but are intrinsic to marketing in this industry.
Traditional marketing is also restricted by these rules, but digital marketing is also restricted by the digital channels rules and guidance. Social media platforms such as Facebook and X (Twitter) will have varying rules on how you can share your medical device so it’s important to make sure that you have a strong understanding of these guidelines.
If you have any questions about what you can and can’t say in medical device then have a look at our complete breakdown here.
Neither digital nor traditional marketing is the better option for medical device companies because operating both simultaneously is the best option.
It allows companies to cover both bases, targeting potential customers wherever they may be. This is known as multichannel marketing. It blends tactics to create a comprehensive marketing strategy.
In order to create the widest-reaching marketing strategy, elements of both types of marketing will be beneficial, because digital marketing and traditional marketing actually complement each other. In fact, the issues that both these marketing strategies create can usually be solved by the other.
For instance, if exciting new data is published it may take a few weeks to be able to design and print new brochures that are updated with the new data, but with digital marketing, you can start promoting it immediately. You can begin to build up a buzz straight away, that you can consolidate in your physical materials.
Utilising both digital and traditional marketing will also allow your company to build up brand recognition. In today’s world, your audience needs to see your company around 15 times before they remember it and are able to recognise it. By having clear branding that is uniform across multiple different channels, you increase your chances of being seen and therefore being remembered by your potential customer.
As you can see, digital marketing strategies and traditional marketing strategies are each one part of a whole. Alone they can both be effective, but multichannel marketing increases your chances of success. Together, digital and traditional marketing will create a well-rounded and reactive marketing strategy.
Want to start your medical device and healthcare digital marketing journey?
Podymos is a dedicated healthcare marketing agency, specialising in downstream medical device marketing. Our services might be a bit pricier than non-specialised agencies and freelance teams, and that’s because our exclusive focus on the medical device space equips us with specialised knowledge and expertise that others might not offer.
For compliant campaigns that align with your business objectives, we’re here to assist. Simply provide your contact details, and we’ll reach out promptly for a no-obligation discussion.
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