22 Feb 22
What is the impact of branding on your medical device? Stay tuned to find out.
Hey, Claudia here. So by the end of this video, you’re going to have a better understanding of how branding can really impact your medical device. From building on brand recognition to shortening your sales cycle and uniting your team, we’ll also have a look at how long it’s going to take and how you can measure success.
Let’s talk about brand recognition. So when you have effective branding, it means that your product or company is instantly recognizable by your end user. Equally, your brand sticks in their mind. So this means that when they have the problem you solve, they immediately think of you and you’re the one that they contact.
And now a short section on how to create sticky branding. So how do we create sticky branding? Well, there’s three things you need to think about. So firstly, you need to create an emotional connection with your audience, if possible. Now, A great example of this for those of us in the UK, uh, is Lloyd’s Bank.
So they’ve got the beautiful Friesian horse that’s galloping and sitting alongside you. This is a great emotional connection. There’s numerous other examples. Secondly, be really different to your competitors to understand what they look like and how you can differentiate yourself. A really simple example of this.
Is in healthcare, there’s an awful lot of blue and green. So why not go for something like orange? J& J and Ethicon have done a great job of this, of going red. And finally, tell a story through your brand if possible, because this will also help with that emotional connection. But one thing you don’t need to do, which is what a lot of people think you do need to do, is make your brand beautiful.
There are numerous examples where brands are not beautiful, but they’re memorable. And all you want is to be memorable. Great examples of this are things like the washing up powder, Daz, in the UK. It’s bright red and definitely not beautiful, but everybody knows what it’s for. Looking more globally, we have brands like Starbucks.
Definitely not a beautiful brand, but you know, wherever you are, if you want a coffee, a sandwich, or maybe a breakfast muffin, then Starbucks is the place to go because they solve the problem you have. And that is the power of a strong brand.
So let’s talk about how branding can shorten your sales cycle. But in order to look at this, let’s go back to the 1930s. So, when cinema goers used to walk through the door, the cinemas knew that they’d seen, on average, seven of their adverts before buying a ticket. Now, that was back in the 1930s, and there was no digital media.
So this number has now increased significantly to around 15 to 25 times before somebody takes action. But what impact is your brand going to have on this? Well, if you have a strong brand, they’ll need to see it about 15 to 25 times. If you have a weaker brand, it could be 25 to 45 times. And if your brand really doesn’t resonate at all, they may never make it to that purchase decision.
So a strong brand is really going to optimize and shorten your overall sales cycle.
Unifying your team. So a strong brand is not all about the external audience or your external audience. In fact, your internal audience are hugely important. If you have a strong brand, you have one vision that everybody in your team is working towards with pride, really engaging your external customers in the way you want them to be engaged.
Setting them up for true success. There’s a fantastic quote from an author called Patrick Lencioni, who says, if you can get your entire organization rowing in the same direction, you can dominate any market in any industry with any competitors at any time. That is the strength of a really strong brand.
So how long does it take to create an effective brand? Well, it’s certainly not a one time thing. You don’t get your brand from your agency and off you go. In fact, it’s more of a two stage process. So to start off with, you create your brand. Now that could be with an agency or it could be in house. And then you have to maintain it with meticulous consistency over time.
Now, when I say maintain, it could also include an evolution. But there’s core elements that must stay the same. Now, if you ever look at your favorite brand, you’ll probably see this throughout a timeline of everything they’ve been doing online and offline. So go have a look. It’s really interesting to see.
But why put all this effort in? Well, if you do, you’ll get all the things we spoke about before. So you get an increase in brand recognition, you get a shortening of your sales process, and you unify your team. So well worth the effort when done well.
So finally, how can you measure the effectiveness of your new brands? This has notoriously been rather difficult to do as it affects so many things within your marketing materials. But what you will start seeing is a general increase in brand loyalty. So this could be more attention at your exhibition stands, it could be more traffic to your website, or it could be more conversions.
These are all great indicators that your brand is becoming stronger day by day. If you’re looking to improve your branding, then check out other articles on our learning hub, or alternatively, if you want to work with a dedicated medical device marketing agency, click the book my call button. So time to wrap up.
What is the impact of branding on your medical device? Well, we’ve already seen there’s some significant benefits, but it will take. Time and money to effectively implement and measurement can be difficult. But if you can get over these things, then actually branding can offer you an increase in brand recognition.
It will shorten your sales cycle and it will align your internal team. So overall, this will really help to drive the revenue and awareness of your medical technology.
As marketers, we talk about branding a lot, it seems to come up in every other sentence, so you may be wondering, what’s all the fuss about?
This is why we’ve created this complete and comprehensive guide to branding in medical devices, to help you and your company keep your marketing on the right track.
We’ll talk you through what medical device branding is, how to get started implementing it into your marketing, and asking the all-important question “Do you even need it?”
By the end of the article, you should feel more confident discussing branding and deciding how much of your time and money you should invest.
Branding is so much more than just a logo and a few brand colours. It’s a persona, a personality given to your company to help represent yourself and connect with your audience.
To put it simply, a branding strategy boils down to defining your company or product’s uniqueness into a single recognisable identity.
Many believe that healthcare branding is solely about how companies present themselves, and although that is a vital part of branding, it’s also about the feelings that all that external presentation provokes.
However, what makes up this identity? Your brand’s personality can be formed of many different things such as:
Some medical companies might not prioritise healthcare branding when it comes to their medical device marketing strategy as it isn’t something that creates instant results, and it isn’t easily measurable.
So, what’s the point?
When strategic branding underpins all marketing activities, it forms the foundation that everything else is built on, providing direction on what your company should talk about and how you should interact with your audience.
Without a strong medical device brand strategy guiding decision-making, there’s a risk of becoming a ship lost at sea with no real direction.
Here are some of the other reasons why it’s important.
Your consumers want more from brands than ever before; in fact, nearly two-thirds of consumers seek a connection with a medical brand.
Connections breed trust, which in turn creates customer loyalty, the importance of which can’t be overstated. Look around your home at the brands you buy and consider why you buy them.
For example, if you’re looking to buy a pair of new trainers would you rather go with a strong brand you understand and know such as Nike or Adidas or one you don’t?
People tend to pick the one with the stronger brand presence as it breathes trust, reliability and authenticity. They understand who they are and what you’re going to get from them.
When it comes to a company without a brand there is an uncertainty and mistrust around them as you don’t know what their intentions are, if they’re reliable and what you’re going to get from them.
Your brand gives your customers a reason to intentionally buy from you over others. It’s far too easy for potential customers to compare multiple companies at once to decide which one to buy from, so when one stands out as having values and beliefs that are relatable, it makes a big difference.
One of the best ways of creating effective branding that works for you is by having a strong set of brand guidelines that includes everything about your healthcare brand, from tone of voice and logo design to who the brand is. This will ensure that all materials, whether online or physical, are consistent.
But why do you need to be consistent?
Consistency is the key to being recognisable, which leads to being memorable in the minds of your potential customers. With audiences estimated to need to come into contact with your brand 15 times before they take action, being inconsistent in your presentation will reset your count back to 1 every time.
Inconsistency reduces your audience’s ability to recognise you and will slow down their buyer’s journey, lowering your conversions and sales.
Now that you’ve created all of your materials and developed your brand messaging you might be asking yourself how can you introduce your new branding but still remaining consistent?
The answer is slowly.
A hard launch of your new branding might be good for smaller brands with a small digital presence, but for bigger companies that have already garnered a following you need to introduce your new healthcare brand bit by bit.
It’s good to create an introduction timeline that might look something like this:
Week 1: Update the messaging on your healthcare marketing channels.
Week 2: Partially introduce new brand elements e.g. medical logo.
Week 3: Add in your new brand colours.
A slow launch will help your audience adjust and follow your brand transition ensuring that you don’t leave anyone behind.
As with everything in life, branding isn’t perfect. It’s not the one marketing activity that is going to turn your company into a raging success overnight, rather you’re creating the strong foundations to build upon (without which, your building may crumble).
As well as all its bright sides, branding does have some drawbacks that are worth discussing.
Doing medical branding in the right way, where it will be most impactful and effective, is not a quick task. It involves a company workshop and interviews, multiple ideas sessions and in-depth market research.
It can take months to reach a point where your healthcare brand is correctly defined and ready to implement, you can’t consider it a quick win marketing task. However, once it’s done, it can positively impact all your digital marketing activities and last for years.
Measuring the impact of branding can be challenging because it doesn’t produce quantifiable metrics. As a result, it can be hard to see the point in spending all that time developing it.
Many metrics, such as customer engagement, number of leads and revenue are certainly influenced by branding, but their success or failure cannot be directly attributed to it.
Surveys and interviews can give an insight into how your brand is viewed by your audience and therefore how it’s performing, but all of that information is subjective and will change from person to person.
Healthcare branding is a huge topic with so much to learn and even after all of our years in digital marketing, we still hear new theories and new ways to consider things, and we also continue to learn what great branding and brand identity can achieve.
But to answer the question, do you need it? The answer is yes.
Branding is how you can present your company to the world and is the foundation for all your digital marketing. Without it, your healthcare marketing efforts will not have that return on investment that you’re looking for.
Want to find out how good branding will be able to help support your marketing campaigns? Well, you’ve landed in the right place!
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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