5 Easy Steps to Winning Medical Device Marketing Content!

2015

Chuck Sanders

Sandprops Communication

4/7/2015

5 Easy Steps to Winning Medical Device Marketing Content!

Sandprops Communication Page 1

5 Easy Steps to Winning Medical Device Marketing Content!

Let’s face it!

Getting your marketing content ‘right’ can be a royal pain!!...especially in the medical device

market!

Are you frustrated wondering why your last/best marketing campaign missed the mark and

didn’t meet your expectations?

Do you sometimes feel that your creative talent just doesn’t ‘get it’? Were they actually

listening?

Does it seem they don’t understand what your company is trying to do with its product or

service?

Do you wonder what more you can do to ramp up your success rate?

Then this tip sheet is for YOU! It gives easy first steps to create winning healthcare marketing

content. White papers, case studies, or other marketing communication can get stale, stuffy,

and even unreadable.

These tools should make it much easier…and hopefully more successful!

But how do we start?

‘What we may have is ‘a failure to communicate.’

Those infamous words from “Cool Hand Luke” often ring true.

And, even more, the most critical communication breakdown may occur just at the project’s

beginning.

You see, we, as copywriters, are here to serve your marketing needs. But, without a doubt, you,

the marketing manager, are the most indispensable creative talent. You hold the keys, the vital


‘facts’ about your product and prospect. Our job, as copywriters, is to massage those facts into

sparkling prose that targets, attracts, and sells.

But for that full-throated marketing copy to really sing, we need to read from the same sheet

music.

And your capacity to share your vision and insights can be crucial to our success in your

marketing project. But how do we make sure we’re both playing the same tune?

#1. “Just the facts, ma’am! Let’s stick to the facts!”

Two instruments can be effective in the initial communications. The first is the Creative Brief, a

document providing an overview of your proposed project.

Creative briefs can vary in both length and content, e.g. tone, formats, or writing style. But they

are not the only arrows in our information quiver.

A Copywriting Information Worksheet represents a second even more robust instrument. If

done well, Worksheets guides you and your writer through the process. They can give answers

to most, if not all, that's needed to write an effective marketing piece.

Writers, like me, often generate these Copywriting Information Worksheets. Yet, these are

questionnaire, which you, the marketing manager, may choose to complete.

The Creative Brief may include information such as:

A description of what your writer is to create.

The desired goal the marketing piece is to achieve

The product/service featured and its primary features and benefits

Any special offers, pricing, or incentives and their details

Key target audience insights

Analysis of the competition

The project schedule with key milestones.


Better yet, if time allows, you and the copywriter may work together on its completion. A

hidden benefit? Done this way, Worksheets often inspire a ‘brainstorming session’ that

enhances the final product.

Regardless, Worksheets can be an indispensable format in transferring critical creative insights.

(Sample Questions from a Copywriting Information Worksheet)

9. Which of those features and benefits are most important to the target audience?

10. Which specific problems, needs or aspirations does the product address for the

prospect’s business? (Example: Helps us increase sales.)

11. Which specific personal problems, needs or aspirations does the product address

for the prospect?

(Example: Saves the prospect time and frustration.)

12. Who are the primary competitors of this product?

13. How does your product differ from the competition?

2. Our Best Marketing Works with Simple Clear Language that Creates

Pictures with Our Words

I began ‘dabbling’ in marketing back ‘in the day’ when I was starting my first practice. Times

could not have been more different from now.

One marketing ‘guru’ of the period, was fond of starting his presentations with a provocative

statement about the tone of our messaging.

“In healthcare, you can use any traditional marketing tool. However, it must be ‘understated,

service oriented and accommodating”.

In times past, physicians were the primary healthcare buyers and prospects. In this ‘new day’,

the Affordable Care era, our healthcare prospects are no longer just physicians.

Indeed, our prospects are often buying committees that do indeed include physicians. Yet,

these committees are often also composed of business and operational types, as well.


So, yes, clinicians still give strong influence to buying decisions. So, that maxim still has weight;

it still represents an appropriate tone.

But with ACA’s changes in reimbursement, our messages have a dual purpose. They must also

speak to business types and to their new ‘value-based payment models’. And their new mantra

is ‘affordable patient outcomes and customer satisfaction’.

So, hype will not work! Nor will corporate speak. Content that is rich in color, imagery, and

meaning will effectively win the day.

This, I might add, is NOT synonymous with cold and boring!

#3. Help us Target the Challenges, Needs, and interests of the Buyer

Or “Help me to help you”!

Tell me if you have this problem.

Are years of customer sales data ‘loafing’ in your corporate servers? Is that data just buried on

those motherboards…not earning its keep? If so, we can finally put those slackers to work!

Our goal, as copywriters, is to craft creative copy that speaks to the challenges, needs, and

interests of your buyer. Our messages must resonate with that specific buyer. And marketing

personas can be invaluable tools for hitting that target.

Personas, generalized fictitious characters, encompass those challenges, needs, and goals. They

may also describe the observed behavior of real and potential customers.

Those terabytes of customer's buying data can be a gold mine for creating personas and

content that targets and scores.

So, making good use of that idle data gives you a chance to “Help me to help you”!


#4. What problem does the product solve for the buyer?

…and who ARE the buyers anyway?

Marketing healthcare has never been simple. But the Affordable Care Act (ACA) made the

marketplace more complex. Even more, ACA made our marketing messages more complex, as

well.

Let me explain.

Buyer groups are now far more

diverse. As I shared, now they are

often composed not just of

physicians, but business and

operational personnel, as well.

So, the problems solved in our

marketing messages must not just speak to our traditional persona, physicians. Now, our

marketing solutions must speak to other buyer group members, as well.

This again speaks to the value of data derived personas. This also can be critical to success in

the new committee-driven buying cycle.

So, what problems DOES your product solve for your buyer…and yes, who ARE your buyers now

anyway?

#5. Clarifying a Strong Call to Action

Or How Do We Measure Effectiveness?

Finally, a strong call to action can be decisive to a successful project. We all know this. But we

also know we can miss that target when we assume our prospects (or our copywriter!) already

know what we want them to do.

But how can you maintain that targeted focus?


Two points of communication can be of

tremendous help. First, you may share with your

copywriter where in the business cycle you expect

to use his/her content. And, of course, you can

clearly let him know the precise action your

prospect should take. This can assist your

copywriter in crafting that directed call-to-action.

Is it to generate leads?

Will the content nurture relationships?

Is it to be a tool in closing the sale?

But it can be valuable to share with your copywriter the performance metric that you are

looking to improve.

Conversion rate?

Leads?

Click-through rate?

Sales?


Summary

The beginning of a healthcare marketing project can be frustrating and pressure packed. The

products and services are often complex. And, of late, the marketplace and sales processes

have become increasingly challenging, as well.

But, the quality of initial communications about process and expectations reduces that

challenge significantly. These focuses on initial communication imbed in the project higher

expectations of success. This has positive impact for both the marketing manager and the

copywriter.

This document offers keys to making your next project both more successful and far more

predictable.

Find out how Sandprops Communication can help your team with focused healthcare

marketing content. Email me at [email protected].

Or better yet, give me a call at (360) 930-9565. I look forward to helping you win…and making it

easy.

__________________________________

©2015 by Sandprops Communication

Readers are free to distribute this report within their own organizations, provided the Sandprops Communication footer at the bottom of every page is present

Chuck Sanders Sandprops Communication

17732 Baywatch Crt NE Poulsbo, WA 98370

Phone: (360) 930-9565 Fax: (360) 697-3628

Email: [email protected]

mailto:[email protected]

5 Easy Steps to Winning Medical Device Marketing Content!

Documents

Transcript of 5 Easy Steps to Winning Medical Device Marketing Content!