Today, the medical device industry has grown significantly. The international medical devices sector is predicted to become a $612.7 billion industry by 2025. Regardless, there is a lot of competition and medical device organizations of all sizes are facing several challenges.

An extensive medical device marketing game plan is, thus, necessary if you want your company to bring in new customers, boost sales, and be successful. Following are seven steps to develop an effective marketing plan for your medical equipment business.

1. Identify Buyer Personas
For any marketing campaign to be successful, it’s incredibly crucial to identify your target prospects, their needs, and the type of message that would appeal to them. Hence, to create an effective medical equipment marketing plan, you’ll have to start by specifying your buyer personas. Identifying the buyer personas of your target prospects allows you to understand your existing and prospective clients better—their habits, likes, preferred shopping habits, pain points, demographic info, and more. This ultimately makes it easier for you to curate content that will appeal to your prospects.

2. Analyze Your Competitors
Another great way to build a comprehensive marketing plan is by learning from your competitors. Take time to analyze their marketing activities. Your central goal is to find out which tools and medical equipment marketing method they use to attract their prospects and market their products. You should also examine how your competitors boost their website traffic and conversion rates. By determining which marketing strategies work for them and what doesn’t, you can create a solid marketing plan by improving upon your competition’s approach.

3. Develop Your Value Proposition
The next important step is to understand how your target audience can solve their real-life problems with your medical devices and develop a unique value proposition. You should determine all the benefits of the medical devices you offer and tell your prospects why these benefits can be helpful for them. Explain how your products differ and are better than your competitors’ products.

A great way would be to develop unique value propositions for different buyer personas. While your product may be the same, you just have to customize your messages based on which prospect you’re talking to.

4. Use Your Sales Team Insights
Glean all the knowledge your sales executives have obtained over the years of interaction with your target market and determine the best way to integrate that insight into your medical equipment marketing plan. The online sales process is different in various ways as compared to what your sales representatives engage in. The core remains the same—the target audience has the same issues to solve; the sales cycle stages and the triggers remain the same. These days, most sales cycles take place before the prospective customer even engages with your organization and thus, you need to recreate the steps based on the paths your leads follow to become clients.

5. Clearly Articulate the Sales Process Steps
To replicate your sales process online, you’ll need more than just a basic comprehension of the methods your sales department employ and the challenges they face. Take time to clearly articulate each phase in the process. Then, attach the concerns, questions, goals, and challenges linked with that step.

After mapping out the cycle and every related consideration, you’ll have to direct your focus on creating content that will help direct those leads down the direction toward conversions before even speaking with them. Essentially, you should determine the type of content that will lead those prospects toward each conversion point.

6. Create Your Content Strategy
To create effective content, understanding your prospects’ concerns and questions is vital, but, it’s just one part of the solution. Another key consideration is the content type and the placement that is going to be effective at specific stages. For instance, blog posts are quite effective in drawing new leads to your site, acquainting them with what you do, and showcasing your expertise. Similarly, Quora answers, Youtube videos, and other social platform posts are a great way to introduce yourself to prospective clients.

That said, prospects who are at the final stage of the buyer’s journey will expect to receive comprehensive details, followed by solid data to support your product’s value. For such cases, white papers and other high-quality content that requires one to fill a form to download will be effective.

7. Sales & Marketing Alignment
Recreating the pre-stages of the sales cycle online enables you to reach potential clients who are not yet ready to engage with your company, allows you to attract more leads, and makes it more cost-effective and easier to drive those prospects down the sales pipeline. Nonetheless, content alone can’t take them along the final stage.

When prospects are close to reaching the decision stage, your sales representatives need to get involved to close the deal. For this to work effectively, your marketing and sales team need to work together. The alignment starts when the marketing team interacts with sales and collects the necessary information to craft the content.

Marketing and sales alignment, however, requires a lucid process that is accepted by both teams. When both sales and marketing teams align throughout the whole sales process, your medical equipment marketing plan can direct prospects down the funnel and accelerate the sales process. It’ll also save your company money and time.

Bottom Line
It’s more important now than ever to create and implement a well thought-out plan for your medical equipment company. Whether B2C or B2B, the medical device marketplace has changed tremendously. This guide will surely help you in defining your target prospects, determine the best way to attract them, and ensure those prospects become loyal customers.

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Robert Jordan, a seasoned marketing professional with over 10 years of experience, is currently working as media relations manager at InfoClutch Inc. He has expertise in setting up the lead flow for budding start-ups and takes it to the next level. Jordan has a deep interest in B2B, lead generation, and marketing related discussions.