Crafting Omnichannel Strategies for the Medical Device Industry

I am often asked what makes a great omnichannel strategy by my marketing peers. Undoubtedly, there is an increasing willingness to learn how to provide a seamless experience to customers, yet there are persistent misconceptions about what omnichannel is and how it can be enabled.

In the ever-evolving landscape of the healthcare industry where I have been growing since 2016, most are familiar with the terms “multichannel” and “omnichannel” which are often used interchangeably. Understanding the nuances between both and leveraging each effectively can mean the difference between merely reaching your audience and truly engaging them in a seamless experience with your brand.

What sets multichannel and omnichannel apart?

• Multichannel strategies involve utilizing various channels to interact with customers, such as social media, email, company representatives or physical stores. While this approach offers flexibility, it often results in disjointed experiences for customers, as each channel operates independently.
• On the other hand, omnichannel seamlessly integrates these channels to provide a cohesive and personalized experience across all touchpoints. It recognizes that customers may transition between online and offline channels, ensuring consistency and continuity throughout their journey. In a competitive landscape like the medical device industry, where trust and reliability are paramount, an omnichannel approach can significantly enhance customer satisfaction and loyalty to your brand.

By investing in a robust technology infrastructure, you want your platforms to be fully interconnected and integrated into a live holistic environment, where data is seamlessly exchanged and updated across channels.

What does it take to ideate and implement an effective strategy?

1. Understand your customers. By gaining insights about your target audience's profile (preferences, behaviors, pain points and needs) through market research (or customer feedback if you cannot invest in large studies), you will be able to build an informed strategy based on what is the most relevant to your audience.
2. Interconnect and integrate your environments. This is usually where most companies fail. While we all want the nicest tools to improve our operations and ultimately offer a better customer experience, most companies fail to create an intuitive, comprehensive, seamless and integrated environment in which to operate. By investing in a robust technology infrastructure, you want your platforms to be fully interconnected and integrated into a live holistic environment, where data is seamlessly exchanged and updated across channels. This may involve the implementation of a CRM system, order management tools, proper data analytics tools, marketing automation platform. The more you will improve your integration internally, the more likely you will offer an enhanced experience to customers.
3. Tailor your brand experience to each customer. Data analytics capabilities will be instrumental to delve into the massive amount of data you will collect to further nurture your customer experience. Success is only 3V away from a great, personalized, experience: This means that you will look to ensure (variety, volume, velocity) as a pre-requirement to further offer personalized experiences to customers. Thankfully, artificial intelligence – through deep learning models – now can help create experiences tailored to each customer's needs and preferences in fully integrated environments. From targeted email campaigns to customized product recommendations, personalization fosters stronger connections and greater engagement with brand.
4. Enable consistency. Stating the obvious, we must ensure that the brand messaging and experience remain consistent across all channels – in any given space and time – to reinforce the value proposition and positioning in the market. This cohesiveness builds trust to your brand and reinforces brand recall among customers. They will no longer be subjects of isolated and irregular experiences (often focused on company’s objectives rather than on customer centricity), instead they will experience consistent steps as part of their customer life cycle.
5. Continuously readjust to optimize. Agile iterative quality loops will be necessary, would you want to remain on top of your customer experience and adapt your response to ever-evolving needs, trends and expectations within your market. For that reason, you will need to monitor and analyze the performance of your omnichannel strategy, identifying areas for improvement and optimization.?

How to cultivate alignment among teams to support these evolutions?

Implementing an effective omnichannel strategy requires a strong collaboration across departments, from marketing and sales to customer service, IT, supply chain, finance... Only by breaking down silos and fostering cross-functional efforts, will you be able to offer that seamless and immersive experience to your customers (internally as much as externally).

To move with speed with these needed organizational transformations, a notable corporate trend has emerged: the establishment of Centers of Excellence (COE), with advanced analytics (AA) serving as a pivotal component.1,2 Despite that great corporate move, merely 20% of companies have maximized the potential of advanced analytics on a comprehensive scale, underscoring a considerable opportunity for the implementation of AA COE (as noted by McKinsey).

While the ambition to establish COE is commendable, many lack clear direction and essential resources, hindering organizational transformation. To steer clear of this pitfall, it is imperative to emulate the same level of commitment to excellence that you extend to your customer experience initiatives. Ensuring that your transformers — those entrusted with driving innovation and change — are equipped with the right capabilities, tools and support in shaping the trajectory of your company's future, moving forward with clarified scope of work and roadmaps.

In the healthcare industry, where precision, reliability, and patient care are paramount, an omnichannel approach isn't just a competitive advantage — it's a necessity.

Why does it make a difference for your business and HCPs you serve?

By prioritizing customer-centricity and leveraging the power of integrated channels, you can elevate your brand and drive sustainable growth in a dynamic sector. Where innovation and differentiation are key drivers of success, an omnichannel approach tailored to the unique needs of our HCPs can make a significant impact.

• From a strictly business management standpoint, it is noteworthy that 80% of MedTech companies have strategically reallocated 20% of their marketing budgets toward integrated digital initiatives, where ROI are reported to be significantly higher. Simultaneously, the MedTech industry has been enhancing sales teams with hybrid capabilities for traditional and remote sales, reflecting a consensus that online channels will contribute 20% of total revenues by the close of 2025.3
• For healthcare professionals, offering integrated and comprehensive support, customized education, and streamlined access to resources and expertise across multiple platforms is becoming a strategic requirement. Projections suggest that integrating digital technologies could save global healthcare systems $1.5 to $3 trillion annually by 2030, leveraging solutions like remote monitoring, artificial intelligence or automation, as part of fully integrated and seamless user experience provided by the MedTech industry, ultimately benefiting more patients.4

The journey towards omnichannel excellence is an ongoing one, marked by continuous learnings, adaptation, and a necessary inclination towards innovative thinking to embrace the unexpected. On that path forward, we must stay curious and keep our finger on the pulse of industry trends.

Ready to shape the future of healthcare now?