Four Tips for Successful Med-Tech Messaging

Devising powerful messaging for any start-up is a difficult task, but for med-tech founders and medical device innovators, navigating strict marketing legislation presents a greater challenge. 

What is med-tech?

From disease prevention to palliative care, med-tech, or medical technology — a category of health-tech — aids doctors and patients along the medical supply chain. Innovators in this space deal with sensitive information and must adhere to healthcare regulations in order to avoid potentially life-threatening consequences.

Here are four tips for health-tech and med-tech start-ups navigating the tough medical technology landscape:

1. Be Compliant

In Europe, there are many regulatory bodies that vary by country. Be sure that you are following your country’s guidelines.  

However, there are some common rules that apply Europe wide:

• All claims must be justifiable, factual, and verifiable. Don’t make any claims that can’t be verified or any medicinal claims unless you are properly licensed.
• Healthcare marketing should not pressure patients to use the service—this includes activities such as outbound marketing.

Research and follow specific guidelines that relate to digital marketing channels e.g. social media. Only once you have a good understanding of the relevant regulations should you start to market your product.

 2. Know your audience

Good messaging requires an in-depth understanding of your customer.

Today, patients are overloaded with information about their life, work, and solutions to their everyday problems – including their health. Cut through the noise and align your marketing to a specific type of person's individual pain points.

Keeping your message focused on your target audience will make it that much easier to both create content and let others know what you stand for.

3. Be Consistent 

Your core message is central to your marketing strategy. It’s your “why” — the belief that drives everything you do — summed up in one overarching statement. Decide on your core message and stick with it, across all of your channels.

Consistency builds trust and, according to a report by Lucidpress, presenting your brand consistently will increase revenue by an average of 33%.

 4. Focus on emotions and outcomes

Many of the health start-ups that we support at battalion have inspiring products and technical knowledge, but are unable to convey their value to customers. Instead of showcasing the benefits customers will gain from using their products, they list their product features in their sales pitch — speaking in confusing technical jargon.

We work with these start-ups to unearth their customers hidden motivations and values. We transform these attributes into benefits and these benefits into outcomes, ultimately, using them to create powerful messaging statements. 

Here’s a modified version of our Outcome-Based Branding Exercise:

“Features are facts about what your product or service does. Benefits are what your customer gets out of it."

FEATURES / ATTRIBUTES: Write down 5 of your core features of your product or service.

BENEFITS: Why is each of these features beneficial to your customers? What’s in it for them?

OUTCOMES / CUSTOMER DESIRES: Why is each benefit important to your customers? How does it make them feel? What are the hidden motivations and desires?

Health-tech is the future

This health-tech sector is growing rapidly. Start-ups should think carefully about whether they are ready to take on the responsibilities of a medical device manufacturer when designing software and apps of this kind. Having a well defined messaging strategy can help to boost your brand, increase your search ranking, and in turn position your company as a thought leader within your industry.

Are you an exciting new health-tech start-up? Contact us to see how we can help define a brand messaging strategy that works for you — [email protected]