How the Healthcare Buyer Journey is Changing

Healthtech Marketing Show - The Buyer Journey Extravaganza

In 2024, we have extensively covered the healthcare technology B2B buyer journey . The latest episode of the podcast is a “Best Of” focusing exclusively on how the Buyer Journey is changing.

Listen to the Episode Here

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Key Takeaways

• The typical healthcare IT buying group has grown in the last few years. The HIMSS HIT Buyer Study reported that 60% of organizations involve five or more people in the decision-making process, and 27% involve ten or more stakeholders. The buying group comes from diverse functions, including IT, executive leadership, finance, clinicians, and operations staff.
• According to the same study, the buying cycle has lengthened over the past five years, with nearly 70% of companies reporting a 13+ month cycle. Half indicated that it takes 2+ years—a significant increase from 51% reporting 12+ month cycles five years ago.
• Kerry Cunningham from the ABM platform vendor 6Sense reviewed findings from a research study covering B2B buyer trends. This research revealed that buyers typically don't engage with vendors until about 70% through their buying journey. In 83% of cases, the buyer initiates the first contact with vendors rather than responding to outbound sales efforts.

"84 percent of the time, that first conversation is with the ultimate winner", Kerry Cunningham 6Sense

• A striking 84% of the time, the vendor that gets the first buyer-initiated conversation ends up winning the business, suggesting buyers largely make their decision before engaging with vendors and use vendor interactions primarily to validate their choice.

"86 percent of people are saying that product demos are important to them when they're researching a potential tech vendor" Matt Carollo, HIMSS

• Buyer preferences for content have shifted over the past five years. While previously buyers complained about too much product-focused content, now 86% say product demos are important, and vendor-focused content like case studies and white papers ranks as the second most valuable information source.
• Budget cycles play a crucial role in the buying process, especially for larger purchases that must be planned in advance. As explained by CIO J.D. Whitlock of Dayton Children's Hospital, timing vendor engagement with budget planning cycles is critical.

"If you're looking at a particular category, you're not getting full blown research with everybody. You got to get down to three or four" JD Whitlock, Dayton Children’s

• JD also highlighted that the complexity of the buying process varies based on purchase size, with larger purchases requiring more stakeholder involvement and formal governance processes. At the same time, smaller software-as-a-service products can move through the process faster with fewer approvals.
• Healthcare buyers prefer vendors who engage through multiple channels (LinkedIn, social media, industry organizations) and approach conversations by seeking to understand the organization's needs rather than leading with product pitches. This was emphasized by CNIO, Melanie Turner at University of Alabama at Birmingham Health System.

Strategy Improvements to Consider in 2025

In 2025, we recommend you double down on taking a buyer-led approach to your marketing. Here are improvements to consider:

Adjust Content Strategy and Timing

Understand what the buying group is at the different stages of the buying cycle and create comprehensive digital content that supports the extended 13+ month buying cycle. It is especially important to create an extensive library of content for early-stage research (when buyers aren't yet talking to sales). This needs to be created to educate and help the buyers in this phase of their research. For example, create content that helps buyers define requirements or develop materials that help buyers compare different approaches.

Detailed product demonstrations and case studies are highly valued even more than ever. Focus on problem-solution frameworks rather than product features. These are especially important in the later stage of the buyer group’s research.

Given the large buying committees, map content to different stakeholder roles (IT, clinical, financial, operations). Use this to personalize your outreach to these stakeholders.

Multi-stakeholder Communication

Your messaging frameworks should be tailored for different roles (clinical, IT, financial). In addition, your content should help build consensus among diverse stakeholder groups

Provide materials that help champions sell internally. What do they need to convince their bosses on why they need to invest in a new solution?

Implementation and technical stakeholders should be included in content strategy. They are especially important in the later stages of the buyer journey. Examples of this can include best practice guides and onboarding tools.

“The complexity of the buying committee, along with the length of the buying cycle... really reinforces why we are spending much more on account-based marketing today" Kacey Kalpin, Premier Inc

Implement Account-Based Marketing (ABM)

According to our research, ?a third of healthcare technology vendors are already implementing?ABM. Most of the rest are considering it or planning to?take the first step this year.

This should include investing in ABM technologies and strategies to engage multiple stakeholders within target organizations. We should also look at ways to use AI and intent data to identify and track accounts showing buying signals.

More advanced ABM strategies include creating role-specific messaging for different buying committee members. It would help if you also considered developing account-specific content that addresses unique organizational challenges.

Budget Cycle Alignment

Are your marketing campaigns in sync with healthcare organizations' budget planning cycles? This means increasing marketing activities during key budget planning periods (typically 3-6 months before the fiscal year).

Consider creating content that helps buyers build internal business cases for budget requests. ROI tools and financial justification materials are more important than ever.

Sales Enablement

It is critical to align with your sales team. How can you train sales teams to expect and respect buyer-led engagement timing?

Your content and messaging plans should provide sales teams with tailored stakeholder-specific content and messaging. Make it easy for them to personalize this.

Sales tools should help validate buyer decisions rather than trying to change minds.

Trust Building

One of the most important priorities is building trust with buyers before they meet you. You need to demonstrate a deep understanding of healthcare-specific challenges and compliance requirements, and more specifically, the issues related to their unique organizations.

You can establish credibility through industry partnerships (like HIMSS). Your detailed case studies showing successful implementations are key to showing that hiring you is a low risk. This is reinforced when they speak with reference customers.

If you liked this post and want to learn more…

1. Check out more posts like this in the?Healthtech MarketingLearning Center .?It is chock-full of articles, use cases, how-to’s, and ideas. Check out our?resource center dedicated to the Buyer Journey .
2. Follow me or connect with me on?LinkedIn .?I publish videos and articles on ABM and healthtech marketing.
3. See what other healthcare technology marketers are doing. Check out the?State of ABM in Healthcare Technology .
4. Buy Total Customer Growth: Our?book ?on how to win and grow customers for life with ABM and ABX.
5. Work with me directly.?Let’s?book a growth session ?and we can explore ways you can improve your marketing using the latest techniques in account-based marketing.