1) You won’t be selling only to other doctors.
It’s always good to bounce your idea off of people whose opinions you respect. Unfortunately, that doesn’t mean they are your target audience. In fact, doctors may not wind up being the prime user of your device, so it’s best to start by giving a lot of thought to who will be using – and who will be buying – your new creation.
That’s an important distinction to make – in healthcare, the user and the buyer are frequently two different people. And there are often several others whose opinions can make or break the purchasing decision.
So, start by sketching out the real picture of who will be using your product and what the process would be to approve it for purchasing.
Remember, you’ll be selling to a range of people and each has their own needs and perspectives.
2) You will need to lose the love affair with medical jargon.
You may not love medical jargon but you may well be inured to it. You can get so saturated with it that you may not even know when you’re using it.
That can be useful when describing clinical applications for your product, but it’s not what you want to use on the bulk of your website copy or sales materials.
Give some thought to who you are talking to. If it’s your website, you are likely targeting potential buyers. So who are they? Nurse managers? CIOs? Purchasing administrators?
And what about your outreach materials? Is their messaging appropriate to their audience? For instance, if you have a report intended for potential investors, are you using language that resonates with them?
The goal is communication, so leave the jargon in the EHR.
3) You need more than a great pilot study or clinical trial.
Getting through the pilot phase is of critical importance for medical devices. The same is true if you are running a clinical trial. But if you think great study results are all you need to land a sale, you are mistaken.
No matter how great your results are, people will need to learn what your product is, how it helps and why they should want it. All of that requires communications that go beyond posting your study results.
You will need to start with the questions people are likely to have when they first hear of your device. These will be broad questions addressing the issue your device seeks to help.
Then they will want a bit of information on your product – what it does, how it differs from other similar products. And, finally, they will want to know the details of pricing, warranties and delivery.
Your goal is to understand where in that progression your potential customer stands, and then write to address their needs. Your study results may stir their interest but it will be your communications that help them see that your device is what their health system has been looking for.
What doctors need to know when launching a medical device company
Creating a medical device company is a lot of work. These critical pieces of advice will help ensure that you start off on the right foot.
Photo by Ani Kolleshi on Unsplash