Your client wants a great corporate video to humanize their brand. They want it to be exciting! Differentiating! Inspiring! Oh, and they want it for 2,000 bucks. Sound familiar?
Yes, it’s important to offer products that appeal to the younger generation. But Millennials don’t have all the magic. Don’t ignore the financial power of boomers – they represent the largest consumer group in the US.
Yes, we understand why companies are seeking the magic fountain of youth. Our country’s demographic profile is changing more rapidly today than ever before. With the aging of the boomer population, the rise of the millennial generation, and the ethnic shift toward a Hispanic majority, companies today must understand how to relate to a more diverse population. Many companies are rushing to appeal to the millennial generation.
Topics: Advertising & Branding, Bank Marketing, Banking & Financial Services
Great that your product works fine. But what about the data?
By Rob Kinslow, Senior Strategist, Brand Communication
Last week at AdvaMed in D.C., an overriding theme was data – big data, who owns the data, how do we collect data, what data do we collect to inform our economic story? How do we do it safely? What about The Sunshine Act and reportable interactions? There were lawyers and other regulatory experts everywhere, opining on the current sad state of governmental affairs or offering carefully crafted
service packages designed to help medtech firms and their customers keep compliant.And the hunt for all things data isn't just about devices. At a session on
in vitro diagnostics, 1 panelist stated that the biggest need for innovation in IVD isn't new tests, it's IT. That's partly due to the rise of molecular testing and the growing need for labs to educate physicians on when it makes the most clinical and economic sense to order a test. You need data to do that, and it needs to be data that doesn't run afoul of HIPAA. The rub is that, as personalized medicine is actually, finallybecoming more personalized, there is a greater need to de-personalize the data while still keeping it relevant.Here on Day 2 of the government shutdown, it's hard to know whether government enforcement of The Sunshine Act will be eclipsed by a delayed implementation of the entire health care reform package. But what is becoming clearer – and this too was a topic in the corridors at AdvaMed – is that medtech manufacturers will need to be able to tell their customers not only how well their products work, but how they will help customers deal with government's hunger for data and transparency requirements.
For sales reps, it might sound something like this: "Yes, doctor, of course I'd like to tell you about our new product. But I'd also like to share with you how our company is handling The Sunshine Act." Here's how we're handling post-market surveillance. Here's how we're doing everything we can to help you focus on your patient and your practice of medicine. We understand your burden and we're doing something about it.
Even that old standby, the printed sales brochure, could and perhaps should address these issues. Compliance is part of the conversation. If the customer knows your data's okay, and that theirs will be, too, then everyone's okay. An idea so old it's new.
Remember that physicians are people, too.
By Rob Kinslow, Senior Strategist, Brand Communication
We medical device marketers often ask ourselves, "If we could only do one thing to improve our presence/generate leads/build sales/increase customer loyalty, and so on … what would it be?"
There are many answers to that question and they depend on myriad factors: who your company is, what its market and financial positions are, who your customers are, what their purchasing patterns are, how good your device is, how strong your data is and how effective your marketing and sales efforts already are.
But if you pinned me to the floor like my kids used to do when they wanted to use my body for a trampoline, and forced me to pick one move that could apply to any company and any device, I'd say it's this:
Make sure your customers know how you make their lives easier.
The white life, as the medical profession is sometimes called, is complicated. Surgeons' lives are especially complicated. Perhaps more so than some other medical specialties, they are under tremendous pressure to balance performance, outcomes and cost – and many are performance-driven and exhibit perfectionist tendencies, according to psychological research. This pressure takes its toll: rates of depression and thoughts of suicide among surgeons are higher than for the population as a whole, particularly among surgeons who believe they have committed a medical error.
Scheduling cases and days off can be a nightmare. Getting to decide whose products and which products you use is, in this era of doc-as-employee, no longer a given. Third-party payers and other financially minded folks who did not endure 7-plus years of grueling specialty medical training second-guess the decisions you do make. A growing portion of the day is spent on paperwork.
Against this backdrop, in strolls the medical device sales representative. What can he or she do or say that convinces the surgeon your company is part of the solution and not the problem? I can think of at least three things that would give the surgeon reason to smile:
Offer stellar pre- and post-operative patient education. Does it strike anyone else as a recipe for disaster that today's patients arrive at office visits more informed – and thus with more questions than ever – while those visits are forcibly becoming shorter and shorter? Provide the means for the surgeon to be able to point the patient to excellent educational resources and still feel like a caring caregiver. I had a hip replacement 3 months ago but only recently discovered, on my own, that the hip manufacturer offers a pedometer-type app for my iPhone, which I promptly downloaded. While not educational, it will motivate me to take my new hip out for a walk more often. And had my surgeon pointed me to it, I know I would be even more motivated than I already am to recommend him to other hip patients.
Help solve little problems. They're really big problems. Example: Sometimes the device works smoothly but the packaging doesn't. OR nurses and techs get annoyed. The same surgeon sees this occur with different crews again and again, and suddenly he's annoyed. As our firm has done for several device companies, a simple laminated card listing clear instructions on opening the device packaging goes a long way.
Simplify, simplify. Are your products easy to order and inventory? Are your customer and technical support super-easy to get hold of? Are your forms simple and intuitive? (For one diagnostic laboratory client, whenever we launch a new test, we offer medical practices a guide detailing how to fill out the new test order form.) What can you simplify?
Last: What are you already doing to help surgeons navigate their busy professional lives? How are you reminding them that you do this? What makes you easy to work with? Talk about that.
Kings and queens, knights and pawns, side by side at the Big 100.
The Manhattan Transfer's Janis Siegel has the answer. Who knew?
