Archive for the ‘Healthcare Professional Marketing’ Category

Medical Device Recalls 101: My Device Was Recalled. Now What? (Part 2 of 2)

Part Two of a two-part series

The FDA’s overarching position (PDF) is not that they expect a company to be “recall free,” but they expect a company’s recalls to be conducted properly. Device marketers have to be on top of their game when responding — because, let’s face it, recalls happen. A locked-and-loaded communication strategy is a must.

Bottom line: you can’t always control the action, but you can control your reaction.

Depending on the class of the recall, you will have varying positions and responses. Here are some rules of thumb to get you over the hurdles:

FOUR-STEP RECALL RESPONSE CHECKLIST

1. Plan Ahead

As a marketer, you should be heeding the Boy Scout motto, “be prepared,” by putting together your crisis communication plan in advance. Make it a part of your annual strategic planning process. Consider various scenarios for potential recalls, and appropriate actions (and point persons), in order to react as swiftly as possible. Continue reading »

Medical Device Recalls 101: Devices Have Rainy Days, Too (Part 1 of 2)

Part One of a two-part series

Product recalls are a major headache for Pharma. Yet devices can feel the pain, too. The FDA’s 510(k) process for approval has recently come under intense scrutiny, and while regulatory action may help diminish the number of recalls, it can’t prevent them completely.

A recalled device can create a time of crisis for its brand. When patient safety is at stake, a recall can topple sales, reduce share value and erode market trust. The key is in mitigating the damage.

In Part One of my two-part blog series on device recalls, let’s take a general look at what’s going on. Continue reading »

Audience Targeting in Healthcare Advertising

Understanding your audience is the most important aspect of media placement. Many people think audience targeting begins and ends with customized ad copy and creative. The fact is, the who, what, when and where of your audience impacts when, where and how you place ads.

In healthcare advertising, we typically target healthcare professionals or consumers. Using audience personas, let’s see what a holistic approach to targeting would look like. We’ll start by detailing a typical day and then show where we would place media. Continue reading »

VASER Sites Go Live: Lessons in Marketing to Physicians and Consumers

In healthcare marketing, one of our first questions often centers on the target audience: are we speaking to patients or physicians? While patients typically receive the treatment or product, the person responsible for prescribing, recommending, or purchasing the product is often a physician. These two audiences have different informational needs and different levels of understanding.

When promoting products online, we often recommend developing two sites: one tailored to each of the patient and physician audiences.

VASER.com Landing Page

Continue reading »

The Brave New World of Healthcare Tradeshows

Industry tradeshows and conferences are a marketer’s dream come true: a basically captive audience comprised entirely of potential customers. In the past, healthcare companies took the most expedient approach to entice attendees into their booths: they bribed them. Bags, shirts, pens, golf balls, laser pointers — if it could have a logo printed on it, it’s been given away at a trade show.

In the lexicon of advertising, no other word is more powerful or effective as “Free.” Its siren call is undiminished even among those with the highest levels of education and equally high tax brackets. Savvy marketers know that a surgeon will cheerfully wait in line for a half hour to get a free 99¢ flashing lapel pin. Many a vendor hold true to the axiom that gratis is god.

Healthcare tradeshow attendees enjoy a trivia game.

Alas, those halcyon days have come to a crashing end. In 2009, the AdvaMed Board of Directors revised the Code of Ethics on Interactions with Health Care Professionals, significantly restricting promotional giveaways. Under the new guidelines, companies are no longer allowed to give out non-educational items of any value to tradeshow attendees.

Gone are the tchotchkes. Freebies have been forever banished. Swag is the new four-letter word. So what is a pharmaceutical company to do? Where does that leave device manufacturers? If necessity is the mother of invention, then intense creativity has surely been spawned by intense constraints. Healthcare marketers and their agency partners have found something they can give away, something significantly more valuable than a free coffee mug: an EXPERIENCE. Continue reading »

Creating Sales Aids for Pharma and Device Reps: Six Strategies

Although our clinical clients’ greatest breakthroughs occur in laboratories and hospitals, their successes often are credited to sales representatives — those employees actually out there pounding the pavement. As a member of HC&B’s clinical account team, I often help our clients create sales aids for sales reps. And, as a former “bag carrier” myself, I know what it takes to make those sales aids truly useful.

Some background: I worked in sales for two of the largest pharmaceutical and medical device companies on the market. In my experience, a few lucky sales reps will be given a large amount of time with a surgeon to discuss their product. In many scenarios, however, a rep is given as few as 10 seconds to make an impact.

With that in mind, here are six key strategies for creating sales aids: Continue reading »

Meet Your Number One Competitor

Competition: Something product managers — and their agencies — think about every day. How can we beat the competition? How can we outsmart them?

We always think we know our competition. We have their names, statistics and differentiators. We know their campaigns. But are we thinking about the right competition?

From what I’ve seen, your device’s biggest competitor is not another manufacturer or a similar product. It’s habit. Specifically, it’s the force of habit in the physicians using your competitor’s product. Continue reading »