3 Strategies to Improve Your Health Tech Marketing Messaging

Maybe it’s clichéd, but I’m going to say it: Today’s healthcare technology market is akin to a shark-feeding frenzy. 

Let me explain. In ecological terms, a feeding frenzy occurs when predators are overwhelmed by the amount of prey available. They behave erratically and get fiercely competitive to claim their share. There’s no doubt that healthcare technology is experiencing unprecedented demand, but it also seems like there are new, bigger, and better fish emerging on a daily basis.

With every healthcare tech company clamoring to get the attention of hospital procurement leaders and associated agents, we’re sabotaging ourselves. Sometimes, busy healthcare content marketing teams don’t really listen to our target audience. We forget that our healthcare tech is designed to improve care. And we dilute our message with complex language that leaves potential buyers looking elsewhere. 

In order for your digital marketing strategy to catch your audience’s attention—and ideally keep it—you need to cut through the clutter with powerful messaging that makes someone sit up and think, “Hey, this may be the answer.” The question is: How do you make this happen?

Tried-and-tested Tips for Healthcare Technology Marketing Messaging

Tip 1: Focus on differentiators in your healthtech

What makes your solution different? Is it your years of experience? Your robust data supply? Or the fact that your solution uses AI and machine learning to grow smarter and more effective over time? Whatever makes you different also makes you stand out. So it’s critical to know your differentiators intimately and use them to inform your core messaging. 

For example, we have a client whose key differentiator is their quick product installation. It is much shorter and profoundly less invasive versus their competitors’. So, think about this advantage from a messaging perspective. If you are able to set up your solution across the entire maze of a hospital facility without closing down patient rooms, interrupting staff workflows, and setting up construction zones, then hospital leaders are going to be very happy. But you need to guide your audience to see this advantage. 

A shorter setup means patients and staff can start realizing the benefits of the solution instantly. In addition, departments across the organization save countless hours on what might otherwise be spent on getting set up. Calculate those saved hours and you’ve got the foundations to start proving ROI. 

In the above example, the difference tells us which solution is the better choice. Know what makes you stand out in the market, and call it out repeatedly. 

Tip 2: Communicate the purpose and value of your healthtech solution simply

We’ve previously written about avoiding complex health tech marketing messaging, but it never hurts to reiterate. It is absolutely vital for your messaging to be distilled to its bare essence. In other words, keep it simple. 

The best way to keep health tech messaging effective and simple is to remember that every solution is designed to do two things: 

1. Take care of patients.  
2. Support hospital staff who have a million other things to do. 

The closer you can keep your messaging to these core realities, the better. 

Another important detail: Avoid technical explanations of technology. I know it sounds obvious, but healthtech solutions are complicated and why precisely one interoperability solution is better than another can lead to a deep dive into the weeds of some very tech-y details. Unnecessary details for your content marketing message.

Just remember the basics of product marketing and always come back to them: How does this product or service save someone time or money? How does it improve patient care? 

Tip 3: Be transparent and trustworthy

If you work in healthtech, then you know how badly the industry has been burned by all of the “latest and greatest” technological innovations. That’s not to say there haven’t been amazing breakthroughs—what I’m getting at is the fact that a lot of tech has come with clunky, expensive, and disruptive implementations that didn’t prove worthwhile or yield measurable benefits to justify the investment. 

Of course, there will always be some solution promoting itself as the next best thing, but those in charge of procurement decisions have heard it all before. Because there’s skepticism, any marketing or public relations messaging that involves your healthcare solution should focus on building trust and directly addressing how your technology evolved to address pre-existing problems. 

Transparency is vital in mapping out the customer journey. You want to have answers ready for questions like: 

• What is the total cost of ownership? 
• What does the implementation process really look like? Who needs to be involved and how long does it take?
• What other integrations or infrastructure upgrades/overhauls need to be considered? 

One of the best ways to help a potential customer feel confident in your solution is to provide third-party reviews, testimonials, and customer satisfaction scores. These will validate that you are indeed trustworthy—and aren’t touting a total flop.

Get Out of the Frenzy

Health care technology companies are usually in the business of saving lives, keeping people healthy, and addressing society’s deepest and most difficult problems. The technology being applied within healthcare usually has a similar purpose: to track health data better, to improve hospital communication, to make clinicians’ lives easier or save them time, to educate patients, and ultimately to help foster better, healthier lives. 

If you can tie your messaging back to these core goals while also being transparent and trustworthy, then, my friends, you’re on your way to becoming one of those amazing sharks they profile on National Geographic shows. You know, that mammoth miracle-of-nature shark that swims alone between oceans to meticulously hunt seals. That shark rules.