Three Ways Marketers Can Differentiate Themselves

I can’t think of a single product, service or technology that doesn’t have some sort of competition. Even high tech medical devices that might be otherwise be considered first entrants or category creators still have to differentiate themselves from the competition. When marketers are developing their competitive marketing strategy they take these three types of competitors into consideration:

  1. Direct competitors. Direct competitors are those who basically offer the same sort of product with some degree of feature or even benefit related difference. They are the group of products, services, etc… that define your category.
     
  2. Indirect competitors. Indirect competitors are those products that your audience might use in place of your product. For instance, we worked with Surgical Specialties Corporation to introduce their Biosentry tract sealant device. This was a product designed to prevent post-biopsy pneumothorax. It was the first device of its kind. However, interventional radiologists (our target audience) were using some ‘homemade’ plugs out of blood, gel, sponge, etc… Kind of gross if you think about it. The Biosentry system was a much more elegant one!
  3. Finally you can have competitive mindsets. Customer mindsets can become one of the biggest obstacles to address especially for category creators. How do you get someone to change their mind, their technique, their approach to a surgical procedure that is different than what they may have been doing for the last 20 years.

Often when medical device marketers are setting up their product launch strategies, they focus only on the direct competitors, but by not addressing the indirect competitors and any general competitive mindsets, we’re only looking at a piece of the puzzle. When we think about setting our clients brands up for success, we look at what we call the 3 Cs. Namely, the customer (and their mindset), the competition (direct and indirect) and the company’s core competencies. By delving deep into each of these separately, we can identify the white space – or the opportunity – that our brands can try to own through effective positioning.

In general though, when marketers are looking to crush the competition, and create a clear compelling competitive advantage, there are three ways to differentiate their brands:

  1. Be the Best: Apple is one of those companies that sets itself apart by being the best. They are continually setting the bar in terms of innovation and technology and they are constantly iterating on the products that they have to ensure that they are always ahead of the curve. However, they aren’t so incredibly tech oriented that they’ve lost sight of their customers and their needs. Not only do they typically provide the best technology, but they do it in such a way as to simplify the user experience. As an iPhone, Mac, etc… user you know that there’s powerful technology behind the products that you’re using whether you choose to use all of the bells and whistles or not. 
  2. Be the Most Customer Centric: In 1999 after an unsuccessful shoe shopping experience, Nick Swinmurh quit his day job and started one of the greatest online retailers – zappos.com According to Zappos, “The original idea was to create a web site that offered the absolute best selection in shoes in terms of brands, styles, colors, sizes, and widths. Over the past 9 years, the brand and aspirations have evolved, and in addition to offering the best selection, with the goal to be the company that provides the absolute best service online — not just in shoes, but in any category.” Their vision is to be the online store that provides the best customer service and the best selection. They focus on speed and delivery because they know that a customer with product in hand is a happier one!
  3. Be the Cheapest: Walmart is a great example of a company that prides itself on its strategy of cost leadership. It’s not about just discounting the products that they sell, but they actually work directly with their suppliers (sometimes for the better and sometimes for the worse) to find efficiencies that enable the type of cost savings that they can pass onto the customers shopping in Walmart stores. The hub-spoke warehouse and delivery model that they’ve developed is directly tied to its cost leadership strategy.

Just like you can’t be all things to all people, nor can you adopt all three of these generic strategies. At most you can be two at once, but the really good companies focus on one and adopt practices and policies that reinforce it. Looking for more ways to crush the competition? Check out this case study report.

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5 Steps for Better Marketing Metrics [Infographic]

“If you don’t know where you are going,
you’ll end up someplace else.” -Yogi Bera

For med device marketers, getting clarity on your marketing metrics is a great step to ensure that you’re achieving your marketing objectives. But how exactly can you ensure that you’re creating truly meaningful metrics? We have put together a 5-step infographic to show you how.

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To access the complete infographic, click here.

For more on Marketing Metrics, sign up for our free download below

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Med Tech Companies Take On International Women’s Day

Yesterday, March 8th was International Women’s Day in case you missed it. It’s a day aimed at inspiring women, celebrating their achievements and advocating for bigger and better things in the future. This year several Med Tech companies supported International Women’s Day in a variety of ways. Here are a couple of our favorites:

Johnson & Johnson is partnering with Michelle Obama to Let Girls Learn

More than 62M girls stayed home from school today across the globe. Unfortunately that’s not by choice.  The Let Girls Learn initiative was started to address the physical, cultural and financial challenges that are preventing girls from attending and completing school. Says the organization, “Educating girls can transform lives, families, communities, and entire countries. When girls are educated, they lead healthier and more productive lives. They gain the skills, knowledge, and confidence to break the cycle of poverty and help strengthen their societies.”

General Electric is empowering women in India and beyond

GE is still bringing good things to life – whether that’s still their slogan or not. The company has focused significant efforts in India specifically by supporting skill building and education with a special focus on empowering women. GE has undertaken a series of initiatives in support of the well-being of the community in Chakan, near Pune, Maharashtra, where it has set up the first of its kind multi-modal manufacturing facility. ‘To ease the commute of girl students, we provided them bicycles,’ – Amit Kumar, Director, Global Supply Chain, GE South Asia.

‘GE’s continued focus on diversity, leadership and career broadening opportunities for women is testament to women being celebrated at work every day!’ Rachana Panda, Chief Communications Officer, GE South Asia.

Abbott is investing in the global power of women 

Abbott and the Abbott Fund is working with Nobel Prize nominee Sakena Yacoobi to empower women as healthcare providers in Afghanistan as part of the Afghan Institute of Learning (AIL). Abbott’s support has helped provide health education and critical care for more than 1.5M women and children. They have enabled the training of more than 75 midwives and continue to support women-staffed clinics which helps provide not only health care, but jobs and economic opportunities for these women and their communities.

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Says Katherine Pickus Divisional Vice President, Global Citizenship and Policy at Abbott, “What we found within a year of their completion of training is that each and every midwife had a job and was making money for her family, investing that money in their girls’ education, and really developing a cycle of empowerment.”

We’ve taken the pledge for parity, have you?

So many companies are doing their part of make a difference for us all. We thank them for their efforts!

Marketing Metrics for the Medical Device World

The return on investment in marketing and advertising activities has always been tricky. It doesn’t help that sales can be quantified in a number of different ways – dollars, units, share. And then when you add the extra complexity of selling on consignment, slob rates, inventory turnover, contracted pricing, NGOs, it’s no wonder that clearly demonstrating the impact that your marketing dollars are having can be tough!

In the world of pharma, you can track scripts and refills. That data is fairly easy to buy. Not so with medical devices. So what do you?

Here are some different ways to think about marketing metrics for the medical device world

1. Determine your marketing objectives:

Your marketing metrics should be directly tied to your objectives. Hopefully you have already determined your marketing objectives, but if not, take a look at our template for building S.M.A.R.T goals and objectives.

More info on creating S.M.A.R.T Goals

Let’s create a hypothetical situation as an example to use. Say you’re expanding the use of a device you currently market into a new adjacent space – for a new procedure. 

  1. So, one of your objectives could be to educate your current customers that ARE performing this type of procedure but not using your device or technique because they have no idea that it can be used this way. And for these customers, you want to get them to switch from what they’re currently using to your product.
  2. A second objective could be to educate your current customers that ARE not performing this type of procedure on the procedure and encourage trial and adoption.
  3. And maybe a third objective is to target surgeons that are currently performing this procedure but not using your device or technique. And for these customers, you want to get them to switch from what they’re currently using to your product.

Which of these would be considered ‘low hanging fruit’? Number 1, right? And which would be considered your second most achievable objective? It could be 2 because the sales force is already at that call point and has already established a relationship with that physician. BUT unless your reps are really good at procedure-based selling, they may not be equipped to actually teach a new technique or procedure to a physician. So depending on the resources you have available and the competancies of your organization, it actually may be easier to get in front of a new physician and try to steal competitive share.

2. Identify what is important to measure and how to measure it:

So often we work with clients who outline their marketing objectives and then maybe define a couple of strategies for meeting said objectives, but there are three additional steps that you can take when building out your marketing plans that will really help you more clearly track the impact of those strategies.

The first is to decide what is important to measure and how exactly you’re going to measure it

  • Are you going to look at awareness of the overall procedure? 
  • Awareness of your product?
  • Awareness of your product in the procedure?
  • Number of participants registering for a training?
  • Number of accounts trialing the device?
  • Usage?

And then depending on the metrics you choose, how can you measure those? Can you track awareness via a formal market research study? Could you do a sampling of attendees at upcoming conventions? What about tracking online search volumes, or traffic to specific landing pages on your website. How about rep reported metrics or establishing an early experience trial or usage contest?

3. Define your baseline:

Okay so once you understand what is important to measure, then you have to define your baseline. How many times have we heard that old adage that you can’t get where you’re going if you don’t know where you’ve been? So for our hypothetical, say we choose to measure actual usage. In this case, our baselines could look like this:

  • Current customer set: Articulate the number of total CURRENT customers you have and segment that by the number that are currently performing the procedure versus those that aren’t. If you have 1000 current customers and 300 are currently performing this type of procedure then your baseline is:
    • 0% usage by 30% of the current customer base
    • 0% usage by 70% of the current customer base
  • Potential customer set: Articulate the number of total POTENTIAL customers you have and segment that by the number that are currently performing the procedure versus those that aren’t. If you have 2000 potential customers and 800 are currently performing this type of procedure then your baseline is:
    • 0% usage by 40% of the potential customer base

Note: in this example we don’t care about the potential customer base that isn’t performing the procedure because that’s a lot of work!

4. Quantify the results you’re looking for:

Finally, once you have an idea of what your baseline looks like, then you can forecast the potential impact that specific brand strategies will have on those different metrics. Make sure that those results are reasonable and take the selling cycle into account. If it generally takes 6 months to close a new customer, don’t expect to convert 15% of your potential customer base by month 3. But maybe that is a reasonable expectation for the 30% of your current customers that are using your device and performing the procedure.

5. Track and adjust:

Once you’ve drawn the line in the sand, have identified your objectives, your metrics, understand your baseline and set your goals, put your strategies in motion! And then track the impact that you’re having whether that’s through formal quarterly reviews, monthly reportings, weekly calls, whatever it is, just don’t let the good work go to waste. Because by tracking what you’re doing and the results that you’re able to achieve you can make adjustments throughout the year that will better ensure that you hit every one of the milestones you’ve set for the year.

So there you have it. 5 steps for creating meaningful marketing metrics for med device marketeers!

  1. Determine your objectives
  2. Identify what is important and how to measure it
  3. Define your baseline
  4. Quantify the results you’re looking for
  5. Track and adjust

And if you are still hungry for more – click below for a deeper dive into Step #2. A little cheat sheet 6 Metrics that Matter Most (to your boss that is).

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A little thanks to our followers

WHY DO WE THANK THEE? LET US COUNT THE WAYS…

In all seriousness, thank you. Thank you for being our clients, our customers, our followers, our friends. We don’t offer heartfelt thanks or praise enough but saying ‘Thank you’ is one of the most powerful phrases in the human language. As our thanks to you, here’s Laura Trice’s TED Talk on the importance of Thanks.

Enjoy!

Defining your brand’s SQ

What in the world do we mean by your brand’s SQ? No doubt you’ve heard of I.Q (Intelligence Quotient) and perhaps even E.Q (Emotional Quotient / Intelligence).  Now a high IQ doesn’t necessarily translate into anything meaningful in life – fortunately or unfortunately depending. But a high EQ? Then you also likely have better job performance, enhanced leadership leadership skills and even increased overall mental health. So developing your EQ can actually make you a better employee, a better manager, a better parent and give you a better overall perspective on life. 

Excellent. But what about the SQ at hand?

At The Matchstick Group, we believe that just as it is important to develop your personal EQ, the same could be said of your brand’s Strategic Quotient or SQ.

FOUR THINGS MARKETERS SHOULD CONSIDER AS PART OF THEIR BRAND’S STRATEGIC QUOTIENT 

The here and now of where you are

You know that saying, you won’t get where you’re going if you don’t know where you’ve been? That’s so important when it comes to the marketing of med device and med-tech. The clockspeed of innovation is usually such that you could be launching a ‘next generation’ product in the next six months to a year. So clearly defining where you are right this minute is critical. 

Brand vision

And equally as important is a clear picture of where your brand is going. The strategy at launch is often reflective of what’s going on in the market at that moment. However, in order to optimize a product or portfolio launch, teams really need to understand not just where the market is now, but where it’s going in the next 2-3 years. Only by understanding potential future states can companies proactively develop and shape the landscape to optimize their products success. 

Brand vector & velocity

Once you’ve identified  understand your brand’s vision, how are you going to get from where you are to where you want to be? What direction will you take and how quickly do you need to move? If you’re launching a new product for instance, are you launching it into an existing category or creating a new category? How much market development needs to be done and by when?

By working through the brand’s Vision and then mapping out the Vector and Velocity, you can really set the stage to increase your overall Strategic Quotient and make the biggest impact on the market as efficiently as possible – and as we all know – time is money!

At The Matchstick Group, one of the ways we help companies do this is by conducting what we call our 3-V Planning Workshop: Vision, Vector & Velocity. We help our clients uncover the primary drivers in the market from a macro (social, economic, political) and from a more micro (competition, hospital/rep relationship, procedural rate increase / decrease, reimbursement). And then as a function of those micro and macro factors, we can help them identify the vision and positioning for their brand that sets them up for success. From there we look at where we (and the market) are currently in order to understand the Vector (direction) and Velocity (speed) that we need to shape the market we’re competing in.

Hosting Private Content on Your Website

I just got off the phone with a client who asked if we could post a recent Webinar up to their website. No problem – we have tons of medical device animations and physician case videos on their site already. But this was a little different. This file needed to be available for a short period of time, only for a pre-specified audience AND they wanted for it to be password protected. Okay, that’s a little bit different… We could spend a ton of time and money creating a portal, registering users, building profiles and firewalls, but our clients needed this up yesterday and they didn’t have the luxury of spending a lot of time or money.

Here’s how we did it…


Now first of all, I have to give a shout-out to WebEx because if you’re looking to record video on the cheap, it’s a great way to go. We have been using their service for years and we’ve used it in a number of ways

1. Market Research: We’ve used WebEx in the past to conduct one on one physician interviews.We  also tried UStream and a specialty Panasonic HD video recorder with built-in wif to no avail. WebEx was fantastic. The record function allows you to capture and save both audio and video files. The webcam functionality also enabled us to conduct interviews at a physician conference in the UK and stream them live to the US, Japan and EMEA markets. We recorded the videos and were able to store them directly onto the Webex server. Webex even has an option to schedule the sessions in advance so our clients were able to check-in to see what interviews were coming up next.

2. Physician Case Presentations: Physician case presentations and actual interventions that demonstrate how thought leaders use a given product – that’s the content that they (physicians) find most valuable. It’s some of the most shared content too. 

3. Internal Videos: We have developed internal videos for multiple clients. But with internal videos, budgets contraints can be quite high, especially when R&D is in a different location than marketing, etc… For one client, we used WebEx to help us facilitate and monitor a video shoot in Israel from NY, NJ and CA.

4. Webinars: And then of course there are webinars – the very thing that our client above was looking for!

So once we had the video, how did we post the content and make it private in about 15 minutes?

Vimeo Pro. We use private channels on YouTube to host a lot of video because we like the ability to set up ‘play lists’, but YouTube doesn’t offer the ability to password protect specific videos the way that we (and our clients) needed to in this case.

With Vimeo you can:

  • Upload files up to 100M
  • Make your videos available everyone
  • Make your videos available only to people who have a link or who have been ‘approved’
  • Password protect your videos


So there you have it.

Video can be a great online tool for attracting and educating new and potential customers. Our med device clients have found it invaluable both online and offline in this day of Show & Sell. And physicians are much more likely to stop and watch a case presentation than read a dense printed how to guide. For real examples

Check out our case studies

If you have a video that you need hosted, password protected and shared our recommendation would be VimeoPro. If you need an easy way to capture specific moments consider WebEx. And if you have some great content, but no where to house it – consider reaching out to us to build your new site ; )

Until next time!

These Medical Device United States

For those of us in the med device industry, we know that there are geographic pockets that seem to incubate new device technology. The fact that California is the top of the list comes as no surprise. We’ve been jetting out to Orange County and San Francisco to meet with clients for years. But the fact that more and more innovation is coming from the mid West and some of the Southern states – North Carolina and Georgia – is both intriguing and refreshing.

And we can tell you first hand that organizations like the Medical University of South Carolina in Charleston where we are now located is on the cutting edge of innovation, technology and entrepreneurship.

Let’s see where it goes from here.

Huggies 3D Printing Campaign

My first introduction to the idea of 3D printing came in 2010 when I read this great little gem of a book written by an advertising exec. For the life of me, I can’t remember the name or the author. Sad, I know. But Andy Spitzer, who’s now the Creative Director at GSW lent it to me once while we were working together and there were some great stories about Nike and other big brands but one thing that struck me is that this agency had procured a 3D printer – ‘way back when’. Now either they were completely visionary or they had way too much money on their hands but I just remember thinking how cool that was. And now of course 3D printing is becoming much more mainstream – and we’re seeing loads of potential applications in the med device space. But we haven’t seen a lot of it in advertising and/or promotion yet.

This month, Huggies launched a new Counting Down the Days campaign, which of course has incredibly moving stories of moms as they dream about their little babes to be. But the one episode (I can’t even call it a commercial) that moved me to tears was the one that they shot in Brazil with a mother who is blind. The story follows the mother as she thinks about her baby – all of the things that she wants to show him, for him to feel, smell, taste and touch. And then it transitions into the OB office where her physician is doing an ultrasound. He describes what he sees on the screen and then unbeknownst to her, prints it out in 3D. He hands it to her and she – and probably everyone on the set sobs as she ‘sees’ her yet to be born son for the first time.

This campaign is brilliant – yes it touches on the heartstrings and it makes use of some really cool, ‘it’ technology. But more than that, it positions the brand so beautifully as the one that helps a mom hug her baby – even when she can’t.

If you haven’t the campaign yet, check it out below!

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KD0AC43fc_4

Working in a virtual world

New technologies are providing opportunities for completely changing the business worlds that our companies operate in. The Matchstick Group is no exception and in fact, we rely on technologies like video conferencing via Skype, file sharing via DropBox and YouSendIt, and project management systems like BaseCamp to operate virtually in a much more efficient manner. This saves us money on overhead and gives our creative teams the flexibility to work at a frequency, time and pace that works for them. All in all, we save ourselves – and our clients – time and money.

At the same time, there is something inherently human about our business. The Agency Creative teams can’t function in a silo and Agency/Client relationships that are conducted solely via email are fraught with ‘miscommunications’. People do business with people that they like and they trust and nothing builds a stronger relationship faster than a face-to-face conversation.

In this article in Return on Performance magazine, founder Melissa Wildstein was interviewed by Jodi Ferguson on the ins and outs of operating with a virtual workforce. I recommend setting clear guidelines and expectations all around, communicating frequently and always going out of your way to grab a beer with a co-worker.