The healthcare landscape is everchanging, adding several elements of unpredictability to medical device global product launches. While unexpected challenges are inevitable during global product launches, frequent direct customer engagement has proven very effective for global commercial marketing teams in developing successful go-to market strategies that meet and exceed corporate objectives.
Recently, administrators and gate-keepers at hospital systems and other medical facilities have restricted the access of sales representatives to physicians, surgeons, nurses and other critical staff resulting in a disruption of the traditional sales channel relationship. As this trend continues, more and more decision makers at healthcare facilities become less inclined to invest in sales relationships and instead tend to focus more on product standardization and prospective return on investments of new products they bring into their facilities.
When it comes to managing this change, global commercial marketing teams can no longer rely on the traditional sales team interaction with the end-users to relay critical new product feedback. Therefore, it is important as ever for the global commercial marketing teams to develop and implement a circular feedback loop directly with hospital administrators, surgeons, physicians, nurses and other critical staff at healthcare facilities.
Social media can be an extremely effective tool to speak, market, educate and provide information directly to hospital decision makers and end users. A fully integrated social media platform, which involves the sales teams, allows the global market commercial team to engage actively and consistently with customers and cultivate relationships through open dialogue and customer appreciation.
Specifically speaking, all major social media platforms now provide companies with a way to promote their launch directly through their apps to reach a wider audience. This is where creative marketing messaging comes into play. If your marketing message is delivered in an attractive way to your targeted customers, you will be sure to increase engagement and awareness of your product or service.
Marketing and sales strategies within the healthcare industry often vary, medical device makers can capitalize on customer engagement to better predict their needs and deliver products customers will want to use due to the gap left by traditional sales teams. Cultivating relationships with customers via social media is both valuable and crucial in ensuring successful product and service launches.