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On February 10, 2011 in Newton, MA, the Medical Development Group’s (MDG) Marketing and Sales SIG (Special Interest Group) will be moderating a panel discussion entitled, “Put Inbound Marketing to Work for Your Business.” The discussion will detail the simple, 6-step process medical device makers can employ to grow their businesses through the fundamentals of inbound marketing.
6-Step Process For Medical Device Inbound Marketing
Step 1: Define your unique value proposition. Don’t be like everyone else. In order to be marketable, you need your content to be remarkable. What knowledge or innovation can you share to make your audience smarter? Share that.
Step 2: Build a content factory to attract qualified audiences. Marketers today must be 1/2 'marketer' and 1/2 'content generator.' Start and keep blogging to generate inbound links, search engine results, and ultimately visitors who are looking for what you offer. This will pull people in.
Step 3: Optimize your content for search engines, social media, and any industry specific sites. Using short, keyword-rich but provocative headlines will help draw the right people to your content. Consider which post you would read: "Analytics Results of Field Test for Medical Whatsit" vs. "5 Applications of Medical Whatsit to Relieve Chronic Pain."
Step 4: Content that is remarkable gets shared, and sharing lets your investment in content grow like an annuity, delivering more traffic and leads over time. Although your first post may not reach a broad audience, each post helps increase subscriptions and shares by a few more readers who ultimately help with exponential growth that gets you on the radar of your most targeted buyers.
Step 5: Develop “killer” calls to action. Once you've attracted a visitor to your site, offer something for “free” to engage them, educate them, and give you a chance to get back in touch. You know your market best -- will it be a deeper dive study on the results of your medical device or an exclusive invitation to a live demonstration in one of 10 cities?
Step 6: Duplicate what works. Your last step is to analyze what is actually happening and close the loop on all of your marketing efforts. Do you know if your pay-per-click is paying off? Use web and email analytics to determine which channels and offers provide the most sales so you can spend that investment more wisely.
“The manufacturing industry in general and medical device manufacturing specifically could benefit significantly from proven inbound marketing techniques," said John M. Knott, president of JD Technologies, LLC, a field sales company in the manufacturing space. "We represent a number of manufacturers and become their direct sales in the territory. The lead-to-close efficiency goes up exponentially when the lead is inbound versus the conventional outbound marketing efforts."
Join the discussion about this event now at the MDG Marketing & Sales Special Interest Group on LinkedIn. Post comments and questions now and get answers from the speakers during the 30 minute live Q&A session this week.
Event Details
Date: Feb. 10, 2011
Time: 5:30pm
Event Location: Rebecca’s Cafe, 275 Grove Street, Newton (Auburndale) MA -– adjacent to Riverside “T” Stop
Cost: Advance registration is $15 for MDG members and $20 for non-members; $25 for members and $30 for non-members at the door.
Register Now to Put Inbound Marketing to Work in Medical Device Marketing!
Jill Fratianne 10:37 AM on February 08, 2011
The key is creating highly educational content for highly educational people - engineers, doctors, nurses....use it as bait! Train your industry, and you will become a success.
Dedric Polite 10:51 AM on February 08, 2011
As someone who spent 6 years in the pharmaceutical industry, increased usage of inbound marketing strategies is definitely needed. Why? Because more and more physician-customers are in-accessible to sales calls from company representatives and getting their product and disease state education online. So your company and product needs to have an inbound marketing strategy in place to capitalize on this growing trend.
This event will be valuable for professionals in the pharmaceutical and medical device industry. Sales, marketing, scientists etc.
Creating remarkable content is key to the inbound marketing equation. I am looking forward to meeting others in the industry at the event and learning some inbound marketing best practices! Thanks for sharing Jill and Kirsten.
Regina DeLuca 11:41 AM on February 08, 2011
This is the new wave of marketing to medical professionals. Old school marketing is in-person cold calling which may still work to some degree, but I can't help but think this will more than double the chances of reaching these people in a most effective manner. What's better than having them come to you. I would love to hear some success stories from this.
John Knott 12:53 PM on February 08, 2011
In med dev? Here’s a great way to start figuring out how to use inbound marketing and social media to grow business: http://bit.ly/gv5ArX
Barbara Bix 8:39 AM on February 09, 2011
Great advice! Great marketing starts with understanding what matters most to your prospects and those that influence them. Then, develop a value proposition that speaks to their unique needs.
It is fidelity to that value proposition that will make your content remarkable. Make it a goal for each post to contribute to the delivery of that valuable so that your prospects keep coming back for more and induce others to do the same. Once you pinpoint your most promising prospects, determine what matters most to them, and how they prefer to get information, use the value proposition formula to develop marketing messages that capture attention and compel action. Here's a tip for discovering content that captures attention.
I look forward to hearing more about the 6 tips at Thursday's meeting.
Sarah Davis 11:27 AM on February 10, 2011
Great article, spot on!