Digital Marketing for Healthcare Startups

https://vsc.co/wp-content/uploads/2020/04/MadMen-courtesy-AMC.jpgWhat skills in marketing do you regret NOT developing before your corporate career?I think marketing is still very much a combination of heart and brain. Not a regret, but sometimes I wish I had more exposure to the ‘Mad Men’ style of marketing. I believe in the value of delivering a strong message that can inspire people and have deep respect for people who can draft powerful, compelling stories.Specifically as it relates to the top of the funnel, what strategies have you found most impactful?In the ideal world, your top of the funnel should be all organic - press loves you, there are partners who promote you and there is strong advocacy. The only way to build a sustainable company in the long run is to ensure that you have strong word of mouth driving awareness and trust. Now, you may want to jump start that engine and hence pursue paid marketing, especially when you are a new product in the market. Top of the funnel can be a huge cost sink, so many companies spend enormous amounts of money and fail at driving meaningful results. It all begins with understanding the right audience first. If your audience is mass-market, then you should be investing in low CPM (Cost per mile or Cost per 1000 impressions), high reach mass media channels such as TV, Print, Radio, etc. If you are targeting a specific niche, you should begin with a high CPM, digital first approach. There is no exact answer here, but at the top of the funnel, you are really not trying to do a hard sell, but educate and inspire your audience. Hence going for reach should be the strategy and your creative should engage people to come check out further.It’s very important to complement such spend with outreach activities to build the brand in the earned channel. This would include PR and review programs, to ensure that there is second order word of mouth and people are getting the message from their trusted sources as well.The CEO of your next employer comes to you and says, “You’ve got $1,000,000 for marketing a Series A company.” How would you use those funds?A lot of this would depend on what type of company it is - is it a B2C/B2B? What are the primary distribution channels - Direct/Marketplace? Margin profile / unit economics; and so on.Assuming salaries are already paid for, almost every marketing budget would have major categories such as below:Brand & Content:Think of this as resources spent on developing a defensible brand strategy and building assets & content needed for you to show up in a professional way. This would generally be a CAPEX (capital expenditure) spend and include first time heavy expenses such as videos, company website, brochures, etc. Once the initial platform is ready, you then want to optimize it and evolve it through iterations. A general estimate for expense here can range from $50k-$250k.Outreach:Once you have locked who you are and have worked on the identity piece, the next thing is to show up in front of the right audience. Depending upon the nature of your business, it is always worthwhile to invest in some earned programs to drive awareness to help build reach and credibility. This could be a press outreach program, partnership program, or Influencer / Key Opinion Leader engagement programs. This can also include conference presentations, tradeshows and events based on what works in your line of business. Budget allocated: $80-$200kThe next big expense will be for your pay-to-play distribution strategy. Unless you are a viral consumer app with inbuilt network effects, you will have to spend money to get early distribution. If you are a B2B company- you will be spending on demand generation, if you are B2C - you will spend on driving traffic to your website. The goal here is to try a bunch of different channels, find which channels are ROI positive and then scale them. Budget allocated: $100k - $500k Customer success, retention & community:While it’s important to get people into the door, it’s even more important to ensure that they have a great experience and continue to engage/buy from you. In the world of ever increasing costs of advertising, a happy customer is the king. Setting up the right customer success, retention and community management program is very important. Budget allocated: $50-$100kInfrastructureModern day marketing needs a ton of different tools - CRM, website, analytics, marketing automation, etc. Budget allocated: $50k-75kMiscellaneousThere will always be unforeseen need for tools or content or an analytical report on the funnel, or some web optimization. The truth is, startups are always understaffed. I always reserve some budget for unforeseen expenses. Budget allocated: $50k-$100kNow the above is just a broad rubric, it’s important to not spend all of the money in one go, rather build out the program iteratively. Practically, what you will find is that some parts of the program will produce disproportionate ROI. It’s important to move the budget into those programs and scale them and park the ideas that are not driving growth.What are the biggest mistakes startups make when it comes to marketing?Marketing as a startup is really hard. You do not have access to all the resources you need.Some of the common mistakes I have seen startups make are: Not investing in marketing. Most startups work really hard to build products that people love. But they tend to ignore the importance of finding the right distribution. How are people going to even know about the product? And then there are some costs with regards to setting up such distribution systems. There is a myth that distribution is free, it can be cheap - yes, but hardly free. The real magic in marketing happens when a company finds the balance between “What they have to offer” vs “what the customer truly cares about.” Finding that common intersection is paramount. A lot of startups are too focused on what they want to say, but ignore the customer point of view completely. Trying to be everything and not identifying the core value prop around why people care. Most startup founders are builders and they take a lot of pride in every little feature they have built. However, in the digital era where attention spans are shrinking, it’s really important to distill marketing down to one or two core features that the customer would really care about. You are not known for what you say about yourself, but by what your customers say about you. Crisp, clear messaging trumps clutter.