Tip for vendors to Medtech, Pharma, and Healthcare Delivery Orgs: your brand needs to be "no bull"
Pharma and MedTech ship medicine and devices that are rigorously tested before they can be marketed. They can only use evidence-based marketing claims. This is a community awash in communication through evidence.
Marketing is inherently biased. I hated marketing for a long time (and sales, and working for profit...hey I was young and naive). Now, I love marketing...because marketing can be de-biased and valuable. Information, evidence-based* marketing is wonderfully fulfilling. It is informing people of something they will value. In short, evidence-based marketing is itself helping people, by definition*.
If you are selling something to healthcare, you need evidence behind your claims. Think your solution can solve a problem? Be skeptical of yourself and ask, "What evidence do I have?" Sometimes, SaaS solutions create more headaches than help. Sometimes, something that seems to be a problem doesn't need solving.
I recently shared a new technology with a friend who works for a hospital. He said, kindly but frankly, that he is exhausted by startups coming to him and claiming to be able to solve hospital cybersecurity problems. They're usually ignorant of the actual problems, the tech isn't applicable, and they have no evidence of their claims of efficacy.
My advice to startups in this space, and anyone trying to sell into healthcare. Get humble about your product, get evidence of your claims, and get moving. Go to market with that evidence. If you don't know how to create evidence, ask me! There are varying levels of evidence and evidence quality, and it's often easier to generate than you'd imagine. (Be happy you don't have to do a clinical trial!)
~Shannon, the Optimistic Optimizer
*If you google "evidence-based marketing" the results are about using data and evidence to inform marketing strategies and tactics. That is not my meaning. Here, I mean that marketing should be communicating value to potential buyers using evidence of that value.