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Image matters, especially if you’re a healthcare startup that needs to stand out from the crowd.
WasteMedX is one such business. The company’s medical waste disposal solution leverages innovative ozone technology to help healthcare systems achieve their sustainability goals. But when the company hit the market in 2016, its brand didn’t match the cutting-edge, eco-friendly solution they were becoming known for.
To evoke the company’s goal of portraying sustainability, health and trustworthiness, WasteMedX turned to the marketing team at CQuence Health for guidance.
CQuence worked with WasteMedX to understand its culture, story, mission and values. Together, my team and I sought to establish clarity and trust and provided strategic guidance on boosting market share within the healthcare industry. We conducted research into the competitive market, the history and outlook of the medical waste industry and the ozone process itself to thoroughly understand the target market and deliver a message and visual identity that would resonate with their audience.
That’s just a part of how CQuence helps companies showcase their innovative and lifesaving solutions to healthcare leaders in need. Here are some key ways we typically advise healthcare startups on how to quickly get in front of their intended audience.
1. Attract Not Just Any Audience, But The Right Audience
One of the most important early steps your healthcare startup can take is identifying who, exactly, your ideal customers are and what the path of least resistance is to get your solution in front of them.
With extensive experience in the healthcare space, we've guided numerous companies on where to strategically focus their attention in order to thrive in a fiercely competitive healthcare market. This typically entails:
- Competitive and industry research,
- Establishing a clear value proposition
- Developing buyer personas, aka, detailed representations of who your typical customer might be, complete with demographic details, job titles, communication preferences, and more
We work directly with your key stakeholders to identify untapped audiences and develop a plan to reach them. This foundation not only creates brand awareness, it paves a clearer path to revenue generation.
Effective lead generation drives traffic to your business’s website, captures detailed audience information and creates a sustainable and predictable sales pipeline.
Healthcare companies typically have a lengthy sales cycle due to unpredictable budgets, large price tags and slow adoption. We've worked with healthcare startups to create a sales funnel that nurtures leads and helps accelerate deals across a lifecycle that would otherwise last years. What's more, we've established effective handoff processes with sales teams so that the message resonates as deeply in a marketing email as it does in a sales presentation.
I want to talk about our recent work with Kada Health for a moment. Newly established in 2023, Kada Health works to help healthcare organizations reach peak operational performance through management services, program development expertise, and interim CEO and turnaround leadership.
To help jump-start their business and launch their services, my team collaborated with Kada Health to develop a promotional campaign with the well-known Becker’s Healthcare publication, because our research showed that this was a publication that their target audience of physicians and healthcare CEOs reads with astonishing frequency.
“CQuence Health and the team at CQuence have been invaluable for us in starting up the organization and launching our services,” said Shane Cerone, CEO of Kada Health.
The campaign we worked together with Kada on ultimately generated over 800 highly vetted leads. Shane and his team were able to generate a significant number of meetings and fill out their pipeline, ultimately allowing them to fulfill their goal of helping hospitals improve their operations and provide better patient care.
2. Digital Content Is a Start-Up's Secret Weapon
Content marketing, including website creation and promotion, are a must at the healthcare start-up stage. At times when budgets may be tight and predictable revenue might still be months or years out, a strategic content plan can land your company on the radar of your prospective audience at the fraction of a cost of a paid advertising campaign.
Our team develops and implements content marketing strategies as a surefire way to help healthcare businesses reach their specific goals. Videos, blog posts, social media posts and podcasts all help increase visibility on search engines and invite further interactions on social platforms to lead prospects down the sales funnel. And the best part? This typically carries minimal hard costs in comparison to a costly advertising campaign.
At the core of your successful content marketing plan is your company’s website. We use best practices to create website copy and content, ensuring your audience can find your products and services.
I want to call out the work of a company whose website has seen some recent success. Phase Medical operates a medical imaging equipment marketplace and auction site. As an e-commerce marketplace, establishing a digital presence was essential to their business.
We worked closely with the Phase team and their auction software developer to create a functional website that mirrors the company’s touted values of transparency and accessibility, making it easy to browse inventory, place a bid or make an offer. By building a more comprehensive website to connect with each of their buyer personas, Phase has expanded brand awareness and credibility in the industry.
3. Establish a Physical Presence For Your New Brand
Launching a startup and scaling a business is daunting, so having public relations (PR) as a part of your mindset from the beginning can help you build foundational relationships with key stakeholders and stand out in a crowded market.
The CQ marketing team has positioned healthcare businesses in our portfolio as authorities in their field, amplifying their reach through targeted PR strategies.
Our extensive experience in healthcare allows us to easily identify events most likely to help startups likes your connect with potential customers and generate leads by capturing contact information.
WasteMedX, mentioned up top, is a wonderful example of this philosophy in action. Equipped with a branded booth, collateral and video to support their messaging, our marketing team readied WasteMedX to attend the Clean Med conference, which draws hundreds of leading experts from across the country and around the world to learn about cutting-edge sustainability practices.
“CleanMed 2024 was an incredible opportunity to connect with innovative players in the healthcare sustainability space,” said Kim Phox, VP of Sales at WasteMedX. “As a company that works with healthcare organizations to achieve their sustainability goals, it is invaluable to attend these types of events to engage our key audience in person and establish ourselves as a reputable business.”
This was after we redefined the WasteMedX brand, at CleanMed and beyond, with a visual identity that better represented their business and its values. The results were a redesigned logo with a clean look to boost brand awareness along with core messaging to help their audience understand their method and its value.
This new brand now extends from WasteMedX's digital footprint to their collateral to the way they present themselves at conferences, and it's helped redefine who they are in the market.
“It is so much easier for visitors to understand how we can help them and the environment, how we do it, and the best option for their facility,” said Tim Miller, CEO of WasteMedX. “We are thoroughly happy with the end result and continue to utilize CQuence Health for all marketing efforts!”
Supporting Your Growth
From defining goals and brand messaging to connecting with target audience and measuring results, CQuence’s marketing services have helped companies hone their focus and nurture growth at a pace that makes sense for their company.
If you’re working hard to make an impact in healthcare through innovation, see how our team can help your company scale to new heights. Contact us to create a tailored approach to your business’s unique marketing needs.
