How to Craft a Winning Strategic Communications Plan for Healthcare Startups
In the early life of a healthcare start-up, building a cutting-edge product is only half the battle.
The other half?
Making sure the right people know it exists.
Without a robust communications plan, even the most innovative solutions can fall flat and fail to attract the attention of potential investors, customers, and partners.
Here are the steps you can take to develop a plan that spreads the word about your business and product from day one.
1 – Identifying Your Target Audience: Who Needs to Hear Your Message?
The first and most important step is to determine who you must reach. In women’s health and healthtech, the audience consists of three core groups and each has distinct needs and priorities.
Customers
Who benefits most from your solution? How does your product or service improve patient outcomes? What unmet needs does it address?
Patients, payers, clinicians, and health systems all could be considered customers but the buyer is not always as clear as one may think. Will you market to patients directly, or must you appeal to clinicians or companies that implement your technology?
Clarity around who would use your product or service, who pays for it, and how it would address specific healthcare challenges is essential here.
It may also be useful to further segment customers. Patients can be categorized based on age, location, gender, and prior health conditions. HCPs, on the other hand, could be categorized based on criteria such as license type, practice type, and prescribing behavior.
Investors
Who are the ideal investors for your startup? Is it venture capitalists, angel investors, or industry-specific funds?
When you know what type of investor you want to attract, you’ll be able to craft a pitch that speaks to their expectations.
Venture capital investors, for example, may prioritize product-market fit and whether the science behind a product stacks up. Angel investors are drawn to very early-stage start-ups with passionate and knowledgeable founding teams.
Partners
Strategic partnerships are crucial for healthtech startups looking to scale and establish credibility in the healthcare ecosystem.
How can collaboration with your company benefit broader healthcare systems or other healthtech players? These could be other healthtech companies, insurance providers, pharmaceutical companies, and medical device manufacturers.
Partnering with companies that already serve your target demographic—whether it’s women’s health clinics, pharmacies, or reproductive health organizations—can also provide access to a ready-made user base.
2 – Setting Measurable Goals: What Does Success Look Like?
For a healthtech startup, setting measurable goals is essential for tracking progress and promoting long-term growth.
In a communications plan, there are three key principles to keep in mind.
Principle 1 – Goals should be based on project objectives
To avoid a situation where marketing efforts become disjointed, misdirected or ineffective, communications goals should always align with (and be based on) broader project objectives.
If you’re struggling with this, ask yourself two questions:
What is the project trying to do?
How can the communications plan help achieve it?
Principle 2 – Adopt the SMART goal-setting framework
Goals should be specific, measurable, achievable, relevant, and time-based.
Rather than setting a vague goal such as "Increase brand awareness in 2024," set a SMART goal such as “Acquire 500 new users on our telehealth platform in the next 3 months.”
The latter provides a clear, measurable and time-bound target that can be tracked and adjusted as necessary.
Principle 3 – Focus on result and process-oriented objectives
While results-oriented objectives such as “Generate $200,000 in sales within the next six months” are crucial to success, so are process-oriented objectives.
Process-oriented objectives focus on the behaviors and actions you want to see in your coworkers, investors, ideal customers, and so forth. For example, your company may resolve to “Reach out to 10 potential healthcare partners each month and secure meetings with 3 of them”.
Understand that result and process-oriented objectives are two sides of the same coin. The former sets clear targets, while the latter promotes consistent progress toward achieving those targets.
3 – Choosing the Right Channels: Where Will You Reach Your Audience?
Choosing the appropriate communication channels is how you position your offer in front of motivated buyers and maximize ROI.
In healthcare, multiple stakeholders are typically involved in a purchase decision, and each of them prefers to consume information from different channels.
This necessitates a multi-channel approach where you reach and influence each decision-maker on their terms. In the process, you’ll increase brand awareness, improve lead quality, and deliver a more personalized customer experience.
Clinicians, for example, read published research studies and trial results in medical journals. They may attend webinars, view live demonstrations at industry events, and discuss innovations with industry counterparts on social media.
Procurement officers respond better to direct sales but also attend industry events to compare multiple vendors. Conversely, healthcare executives and administrators may be more receptive to ideas in healthtech publications such as MedCity News or HIT Consultant.
Email marketing can also be used to nurture relationships with investors and partners. Product development updates, success stories, and achieved milestones keep these stakeholders invested in your mission and objectives.
Don’t Wait—Start Communicating from Day One
A comprehensive communication plan is critical for early-stage healthcare startups in specialized areas such as women’s health.
Identify your target audience, set measurable goals and choose the most appropriate channels to communicate with prospects. Establish a plan early and reap the rewards later.
Above all, don’t leave your communications to chance and be overtaken by your competitors. ABIG Health can help you communicate your vision to the right audience and lay the foundation for long-term growth and success.
References
https://www.caffeinedaily.co/stories/healthtech-investors-seek-quality-over-quantity-as-capital-remains-tight
https://adfirehealth.com/blog/mastering-healthcare-audience-segments-for-enhanced-marketing-outcomes
https://www.gartner.com/en/marketing/insights/multichannel-marketing
