Upstream marketing Archives - Page 4 of 5

07Jan 2022 by cesare ferrari

The Voice Of The Customer (VOC) Is Different From The Voice Of KOLs Or Key Accounts

Every medical device marketer is familiar with Key Opinion Leaders (KOLs), Key accounts, and their spokesperson- the Key Account Manager. In this post, I will discuss two common traps in New Product Development: the conflict between following your KOLs, or the biggest and most essential account versus addressing the needs of a large market listening to the VOC. Let’s start with KOLs. Key Opinion Leaders: A Definition . A key opinion leader (KOL) in the healthcare field is a physician, nurse, researcher, hospital executive, etc that has proven experience and expertise in a specific discipline, who is trusted and respected by his/her colleagues. Medical device companies can use their KOL network to gather valuable insights in various phases of new product development. Moreover, KOLs are influential, so companies leverage the relationship to access…

18Dec 2021 by cesare ferrari

4 Fundamental Topics For Your Christmas Holidays

Upstream marketing

Christmas holidays are the favorite period of the year for most children and adults alike. It's a time to exchange gifts with friends and loved ones, decorate Christmas trees, merry and have fun all together. Looking back, Christmas 2020 was different due to the Covid-19 pandemic and many people, including me, were unable to spend time with family and friends in-person. This year; hopefully, the situation will be different, and we will have the opportunity to spend quality time with family and take a step back to reflect on what and who matters most in our lives. Keep in mind that if during the Christmas holidays you would like to go through some fundamentals on Medical Device Sales and Marketing, the following suggestions I've put together would give you a…

20Nov 2021 by cesare ferrari

“Easy To Use” Or “User-friendly” Is Not A User Requirement!!!!

Upstream marketing

From time to time, I come across situations where I need to clarify and point out some essential facts I’ve already discussed in this post about user requirements definition and in this one about writing user requirements. A few weeks ago, a colleague suggested to me to include (in the user requirements of a new product) the fact that the product must be “user-friendly.” And then more recently a start-up founder showed me a user requirement of a new medical device- still in development that was formulated with the expression “easy to use”. Although both wanted to have the user requirement “easy to use” for good reasons. And both are laudable for taking into consideration the user in the development; unfortunately, they are both wrong. Why is “easy to use”…

23Oct 2021 by cesare ferrari

Who Is The “Customer” In Medical Device Marketing?

Downstream marketing, Sales, Upstream marketing

Keep in mind that the short answer to this is that...it depends. Luckily, as you read on you'll understand the reason for this conclusion on the role of the customer in medical device marketing. To begin with, the medical devices category is very diversified and assorted, but that's not only from the regulatory point of view.   Part of the category of medical devices include: basic medical supplies like sutures, tongue depressors, syringes, surgical instruments, and more complex devices like implants, pacemakers. It also includes big capital equipment such as CT and robots.  For the different categories of medical devices, the number of individuals and organizations that could influence the purchase decision might possibly be significant and different. In this article, I consider the “customer” of medical device marketing, all the stakeholders. And not only the…

15Oct 2021 by cesare ferrari

How To Deal With Customer Suggestions About New Products

Upstream marketing

As a marketer, there are several opportunities in your day-to-day activities where you can collect feedback or customer's suggestions about a product or service of the company. Customer feedback is a vital and valuable input and should be treated with the utmost attention. It can really bring a lot of value to the organization, and that’s the reason for having several tools like surveys, feedback forms, etc… to gather it. Today I will focus on only a specific sort of input, which is the customer's suggestions regarding a new product or service. And the risks that are associated with it. Customer Suggestions On New Products When collecting the VOC (voice of the customer) as detailed in this previous post and more specifically when interviewing customers as described in these two…

08Oct 2021 by cesare ferrari

How Marketing Can Bring Value And Better Long-term Perspective To Medical Device Companies

Downstream marketing, Upstream marketing

If you have been working in the medical device marketing for a few years; Then you've probably noticed that it is far more complicated to achieve growth in the current environment.  The good old times are gone. Incremental innovation at a premium price, product launches that almost always deliver the expectations. And rapid development projects with easy registration are becoming rare.  In the past, medical device companies could rely on incremental innovations, easy market access, fewer price constraints, and sales force relationships with the clinicians to deliver good results.  Today, the market is far more complex and competitive. To remain profitable, companies will need to leverage better, stronger, and effective medical device marketing. What Is Marketing And Why Is It Important In Medical Device According to Prof. Philip Kotler, the father of modern…

26Sep 2021 by cesare ferrari

7 Practical Actions To Promote Integration Between Marketing And R&D

Upstream marketing

After publishing a recent post that you can read here. I received feedback regarding the content, where one of the readers pointed out that the post was a bit academic. And not providing practical and actionable suggestions to increase integration and reduce the inter-functional conflict between marketing and R&D. I’ve decided to revisit the topic and provide some implementable tools to promote integration and reduce the risk of functional or dysfunctional conflicts. Highlighted below are some of the detailed points. 1. Alignment Any formal and informal opportunity should be used to make sure that the cross-functional team agrees on the fact that a successful product depends equally on the customer’s needs satisfaction, as on technological capabilities. 2. Team building Team building activities are available in a vast range to address specific limits…

11Sep 2021 by cesare ferrari

Why The Number One Reason For Product Failure Lies In NOT Satisfying Customer Needs

Upstream marketing

In 2007, the pharmaceutical giant; Pfizer withdrew from the market only a year after launching the first inhalable insulin, making Exubera one of the biggest flops in pharma and the whole healthcare business. I would like to use this example to support the thesis of using a proper VOC to identify customer needs and develop products to solve customer problems. To make the point clear right from the beginning, I know that in hindsight, it is easy to find the weak points that were not identified or not fully considered during the development process. Again, the aim of this example is not to criticize. But to bring attention to customer needs and discuss these critical elements in medical device development once more. Brief Story Of Exubera Pfizer Exubera, the first…

04Sep 2021 by cesare ferrari

How To Reduce Marketing And R&D Conflicts And Develop Better Medical Device

Upstream marketing

Have you ever seen new products that arrive too late on the market, costs of development that overrun and new products that do not offer real value to the customer? Well, one of the root causes are the conflicts between marketing and R&D. I think everybody agrees that effective coordination between various groups in the organization, such as R&D, marketing, and engineering plays an important role in the process of developing a medical device. However, the reality is that an effective and harmonious relationship is the exception rather than the rule. Problems related to poor inter-functional cooperation, communication, lack of clarity of goal and inadequate definition of project responsibilities, are frequent in any kind of organization. And you do not need to be a brilliant manager to know that poor…

22Aug 2021 by cesare ferrari

Ethnography: The (not so) Secret Ingredient Of Your VOC- Voice Of The Customer

Upstream marketing

Introduction Since you've been following my blog content closely, by now you already know that I'm an advocate of the VOC (Voice of the customer), as it's a source of innovation for medical device companies. More so, I have already treated the interviews extensively as a method to collect input from customers. Today, I will provide you an analysis of customers’ observations known also as ethnography, as a complementary tool to collect customer needs and wants. What Is Ethnography? The term “ethnography” is an academic and more polished way to refer to observations. Ethnography is a research methodology used by anthropologists, and it implies the observation of people in their natural environment with the goal of understanding how people live their lives. Furthermore, Ethnographic research involves collecting data in real…

Category: Upstream marketing