To fulfill the demand of medical professionals to improve patient care and provide the best possible treatment, you put a lot of effort into developing the most valuable product for healthcare professionals.
But your product doesn’t hold any value if it doesn’t reach its user at the right time and in the right way. And that’s when medical device product launch comes into the picture.
Product launch is the phase that is full of excitement yet uncertainty. You are almost done with the development of your product and soon you will be ready to launch it in the market, and the ball will no longer be in your court.
Until the product development or manufacturing process, everything was in your control, but as soon as you launch your product, then it will go into the court of your audience. How your audience i.e. healthcare professionals perceive it makes all the difference.
And a lot of your success depends upon the product launch. How you plan the launch phase decides your success rate. And that’s why it’s very important to plan your launch phase strategically.
So if you want to know how to launch your medical device product strategically, then this blog will surely help you to make it an effective one.
Before we start with the launch strategy let’s discuss what parameters are the benchmark of the success of a medical device product launch. These factors are
- Return on Investment
- Adoption
- Market share
- Customer Success
- Awareness
Now let’s start with 9 effective medical device product launch strategies.
9 Effective Strategy for Medical Device Product Launch
1. Determine your product launch timeline
Before you launch and market your product you need to take permission from the FDA. But you can’t just sit and wait for the FDA approval. You need to start planning other work, like preparing promotions, training sales personnel, and handling other jobs. This will help you to avoid the last-minute rush.
You need to start strategizing your launch planning in advance, sometimes more than a year ago. You need to assess your regulatory situation and define a strategy for submission and launch.
This timeline depends upon two factors
- The cost of the product
- The Application of the Product
If your product is very costly and based on new technology, then you have to start planning for more than a year. But if the product price is not much and the technology is older then starting before 6 -8 months is ok.
2. Prepare a marketing plan
Strategizing marketing is very important in medical device product launch plan. While making a marketing plan for your product launch you must consider, the target demographic, deliverables, storytelling techniques, and your customer concerns.
Your marketing efforts should be just able to demonstrate how your product is going to help them overcome their pain points and help them achieve their goal.
The important digital marketing channels you can use is
- Website
- Social media platform
- Healthcare marketing data
- Press releases
- Live webinars
- Chatbots
- Digital campaigns
3. Establish launch objectives
Product launch is overwhelming, from taking care of FDA approval to marketing the product every process gets overwhelming sometimes. But to avoid this you can decide on measurable goals and objectives that help your directions. You can break down big aims into small actions that help you to prioritize the tasks.
Sales, marketing, training, customer service, manufacturing, and quality departments, all play important roles in product launches. You have to make these divisions work in a proper way so that you can execute all the steps in a proper manner.
4. Prepare a customer documentation
You need to check and ensure that your product is in line with the market requirements and is
FDA-compliant. Before you launch the product make sure that you are done with product documentation and make it easily accessible to the audience.
To have a grand launch success you need to run a sample launch by providing the product to some distributors. This will help you get some feedback so that you can do some adjustments in the medical device product launch program.
5. Asses your marketplace
The market assessment is vital for any product launch, in fact, it starts way before you decide to design your product. Because, it should fill gaps in the market, and beat the competition.
Therefore before you design your product, it’s important for you to understand the market, competitors, and available similar products in the market.
This helps you to design your product accordingly and come up with a unique USP.
6. Produce Impactful Content
Understanding your audience about your product depends upon how well you make the demonstrative content.
You leverage modern technology to make 3D animations, and procedural animations to showcase your product demo. Just showing the picture of your product won’t work in today’s time.
With this technology, you should showcase all important features of your product and if you want to showcase its working, then you must take a 3D animation camera under the skin.
7. Decide how your product will be distributed and train your salespeople accordingly
Deciding on the distribution of your product is crucial. You need to decide how your product will be distributed. How it goes into the hands of users and how they will learn about it.
If you have salespeople, you need to train them for each of these criteria. Provide your salespeople with sales guides, service manuals, troubleshooting guides, and so on.
You can also conduct an internal launch to build enthusiasm and commit, to meet the employee.
8. Have a reimbursement Strategy
You must be clear about how you will be getting paid for your product. It should be discussed in your medical device product launch strategy.
For example, if you are selling your medical device to the government, you will be paid per unit, but when you sell it to hospitals, they have another price. You need to understand the pricing criteria of the system you are entering.
9.Make sure your support infrastructure is in place
Your support infrastructure is equally important as your product. You need to ensure that it’s in place. Some medical devices require service technicians and spare parts, while some require only a remote help desk.
You need to ensure that both are in place so that users can get instant help whenever they need it.
Your support infrastructure enhances the reputation of your product and brand by providing prompt responses to their query.
Read Also: Medical Device Companies in USA
Conclusion
A successful medical device launch primarily requires an excellent plan. In order to get your product to market and maintain it there, you’ll need to conduct launch activities. You want to make sure your company’s reputation, safety, and efficacy are maintained.
It’s essential to take a holistic view of all the stakeholders and suppliers involved in producing and marketing your device. How will you make sure there are enough devices at the right place at the right time? How will you make sure your customers know how to use them to the best of their abilities?
