Marketing, no matter where you are or what you are promoting follows the same basic principles, the differentiators really come down to who your customers are and how you reach those customers. Understanding this is crucial. 

Know and understand your customers. Healthcare technology customers are made up large groups of stakeholders, each with their own set of requirements and goals. The needs of multiple groups of clinicians as well as finance, administration, business systems, quality and IT all need to be taken into account. Once you have that covered, the next decision is how do you reach those customers. In our industry you need to get yourself infront of your potential customers, face to face. 

The procurement process within Healthcare is notoriously slow, it is not unusual for a single sale to take anywhere between nine and twenty four months. The Sláinte Insights series has touched on why this is on more than one occasion, factors like the number of stakeholders, the public sector funding model and past negative experiences with healthcare IT implementations leaving stakeholders with a high degree of scepticism and caution. All of these factors contribute.

This means that you need patience when it comes to seeing a return on your investment. The goals from a  marketing perspective include getting your brand out there, letting your industry know who you are and what you do, help with identifying leads and providing the support tools to the sales team to help them makes sales.

Some of the things that I think are crucial as part of any approach include;