If your orthopedic startup company truly stands out, I would like to share a secret marketing weapon with you, but first, your company must fit these three criteria:
A/ You must be a scrappy startup with few resources.
B/ You must have a unique clinical solution (no direct product competitor).
C/ You must at least have a validated product concept, confirming its functionality and market demand through testing and proven customer willingness to pay for it.
If YES to all three, congratulations, you can take advantage of the Startup Marketing Playbook.
This is a secret weapon for startups only.
The Big Orthos cannot do this. They have so many controls and committees reviewing online content that someone in Compliance or Legal eventually says “no”.
Here we go!
Your 10-Step Marketing Playbook.
1/ Set your goals. What do you want to achieve with your Marketing work? Do you want to increase brand awareness, generate leads, or drive traffic to your website? Once you know your goals, you can tailor your content and messaging accordingly.
2/ Identify a single target audience. Who are you trying to reach with your Marketing campaign? Below are two common choices.
A/ Surgeons. You want to get noticed. Get any engagement you can from surgeons and fill the top of the sales funnel so your sales team can follow up and execute.
B/ Potential Distributors/Agents/Reps. These critical people may be interested in selling or servicing your product in given territory. But first they have to be aware of your new clinical solution.
3/ Choose the most effective social media platforms. If you are targeting Surgeons or Potential Sales people, I strongly suggest that you focus on LinkedIn and YouTube only. Stay away from the others as they are diminishing returns for your effort (Facebook, Instagram, Snap, X, TikTok). Create a company page or a product page on both LinkedIn and YouTube.
4/ Create a landing page under your company domain (eg: Ossio) or maybe the domain name of the product or procedure (eg: Lapiplasty). All your content will have a call-to-action (CTA) link that takes the reader to your landing page.
5/ Go the free route, do not pay. Use the free “organic” posting on YouTube (free), LinkedIn (free), FaceBook (free). In the future if you have a decent budget you can target specific surgeon profiles in specific zip codes. As a rough example, the last time I did a “paid” targeting campaign on LinkedIn it costs $10 per view. Ouch!
6/ Create a culture of content generation. Everyone in the company from the CEO to R&D to Sales should use their phone to record every day. Video an R&D test. Interview a surgeon. Interview a patient. Fly a drone over your building. Video the manufacturing or inspection of your product. Everything can be content.
Additionally, each video can turn into five or more pieces of content with clips of various lengths, text transcriptions, images, etc. All content should be sent into a centralized computer or cloud for editing and posting on a future date.
7/ Create engaging content. Your content should be informative, useful, and engaging. Videos are better than images and text. Share educational articles, infographics, behind the scenes looks, and images that are relevant to your target audience.
- Use visuals. People are more likely to engage with visual content, so make sure to include plenty of images, infographics, and videos in your social media posts.
- Tell stories. People love to hear stories, so use your social media posts to tell the story of your practice and the patients you serve.
- Be authentic. People can spot a fake from a mile away, so be sure to be authentic in your social media posts. Share your genuine thoughts and experiences, and don’t be afraid to show your personality.
See examples at end of the article.
Read also – The real reason why your online marketing falls short.
8/ Use analytics. Social media and website analytics can help you track the performance of your marketing work and see what’s working and what’s not. Use this data to optimize your content and messaging over time. A/B test.
9/ Post daily. Warning: this may be the hardest part. The key to success with your online marketing is consistency. Post new content daily. This helps to drive engagement and the platforms will move you up if you post daily.
If I can post daily then you can too.
10/ Track your results. It’s important to track the results of your social media campaign so you can see what’s working and what’s not. This will help you make necessary adjustments to your strategy over time.
Three Content Examples on LinkedIn:
Ossio: Bold, effective, and entertaining story telling.
Treace Medical: Visual procedure results for surgeons by surgeons.
Artelon: Playful and informative story telling for surgeons.
