How to avoid implicit bias in your MedTech marketing (In just three simple steps)

Many business owners, marketers and advertising agencies like to talk about, and target their marketing towards, “THE IDEAL CLIENT”. Often referred to as a customer avatar, this is a representation of their ideal client or customer. A business may have several customer avatars to represent different target demographics.

While a customer avatar can be helpful, it is not THE solution to running an effective marketing campaign. Far more important is having an accurate customer avatar, created using reliable data that removes any potential for bias.

What is implicit bias?

Bias can be either explicit or implicit. Explicit biases are usually known and can be controlled (sometimes with effort!), whereas implicit biases are unconscious.

Implicit bias is an unconscious association or belief toward any social group. It can mean that somebody attributes certain characteristic or attributes to every member of a particular group. This is known as stereotyping.

For a marketer, it is of course essential to have a clear idea of who your marketing is directed at. Problems occur if you allow any type of bias to direct your marketing as it may come across as patronizing to the people targeted or be so poorly targeted that it fails to deliver the response you are hoping for.

The risk of implicit bias is that you can easily end up running online marketing campaigns that offend, insult, or alienate the very people you think you are appealing to!

The importance of the individual in MedTech marketing

As David Ogilvy wisely noted many years ago in his book Confessions of an Advertising Man, "The customer is not a moron. She's your wife".

It is vital to remember that marketing needs to be focused on the individual. Groups, categories, demographics etc. can all be helpful to target your marketing, but it is an individual who sees and responds to your marketing:

• A sales page or promotional offer sent via email is read by an individual
• An individual chooses whether to click the ‘buy now’ button or not
• MedTech products, devices and services are used by an individual
• A referral or recommendation for a MedTech service or device is given by an individual

Why we spend so much time thinking about you…

Here at MedGen, even though we run numerous marketing MedTech campaigns for our clients every day, we spend a LOT of time thinking about individuals and what motivates and excites them.

We do this because one of the hardest things to do in marketing (and hence the most overlooked and underused) is to THINK.

• We think (a lot) about our clients and their customers, and how we can provide ever-more value for them.

• We think a lot about trends in the MedTech vertical so that we can continue providing our clients with “next generation” digital marketing campaigns that nobody else can replicate. (Often, we’re so far ahead of the curve that nobody else is even aware of what we’re doing to achieve our results!)

• We think about the results from previous and current marketing campaigns and what they show us about the market and current customer behaviour.

What do you think?

While this page is broad in its approach, we’d be interested in learning more about you. Specifically:

• What challenges you’re currently facing in your MedTech marketing?
• Whether you’re happy with your current results (or a bit underwhelmed by them)?
• How you’re avoiding or minimising the risk of implicit bias in your MedTech marketing?

We’ve got a good of idea of what your answers may be to these questions, but we don’t want to rely on our biases! Let us know as we would really value your opinions.

Three ways to avoid implicit bias in your MedTech marketing

We are (obviously) quite biased about the work that we do for our clients within the MedTech vertical, but we believe that there really are only 3 simple steps you need to take to avoid implicit bias in your marketing:

1. Contact us
2. Talk to us
3. Hire us to work with you!

Many companies claim to be digital marketing experts or experienced MedTech marketers, but very few have the track record to back up their claims.

If you believe (whether consciously or subconsciously) that these marketing companies are all pretty much the same as one another, you may end up choosing one based on irrelevant factors such as whether you like their logo or the colour scheme on their website!

As the leading MedTech digital marketer, we are acutely aware of the biases we have for our work within the MedTech vertical. Here are some of them:

• We can deliver you a more effective marketing campaign than any other company
• Our MedTech marketing specialists have unparalleled experience within the sector
• Our results within the MedTech sector prove our effectiveness
• Our streamlined, proven approach to digital marketing within the MedTech sector saves our clients their money, time, and energy – while delivering category-busting results!

Yep, we know we are obviously biased about the value we bring to our clients.

But rather than avoid it, we embrace it. Not because we’re arrogant (we really aren’t) but because we have the results to back up our claims. We’ve been running online marketing campaigns since 2009 and have a team of MedTech digital marketing experts who know a thing or two about running successful marketing campaigns.

Our industry-leading proprietary machine learning and tracking technology continually optimizes campaigns based on real-time and historical data (not assumptions or stereotypes).

This ‘data-first’ approach means that we avoid introducing bias (both explicit ad implicit) into the digital marketing campaigns we create and run for our clients within the MedTech vertical.

Get in touch with us today to find out how we can turbocharge your next MedTech marketing campaign, remove bias from the equation, and get you the results you want.