The Six Types of KOLs

How to Match the Right KOL to the Right Opportunity

The value of Key Opinion Leaders (KOLs) in your market strategy cannot be overstated. You need them to launch a product, to tell your story, to train others on your procedure, to sell your device, to expand your market reach. However, there is no one-size-fits-all approach to engaging KOLs in the medtech space. Your company’s needs will vary, and you’ll need different types of KOLs based on potential opportunities.

When managed effectively, working with a well-balanced group of KOLs can have a major impact in product adoption and moving the market in your favor. With that in mind, here are six types of KOLs and how to engage with them to drive your business.

ACADEMIC

TRAINER

MARKETER

INNOVATOR

INFLUENCER

LEADER

Established & Emerging

In addition to identifying your KOLs, assessing their strengths and creating an engagement plan that fits their skills, you should also keep experience in mind. Keeping a balanced mix of well-established experts and up-and-comers is crucial to the sustainability of your program.

There will undoubtedly be overlap with these categories. Maybe you’ve found that rare KOL that does all of these things for you or performs several of these roles well. But these are some important categories to think about when building out a successful KOL strategy that helps you make a big impact in the market.

Let’s work together.

Ready to prioritize KOL identification and mapping? Need to incorporate KOLs into your engagement strategy? Want to move your market by harnessing KOL share of voice? We can help.

Going Beyond Safe and Effective

Aligning Marketing and Clinical to Tell a Powerful, Data-Driven Story

Teams, Aligned

There is no denying that the work being done by your marketing and clinical teams is interdependent. Both are integral to the new product development process and to successfully bringing your product from concept to commercialization. But getting these teams to truly collaborate is not always an easy task, especially at larger medtech companies where work is often siloed, and goals can be misaligned.

Clinical may say,

Clinical may say

“Marketing doesn’t need to be involved yet.  We’re not designing a campaign; we’re designing a clinical trial.”

This is true, of course, and your clinical team is hard at work developing protocols and gathering the data needed to get to approval. Their job is complex and vital to launch — and getting that “safe and effective” stamp is the underlying objective.

Marketing may say,

Marketing may say

“We want superior and differentiating claims for this product, but clinical won’t work with us to elevate clinical endpoints that will get us something more beyond “safe and effective.”

There can often be a large divide between these teams, resulting in miscommunication and misunderstandings that prevent them from working as the integrated, collaborative, and informed team needed to move a market.

Beyond Safe and Effective

The Triple Aim guidelines set out by the Institute of Healthcare Improvement are pushing companies to aim for more than just “safe and effective” when getting a product to market. So how can a well-rounded, cross-functional team that includes marketing bring varying perspectives together to take your clinical claims even further? You want to go for the aspirational claims that will differentiate your product in the market and develop data-driven messaging that hits home with your target audiences.

So, what can be done? We’ve worked with medtech companies across a multitude of specialties and have seen some common threads that help determine success. But the key to success from our perspective? Alignment.

Car repair

Just like a vehicle’s suspension, your mechanic will say that the key to proper alignment is adjusting the angles of the tires which affects how they make contact with the road. If your road is the path to approval, your wheels are the teams it takes to get you there. Getting them angled together towards that common goal is the secret — it gets you there faster and builds a foundation for a seamless transition when you go to market, so you can start improving patient care and delivering significant return to investors.

Road

Compelling Stories Drive Business

In our work, we’ve found that compelling stories drive business and move markets, no matter where you are in the world. Aligning your clinical and marketing teams early, using guideposts like the IHI’s Triple Aim framework to develop messaging and taking advantage of outside perspectives and processes, can help you move beyond “safe and effective” claims. When you develop a powerful, data-driven story that is unique and relevant to your customers, you can position your product to move the medtech market in your favor.

Let’s work together.

Ready to align your teams and move forward with your strategy? Develop a roadmap or a messaging matrix for your next clinical trial? Ready to remove some roadblocks so you can launch a new product or therapy? We can help.

Finding Physicians in the Digital Jungle

The Best Platforms for Engaging with Medical Professionals

Engagement, Activated Through PPC

No one is immune to advertising, but when you’re trying to increase awareness or educate around a medical device, it can seem like physicians are in fact that — borderline elusive. Often, they’re extraordinarily busy, receive direct contact from a wide variety of sales reps at regular intervals and can sometime be overwhelmed when it comes to learning about medtech innovations.

So how do you reach these time-strapped prospects when the competition is fierce and their attention is limited? One of the answers is PPC: pay-per-click search and paid advertising on different social media and search platforms.

Is PPC Still Relevant?

PPC has been around a long time. But with the rise of Google search and social advertising, it has evolved more than enough to remain a staple in your marketing efforts. A 2019 stat from Disruptive Advertising says Google Ads and Facebook PPC Ads are the two largest advertisers on the Internet. To be exact, Google currently holds 37.2% of the digital advertising market, whereas Facebook holds 19.6%.

No other type of digital marketing has the direct targeting capabilities PPC has to offer. Reaching your audience where they already are makes it much easier to analyze what content is relevant to them, and prioritize your marketing endeavors accordingly. Add in the re-marketing capabilitiy, and there is no denying the value it can add to your strategy.

How Can PPC Help Me Move a Market?

A recent study by the Journal of Medical Research states that 61% of physicians are on social media and use it to research new information.

This makes PPC a critical piece of your integrated digital marketing strategy. Being there to guide the conversations happening online about your product when you can’t be face-to-face will support your revenue-driving efforts anywhere along the funnel. From awareness ads that introduce a new technology or procedure to lead generating ads that require prospects to submit their contact information to access a case study or offer, PPC advertising offers a direct line of access to relevant customers as quickly as you can get your ads approved and uploaded.

Which Platforms Should I Use?

Once you’ve decided to launch a PPC campaign, the next step is figuring out which platform is going to offer you the best return on your ad spend. While there are many PPC networks available — Bing, Yahoo and Twitter to name a few — this is where we choose to focus our paid online advertising efforts when targeting physicians.

Physician-focused Social Media Networks

While physician-focused social media networks like Sermo and Doximity do exist, they’re not open for digital advertising at this time. And with the advanced targeting options offered by platforms like Google Ads, Facebook and LinkedIn, that’s not a problem.

Let’s work together.

Ready to connect with you physician audience using a PPC campaign? Need to develop your content strategy? Build the necessary creative? Manage and optimize your campaign? We can help.