How to Successfully Market Health Technology in 2021

Let’s face it, humans can be disgusting. Much of the technology at the 2021 Consumer Electronics Show (CES) hopes to fix that. Every year, companies arrive in Las Vegas to show off their technology designed to clean, heal and generally make their owners a little less gross. Despite this year’s conference being virtual, 2021’s CES looks to be even more loaded with disinfecting gadgets, purifying doodads, and protective masks.

Pandemic

Covid-19 has changed the way the world works. Not just how it functions, but literally how work and commerce continue. There is potentially a fortune to be made supplying the equipment needed to keep people working while the pandemic rages on. Workers need protective gear. Workers need the surfaces they work on clean. They also need this at home as well.

Crowded Marketplace

The problem? Everyone else knows this as well. Go on any online marketplace right now. There is a glut of companies with names you have never heard of selling UV-C lights, air purifiers, smart masks and more. Did any of these companies exist before yesterday? Do any of these products work? No one knows, but their unfamiliarity is creating distrust for your product, even though you have nothing to do with these companies.

Your Competition

As this article is being written, the top five products for “uv-c light sanitizer” on Amazon are all from unknown companies. They all have poorly assembled graphic design photoshopped together from royalty free art sources. As far as the general public goes, your company’s UV-C light might as well be one of these devices of questionable quality.

So how does your company amplify their signal to cut through the noise of all the fly-by-night companies peddling digital health products?

The Solution

The answer is by creating a Direct-to-Consumer (DTC) marketing and revenue channel. You might know a DTC strategy by a few different names. Direct response, DRTV, brand response, all mean the same thing. Sometimes, it is even described by its longest form of content, the infomercial.

Going DTC allows your company to do several things simultaneously. First, it allows you to market your products outside of online retailers, giving your company more “virtual shelf space” to occupy alone. Marketing to your customers outside of online marketplaces means not having your product immediately compared to an underpriced and under-manufactured hunk of plastic. With more space to make your pitch, it becomes easier to educate customers on the quality of your product.

Second, it becomes easier to market other products in your line to your customers. You know that UV—C light is selling because of the first-tier data generated from the campaign. You can probably sell those same customers your air purifier. Because the relationship with the customer is with your company, not a retailer, it becomes possible to ask them questions about their buying habits. Your next product could be developed by finding out exactly what it is your customers desire.

Pivot

It is important not to be defined by your competition. You have the ability to raise your company and your products above that. Your marketing can create a clear signal that will be heard through the noise. You just need to direct it in the correct way.