Six steps that will optimize your medical device marketing
If you’re a marketer, you know that there are many challenges in delivering a successful marketing campaign. Your goal is to engage your target audience by providing the content that’ll make them want to buy your product. And, when you’re marketing a medical device in other countries, the process is riddled with even more obstacles.
When taking your medical device across international borders, you need to take into consideration that country’s culture and language. Marketing your product on an international level is made even more problematic by the numerous processes to not only successfully enter the country, but ensure your marketing material resonates with your target audience. For example, most companies put a lot of thought and work into their branding and messaging. And while it may work well in the US, the same content may have the opposite effect with people in different countries.
Here are six best practices for successful marketing of your medical device anywhere in the world.
1. Culture matters
You may think that translation is the first step in marketing your product in the new country. In reality, it comes a bit later. Your first step is to ensure that your marketing message satisfies local culture requirements. Tweaking your messaging includes the words you use, videos and images.
For example, let’s assume that you want to enter a conservative Middle Eastern country such as Saudi Arabia To avoid alienating potential buyers, you’ll want to ensure that your marketing imagery doesn’t include female models. In most conservative Middle Eastern countries, this type of imagery would seem unchaste to the region’s male audience.
2. Message for your audience
Your brand messaging and tagline might focus on optimizing the health and the lives of your US customers. For example, your well known tagline is “We Help you Live Life Better”, but will that same message resonate with your new target market? Or, even more concerning – when translated will it have a totally different or negative meaning? This is where your messages may need to be tweaked for other markets. And don’t forget to use the type of wording that appeals to your audience – commanding, submissive, formal or casual.
3. Translate the right content
You may think it’s enough to just translate your product packaging and website content to the local language, and in some cases that may be enough to attract buyers. But, for marketing that truly hits the mark and draws customers to your brand, you’ll need to go deeper. By creating versions of your site, marketing materials, packaging, etc., for each language spoken in your target market, your audience will feel like you’re speaking directly to them.
The source documents you provide to your language service provider (LSP) may be quite different from their English counterparts, and that’s okay. Remember that you’re not only translating language but also cultural preferences. So you may have a set of content for each market you plan to enter, specifically written for that audience, rather than a single file that is translated into the various languages.
4. Local vs. global social media
A single social media site (written in English) will not provide the following you desire. This is where you need to go micro with your marketing efforts. For better results, consider separating the account so that each market has its own site. This not only will appeal to your target market, but will enable the account manager to better target and reach that culture and audience.
5. Local SEO is essential
One of the biggest challenges for any marketer is getting their brand found online. And when your medical device is being promoted in multiple countries, you need to ensure that your brand ranks high on the search engines that are most prevalent in those countries. To do this you need to make sure that your multi-language website is SEO-targeted to each language.
For example, if someone searches for your type of medical device in France, you need to appear in search results – preferable with a high ranking. You won’t, though, if your website title, description, and keywords are all in English or you’re using keywords that are not common in that language.
6. Be agile
When your marketing efforts go global, there are many micro efforts that need to be considered. What works well in one country and culture may not work in another, so it’s important that you’re able to be agile in your efforts and ready to adapt to meet the specific needs of your target market.
If you’d like to learn more about how BURG Translations helps you ensure high quality translations, contact us today.
