Marketing IT Solutions to Hospitals: 7 Simple Tips

Since the Affordable Care Act mandates that hospitals establish Electronic Medical Records, healthcare IT firms have pulled out the stops to market to hospitals and healthcare practices of all sizes. Unfortunately, much of this marketing activity is ineffective in opening doors, building relationships, and landing sales.

So, here are 7 tips to help market IT solutions to hospitals and healthcare organizations.

1. Learn Who Is Involved- In most hospitals, a team of people sit at the decision-making table, especially when it involves a large IT spend that impacts how healthcare providers do their jobs throughout the organization. It’s important to identify who the key players are, and develop buyer personas for each of them. In addition, have a plan to deliver information in a variety of formats- text, audio, video- to each of these decision-makers.

2. Simple, Clear Message for a Complex Solution- Your healthcare IT solution is probably complex to understand and implement. To gain acceptance,the message about your solution must be simple, clear, and easy to grasp. Confused minds will not and do not make decisions to move forward.

3. Find the Trigger Event and the Person Who Pulls the Trigger- In every hospital, there are bottlenecks causing frustration and costing the organization time and money. Your IT solution needs support from multiple people, from the Chief Information Officer, Chief Medical Officer, to the VP of Hospital Operations. In addition, if you can get buy in from staff levles and front-line clinicians, your solution is better positioned for acceptance.However, there are usually one or two key influencers who will ultimately pull the trigger and make the decision to move forward.

4. Provide Tools to Speed the Decision- Create templates and case studies that help your internal influencers sell your solution to others in the organization. These tools could include ROI documentation, a schedule for timing and planning implementation, training support tools, and “what happens when” analysis.

5. More Tools to Sell the Decision Makers- Research is essential in selling IT solutions to hospitals. Create and prepare third-party research, client case studies and success stories. Create a best practice self evaluation tool so the hospital can assess where they are in the process. Guide the hospital in overlaying your IT solution as an educational tool for your prospects.

6. Uncover the Bias Hidden in the Culture- Perhaps the hospital was burned on a previous IT spend. Maybe there was a clumsy implementation of a prior IT change that impacted staff at all levels. If past bias delays a decision, showing what the hospital stands to gain rather than dwelling on the pain points often times creates a sales breakthrough.

7. Ease of Use Wins- Realize the battle hospitals have been waging for years with insurance providers, government agencies, and collecting from uninsured patients. If you can demonstrate use of use and reduced hassle for staff at all levels, you’re positioned to win the client.

These 7 tips are geared towards your sales message and tactics once you’ve opened the door of the hospital.If you need help on how to create content that opens doors for your sales team, download the FREE Guide:

Digital Health Marketers: How to Create Killer Marketing Content