Almost all big and small businesses have hardly been hit by the outbreak of the new version of the coronavirus, especially if you’re in the construction estimating industry. The healthcare industry is performing a bit differently from other niches. The urgent need for medical equipment and medicines has made a new situation for medical brands. However, even in this industry, small businesses are suffering financial losses.
Lockdowns and social distancing orders are a big barrier for small businesses that sell medical equipment. So what’s the solution?
Of course, there is a shortlist of businesses that have benefited from the new normal, and most of them have been internet-based companies.
So there is a promising chance of surviving this crisis and saving your brand identity until the vaccination comes into effect. Digital marketing is key to succeeding during the COVID-19 pandemic, especially for small businesses.
If you want to increase your medical equipment sales, you’d better take advantage of digital means of marketing, advertising, and selling.
In this article, we’ve gathered 8 simple tips to help you sell your medical equipment and get a higher ROI in 2021.
1. Target ideal customers for your medical equipment
Remember that you can’t be successful in your marketing campaign if you don’t know your target audience well. In fact, you won’t be able to sell your product to anyone. So you have to recognize those who’re most likely willing to buy medical equipment from you. In foreign markets like China before import you will need getting devices and equipment approved in China where medical device product registration and importation requires a Medical Device Registration Certificate (MDRC) issued by the National Medical Products Administration (NMPA).
You can sort them based on their age, gender, location, social position, and other important factors. This way, you’ll find it easier to target them on the internet and social media.
If you have years of experience in this industry, you have minimum problems in this regard because you can reach out to your previous customers and figure out what type of financial characteristics they have.
But as a small business or someone who wants to start this business, you need to conduct a deep survey to determine your niche audience. And once you got that sorted out, you can then proceed to the actual formation of your business. It can be a daunting task because there’s a lot of paperwork involved, but there are services that can help you with that. To get you started, here’s a quick review of Nolo.com, one of the popular business formation services in the industry.
2. Create a website
After you finished audience recognition and started running your medical equipment business, you need to create a business website.
A fast and optimized website is key to your visibility on the internet and reaching out to potential customers.
Your website can be your online shop which is way cheaper than a traditional brick-and-mortar store. There is no need to repeat that the more digitalized businesses are, the less they suffered the outbreak of the coronavirus.
3. Create accounts on top social media platforms
The thing is that a good website can’t enough to reach out to all potential customers. Lots of people are using social media channels to search for information on products and brands.
That’s why social media marketing is on the rise, and almost all businesses have a strong strategy for it. Also, social media influencers have a great impact on the business growth of small brands.
So if you want to maximize your brand awareness and build a sales funnel, you don’t have any choice but to have accounts on top social channels like Instagram and Facebook.
4. Focus on local SEO
This is clear that as a small business, many people don’t know your brand name, and being on the first page of search results is key to encourage people to visit your online store.
So you need to optimize your website’s content for your target keywords to improve its rank. The truth is that at the beginning you might find it hard to find customers from other cities. So you need to focus on the local SEO to strengthen your identity in your own city.
Try to become familiar with top SEO tools like MOZ, Ahrefs, SEOSurfer, Screaming Frog, and Yoast. You can take advantage of free features on them to boost your SEO strategy.
5. Partner with Nano-influencers
You can’t rely solely on organic means of audience reach. If you want to outperform your competitors, you have to leverage the power of paid methods.
One of the most effective ways for brand awareness is influencer marketing. Of course, working with Macro or even Micro-influencers might be pricey for you. Try to start with Nano-influencers and ask them to speak highly of your medical store.
They might have a small group of followers, but they’re usually high-engaged, and that can be great for your marketing campaign.
You can offer them some prizes like discounts instead of money. That’s good for you as you might not have a huge budget for advertising.
6. Speak with customers at a personal level
Engaging with customers can be of great use to your marketing campaign. As a small business, you need to be patient to make potential audiences buy your products and then convert them into your loyal customers.
Having a friendly relationship is key to doing this as people always remember your responsibility and customer-oriented culture.
Try to respond to their complaints fast and with a suitable tone of voice to make them believe they’re important to you. You can also ask them to prepare testimonials and put them on your social channels to get higher engagement rates.
7. Take advantage of experiential marketing
Although many people use digital channels to communicate with businesses, face-to-face interactions are still essential in customer loyalty.
Of course, this is not a good time for events as COVID-19 is still spreading. But you have to have plans for experiential marketing to engage with your customers face to face.
You can promote the events with the help of social media to get the maximum exposure possible. Using Live videos on Instagram is great to boost event marketing and can encourage other audiences to join your event.
8. Analyze the performance of your strategies
Last but not least, you have to constantly track the results of your marketing strategies and analyze your weaknesses and strengths.
This way, you can see which techniques have been more successful for your business and which one has not. So try to use analytics tools to analyze your online marketing strategies and optimize your business plan accordingly.
Final word
Running a small business might be a bit difficult these days, but it’s not impossible. Fortunately, medical equipment sales are at a good point, and you can be hopeful of reaching success. Of course, you need to know that this is a time-sucking procedure, and therefore, you have to be patient in your job.
