Segmenting markets and accounts for your medical device

Launching a new medical device is no small feat. Ask any medtech marketing leader, and they’ll tell you that marketing medical devices is challenging, regardless of whether you’ve launched one or a hundred products. Finding success means breaking through to the right audience with the right message at the right time, but that’s easier said than done.

That’s why effective market segmentation in medtech marketing is so critical in achieving your goals, generating more revenue, and growing. It’s a powerful—and important—aspect of medical device positioning that enables more personalized and engaging interactions with the healthcare providers (HCPs), healthcare organizations (HCOs), and patients that need your solutions most.

This blog, adapted from our comprehensive e-book, explores the critical importance of developing a robust market segmentation strategy, whether you’re launching a medical device or expanding into a new market with an existing one. We’ll also discuss important considerations when segmenting the market for various types of customers. For a deeper dive into these concepts, download and read our comprehensive guide to medtech marketing.

The importance of market segmentation for medtech sales success

Arguably, one of the most important building blocks of a successful medtech product launch is an effective segmentation strategy. Whether you are starting a new business or trying to grow an established one, having a deep understanding of your target market is critical to the success of your medical device.

Medtech market segmentation goes beyond just organizing potential customers into groups. By taking a strategic approach to segmentation, you can uncover untapped growth opportunities, enhance every engagement with highly tailored messaging, and make the most of your marketing team, time, and budget.

Let’s dig into some more benefits you can reap by segmenting the market:

1. Stronger customer knowledge. Segmentation fosters a deeper understanding of the various audiences within your market. This knowledge can guide product development, marketing strategies, and customer service approaches, ensuring they are all aligned with the specific needs and preferences of each segment.
2. Account prioritization. Segmentation helps identify which consumers, providers, and HCOs are most likely to drive revenue, translating to more efficient resource allocation and time saved.
3. Discover new growth opportunities. Using medical and prescription claims data, market research, and competitive analyses, you can illustrate areas of the market that are underserved or untapped.
4. Targeted messaging. Segmentation empowers your medtech marketing team to craft and deliver the right message to the right audience at the right time, personalized by industry, facility size, needs, and more.
5. Win/loss analysis. The data you collect by segmenting the market can help you determine why some deals were won or lost, which can help pinpoint effective sales tactics for future engagements.

Combining all the above points, account segmentation helps create more effective and efficient medical device sales and marketing strategies, leading to higher conversion rates, stronger customer loyalty, and, ultimately, increased sales and revenue. By focusing on the most promising segments, you can optimize your efforts for the best return on investment.

What are the top medical device segments?

A clear “most valuable” medical device segment might be harder to identify than you might imagine. After all, there are thousands of facilities and millions of healthcare providers across the U.S. To find success, you need to go deeper, be more granular, and find the specific group of customers most valuable to your strategic goals.

Medtech companies can segment their market in various ways depending on their goals, product type, and target audience. Your specific device may need a different segmentation structure, but here are some examples of common structures for hospitals, providers, and alternate site facilities:

Segmenting for hospitals & health systems

According to our HospitalView product, there are more than 9,300 hospitals, health systems, and IDNs across the U.S. Taking the time to search through every single facility to find ideal customers manually is a waste of valuable time, so you’ll need to segment the market to speed up the process.

Below are effective criteria for segmenting these sorts of providers:

• Type. Hospitals can be categorized into short-term acute care hospitals, VA hospitals, children’s hospitals, and more. Depending on your device, you may find more success in one type of hospital over another.
• Size. You can gauge the size of a hospital by bed count. A larger facility could translate to a larger sales opportunity.
• IDN affiliation. Hospitals associated with an integrated delivery network (IDN) may have less autonomy to make decisions independently and may have to work through a central purchasing team.
• GPO affiliation. While not all devices require agreements with group purchasing organizations (GPOs), it can be important in some situations and impact your ability to sell into a facility. Some hospitals may be members of more than one GPO, so you’ll need to ensure you have the correct membership and primary affiliation when targeting GPOs.

If relevant, you may also want to consider diagnoses and procedure volumes related to your medical device. Medical and prescription claims data, accessible through our Atlas All-Payor & Prescription Claims datasets, can help you deepen your understanding of the patients and/or providers who use your medical device. Financial, clinical, and quality metrics might also inform decision-making, which you can find in HospitalView.

Segmenting for providers

With more than 2.6 million HCPs in the U.S., you can’t feasibly go after everyone. Even if you could, it would be a waste of resources. Segmenting the market by healthcare professionals helps you focus on the people best suited to make or influence a buying decision.

Consider the following criteria when segmenting the market for providers:

• Specialty. You’ll want to focus on the specialties that align with your medical device’s purpose (e.g., cardiologists for cardiology devices).
• Affiliation. Most individual HCPs lack sole purchasing power and instead make decisions in groups. Segmenting by groups ensures your teams will identify each call point and engage everyone involved with consistent messaging.
• Diagnosis or procedure volume. Knowing the number of diagnoses or procedures can be important because it can directly equate to total opportunity value, justify marketing investment, or uncover untapped potential.
• Referral volume. Referrals can help you deepen your understanding of the patient journey and find areas where your device can intervene earlier.

You can find the data and more insights (like technology usage, KOL indication, location, and contact info) in our PhyscianView product.

Segmenting for alternate sites

Depending on your product, you may be interested in targeting facilities like ambulatory surgery centers, long-term care facilities, imaging centers, and other sites.

Given how broad and varied this sector of the market is, you’ll want to narrow your search by segmenting by facility type. Prioritize locations relevant to the functions of your medical device and the goals of your organization. You could get even more granular by segmenting by specialty, such as urgent care clinics, dialysis centers, or veterinary clinics. Other criteria include:

• Network affiliation. Many networks also have alternate site facilities underneath their umbrella, so purchasing decisions may be made through a central committee. They represent additional opportunities for your organization to expand and penetrate the market.
• Procedure volume. Similarly with HCPs, procedure volumes at a facility are a good way to gauge opportunity value and unmet needs.

For more insights on specific alternative sites of care, check out the View Product Suite.

Additional considerations

Of course, you don’t have to stick to these criteria for your market segmentation. You can use any criteria that are quantifiable, can be tied to specific facilities, and are important for your products. The important part is understanding your target audience and what matters to them and then finding more prospective customers with similar characteristics. You may also want to consider tracking engagement metrics, such as how often HCPs and other individuals engage with content, emails, webinars, etc., to guide your marketing approach and identify high-value customers.

Set your marketing team up for success with Carevoyance

The medtech market shifts often, so segmenting the market shouldn’t be a one-time exercise. You can equip your team with the insights and tools they need to succeed with Carevoyance from Definitive Healthcare.

Our Carevoyance product offers access to powerful, data-driven insights for faster, easier, and more precise market segmentation. The Market Module enables your marketing operations to define specific segments, share intelligence and targets with the sales team, and run analyses to get a 360-degree view of the medtech landscape and the patients and providers you care about. And once your markets are defined, Carevoyance offers tools for territory-specific targeting, pre-call planning, reporting, and more.

Learn more

Remember, market segmentation is an ongoing process. As your understanding of the market evolves, so should your segmentation strategy. By continuously refining your targeting, you'll ensure your medical device reaches the facilities and providers who can benefit from it the most.

For a more comprehensive look into segmenting the market for medical devices, download our e-book. Want to put these insights into action even faster? Book a demo of our newest medtech solution Carevoyance and gain access to the intelligence you need to streamline your sales process and maximize your impact.