Leveraging Content Distribution for Med Device Initiatives

Medical device companies require a lot of content to support their sales initiatives and their customers. Training programs are used to aid salespeople, clients, and end users.

However, content of all kinds—sales literature, marketing collateral, and training content—requires frequent updates. This typically puts a strain on teams as they try to scale support.

Here are some of the most effective ways content to harness the power of a content distribution system throughout the medical device industry:

Keep Up With Regulation and Compliance

Professionals in the med device industry are no strangers to compliance and regulations, no matter their role. The Food and Drug Administration (FDA) continually updates rules and regulations while creating new ones. It’s the FDA’s role to ensure consumer safety without blocking or greatly hindering industry innovation.

A byproduct of growing research and development, medical devices and technologies are expanding in software and digital realms. Antimicrobial innovation and wearables, to name a few. Yet, as markets widen, rules and regulations narrow.

These rules eliminate products that endanger patients while gaining consumers’ trust. As a result, med device manufacturers must keep up with regulations — even those finalized in the eleventh hour.

Mimeo’s Take:  Get ahead of the ball when it comes to production. Creating documentation takes up a large amount of time. Use a solution that allows for easy and fast revision management.

Boost Sales Training Initiatives

A variety of internal teams join forces to create high-quality med device training materials. Members from sales operations and marketing departments team up with training team members and other subject matter experts. Their strategy is centered on product release details.

Together, this group creates, designs, and facilitates training content for internal (e.g. salespeople, marketers) and external (e.g. medical professionals, technologists, consumers) personnel.

In particular, sales training content is critical to a med device manufacturer’s strategy. All members of the sales process must be trained on products and technologies.

In-field sales reps sell to healthcare facilities or group purchasing organizations (GPOs, i.e. wholesalers). Like any other sales position in any other industry, reps are expected to be knowledgeable about their products and solutions. For med device reps, this means constant training on new and updated products and technologies.

Mimeo’s Take:  Despite device variations and complexities, it’s important for sales reps to be knowledgeable when speaking with healthcare personnel and GPOs. Ensure that training content is readily available for trainers and salespeople.

Improve Post-Sale Support and Training

After the sale is complete, support and training continues. Typically training teams focus on 3 areas of development in post-sale support:

1. Technical product training:  Training is delivered to technical staff located at healthcare facilities. Technical product training content educates tech managers and biomedical and clinical engineers on the operation, maintenance, and service of med devices.
2. Clinical or application product training:  This type of training equips healthcare professionals and technologists on product use. This knowledge is disseminated to end users. As a result, they’re more likely to experience optimal device performance.
3. Clinical education:  Clinical education training is provided to physicians, nurses, and technologists. Staff are required to complete clinical education course credits. Techniques and interpretations are applied to real-life med device scenarios.

Mimeo’s Take:  Training and support don’t stop after a sale is complete. Provide customers with high-quality, accurate literature through an online portal.

Offer Support Across Multiple Regions

It can quickly become burdensome to support sales representatives across multiple sales regions. For example, outside of the United States, A4 is the standard paper size. While it may seem trivial, delivering sales literature mandates reformatting the content and design — not to mention language translation.

However, that’s just the start. Sales representatives frequently ask for materials with their contact information on it. These requests take up time and resources within local teams. Likewise, training materials delivered in other regions require tailoring as well.

Mimeo’s Take:  Streamline ordering processes by permitting sales reps access to a content portal. Print documents can be set up for variable data printing for easy customization.

Customizing, Co-Branding, and Localizing

A medical device manufacturer customized, co-branded, and localized their materials with Mimeo. Find out how variable data printing helped their product team gain insight into content ROI.