What they were facing
A pioneering medtech company developed a product enabling lasting relief of chronic sinusitis in an office-procedure without surgery. The benefits included:
- Better and longer-lasting symptom relief than medications
- Shorter recovery times and fewer complications than surgery
- Improved economics for physicians, patients and insurance companies
Despite seemingly compelling advantages, the product struggled to grab a foothold in the marketplace.
How we helped
We dove deeper to understand the underlying drivers of the market behavior. We interviewed ENT physicians and the organization’s sales team, then conducted a study of patients and an analysis of online patient behavior. We learned the following:
Key Patient Data:
- 49% of patients were not satisfied with their current medical treatment; yet
- 79% of patients wouldn’t consider surgery
- 368,000 and 135,000 monthly searches were conducted for sinus infections and sinusitis, respectively — huge numbers of patients were seeking a better solution
Key Physician Insights:
- Genuinely cared about what their patients’ think
- Mistakenly believed that most patients were satisfied with current medical treatment
- Not motivated by financial gain; but
- Motivated to better serve patients and preserve their practice
The market picture that emerged was that the company’s perceptions and messaging were not aligned with physicians’ motivations.
Next, we re-crafted the messaging and provided attention-grabbing and compelling tools to communicate the extent of patient dissatisfaction, and the potential impact on the physician’s practice and reputation.
- Initiated paid and organic online search to direct patients to the company website and build a database of patients
- Provided reps with a heat map tool to communicate the large number of patients interested in the company’s procedure in their catchment area.
- Trained reps to communicate that the company had relationships with many sinusitis patients that they could introduce to ENTs
Results
- Built a database of over 45,000 interested patients in just 6 months.
- Delivered over 2.5 times as many unique website visitors as the main multi-national competitor
- Achieved over 50% market share of patients treated in clinics