RELEVANT TODAY. REDUNDANT TOMORROW. EVEN INNOVATIVE HEALTH TECH BRANDS NEED A COMPELLING STORY

From artificial intelligence to virtual reality, emerging technologies are transforming the face of modern healthcare. Consumers are embracing wearable technologies to track their fitness, lifestyle and vital signs and a new model of care is being advanced in which patients, doctors and machines are working together.

With so much change, developing a compelling brand story is even more critical to stay relevant to your audience. Too often, there’s a temptation to constantly and reactively adapt your story around your competitors, but this approach risks losing sight of your real story and all that’s genuine and meaningful to your brand and your consumers.

So how should health tech marketers tell their brand story?  

Top tips to consider:

1. Stand-for something distinctive then constantly reinforce it – Developing a clear, compelling narrative of what you stand for will help your story become identifiable to your brand and differentiate you from your competition. This should be something that represents your brand ambitions and links a product USP, a specific consumer need and a cultural/societal trend.
2. Harness the enduring power of emotions – While new functional benefits will captivate attention in the short-term, what’s more enduring is the emotions that today’s health technology provokes amongst its users – the hope, the joy, the reassurance, the confidence, the pride… This is what’s most powerful and where brands need to set their north star in crafting and telling a compelling brand story, with people at its heart.
3. Have a point of view – Health tech continues to be one of the hottest trends in media so creatively consider how you can stay top of mind in the media that your audience consume. Think about how you can utilise case studies, internal data, experts, spokespeople and predictions to offer a point of view to breaking news stories or industry trends. It’s one of the most effective ways of telling your story and positioning your brand as established, credible experts.
4. Awareness doesn’t equal relevance – For many brands, “getting your name out there” is a common objective. However, unless you’re a mega brand, or have mega-budgets, this mass awareness approach rarely pays off.  A more targeted approach allows you to craft a much more relevant story and message that helps people get behind your brand, understand your product and turn them from being just another set of eyeballs into potential buyers.
5. Spotlight your back story – Behind every brand or product launched there is a catalyst moment, a reason why it came into existence; your journey to now. Whether it was to solve a problem, inspire an action or deliver a new service. Make this part of your story narrative. In an era of transparency and authenticity, it’s what differentiates you and helps make your story more relatable and interesting.
6. Prioritise building trust and credibility – The launch of any technology brings with it the challenge of how to quickly establish credibility. Partnering with trusted influencers – both organisations and individuals – can help expediate this by letting your story be told by those who have already earned the trust of their followers and members. Authority, relevance and authenticity are the currency of the day in what is fast becoming one of the most disruptive and important forms of brand communication.
7. Be where your audience are – As ever marketer knows, the media has become increasingly fragmented. Just as healthcare consumers are increasingly turning to technology to manage their health so they are also turning to multiple channels to engage with it: print media, video, social media, blogs, forums and more. So, understand where they are, which influencers they are following, what content they are consuming, in what format and what time of day. With these insights and creative, customised content you too can tell your story and be part of the conversation.
8. Avoid the hype – With new healthcare technology comes publicity and excitement about potential breakthroughs. With these advancements comes the responsibility to communicate accurately, striking the right balance between raising awareness and hope without inaccurately over-promising.

At Brands2Life we help to tell the stories of the brands that are transforming people’s health and wellbeing.  Recently nominated Tech Global Agency of the Year 2018, we incite action to make being healthy a habit through ideas that inspire, disrupt, provoke and educate, delivering content and campaigns that bring brands to life.