The Future of Medical Sales: 3 Trends to Know

The medical sales industry has experienced widespread changes in the last few years, which has impacted how medical sales teams introduce new products and services to the market. For many teams, it has been challenging to navigate the constantly changing industry and compete with larger organizations that are more creative in how they approach the market.

We recently read that 70% of physicians are employed by either a hospital or PE (private equity) firm. That means that decision-making has shifted away from doctors, who are no longer making the final decision on what products they’re using. As a result, it’s now up to manufacturers to adapt to the needs of their now-shifted customers. To help you navigate this change, we’ve prepared a list of three trends and opportunities to improve your sales strategy.

Market Conditions Affecting Medical Sales Today

1. Access to physicians is tightening. As a result of fewer doctors owning private practices, it has become more difficult to interact directly with doctors. When selling, reps are instead facing corporate panels and committees, which has presented a challenge for sales reps who haven’t adjusted their selling strategies.
2. The spending decisions for medical products have shifted to different stakeholders like administrators, purchasing managers, and other non-clinical influencers. This means that the sales audience is changing, and your audience’s motivations may vary. For them, pricing could be the deciding factor, not clinical efficacy or support.
3. Sole or dual-source contracts between hospitals and vendors are becoming more common. This limits access to new technology and creates constant downward pricing pressure.

These conditions in the market may seem daunting, but by adopting some revolutionary go-to-market strategies, we are confident you can help your sales team take these challenges in stride.

The Opportunity

We see two unique opportunities to help your medical sales team come out on top.

1. Leveraging remote sales-enablement tools built specifically for medical sales teams can make a huge impact by boosting access to hard-to-reach customer accounts, automating follow-up tasks, and bridging the gap between sales and marketing. To be successful, medical sales reps need to be open to adopting technology to create a more efficient and effective sales process.

With the verbTEAMS platform, sales reps can showcase products with recorded or live interactive video with interactive, clickable content that can link to digital brochures, surgical technique guides, live and virtual event pages, product animations, and more! This way, sales reps can show off their products or services in an engaging way that delivers the right message at the right time. Even better, instant content engagement analytics encourages sales reps via notifications to follow up after the customer has viewed or clicked any of the shared materials. Gone are the days of dropping off a brochure and wondering if it was viewed; here are the days of well-timed follow-ups thanks to instant analytics that help drive sales.

Place action links on screen for live, or recorded video.

Analytics that show you when to make informed follow-ups.

2. Understanding the big-picture needs of the various stakeholders during the buying process is vital. Because of the shift in customer audience, it’s essential to speak the language of all decision-makers within the medical sales process, whether clinical or financial.

verbTEAMS enables you to share curated content for each recipient to sell your products effectively. You can connect with stakeholders and deliver the right message at the right time with clickable interactions (as mentioned above). Now that’s how you make a good impression!

Create customized microsites for each of your medical sales clients

There’s so much at your fingertips that will enable sales reps to improve how they bring new products and services to the market. Few fields are as innovative or impactful as technology and healthcare, where new discoveries are made daily, and the opportunities for innovation are seemingly endless. The future of medical device sales is here, and it’s powered by technology.

To learn more about verbTEAMS and see how it can power your sales team, click here.