The most powerful healthcare B2B marketing tool? A spreadsheet.

Many (most) B2B marketing strategies are not far removed from throwing spaghetti at the wall and praying something sticks. While there should be parts of your plan where you’re creatively “throwing spaghetti,” the bulk of it should be well-informed, especially in the complex healthcare landscape. Before you craft that campaign put down the creative brief and open a spreadsheet. Time to do some research.

The 3 critical inputs to every healthcare B2B marketing plan

Here are the three crucial inputs you can’t skip if you want your marketing efforts to have a fighting chance.

1. Know Thy Enemy (and Your Target): Understanding the Market Landscape

The healthcare market is a tangled web of stakeholders, regulations, and trends. 

• Target Audiences: Start with a target audience spreadsheet. List out each segment, their key characteristics, pain points, online behavior, and preferred content channels. Are they reading JAMA or doomscrolling like the rest of us? This intel is pure gold.
• Competitors: Create a competitor analysis spreadsheet. (Ethically, of course.) Document their strengths, weaknesses, marketing tactics, and target audiences. What are they doing? What are they not doing? Find your opening and exploit it.
• Industry Trends: The healthcare world is constantly evolving. Use a spreadsheet to track emerging trends, key influencers, relevant publications, and upcoming events. Stay ahead of the curve, or get left behind.
• Regulations: Don’t forget the regulatory landscape! Healthcare is heavily regulated, and these regulations can significantly impact your marketing efforts. Track the key regulations and compliance requirements that impact your target audiences. How are those regulations/requirements evolving and how are they enforced?
• Ecosystem: Healthcare is interconnected. Map out the key players and their relationships in a spreadsheet. Understand the connections between physicians, hospitals, payers, and patients. Understanding the value of your product requires understanding how it fits into the ecosystem.

2. Align with the Mothership: Understanding Your Organization’s Goals

Your marketing strategy shouldn’t be a rogue agent. It needs to be a loyal soldier, marching in lockstep with your organization’s overall goals.

• Big Strategic Vision: What’s the overarching goal? Document it in your spreadsheet. Are we going after new audience/segments, or doubling down on existing ones? Trying to grow our current accounts? Knowing the ultimate destination helps chart the right course. A marketing strategy focused on entering a new market looks a whole lot different than one trying to deepen existing relationships.
• Product Roadmap Insights: What’s coming down the pipeline? Track new features, release dates, and potential marketing angles in your spreadsheet. Understanding the product roadmap allows you to prepare your marketing efforts and capitalize on upcoming launches. You can start building anticipation before the product hits the market.
• Challenges & Opportunities: Use your spreadsheet to list the roadblocks and opportunities facing your organization. Are there regulatory hurdles? Technological limitations? Conversely, what opportunities are on the horizon? New partnerships? Emerging technologies? Knowing this helps you position your organization to seize those opportunities.

3. Face the Music: Understanding Current Performance

Before you can fix what’s broken, you need to know what’s actually broken.

• Data Analysis: Dive deep into your existing marketing and sales data. Use spreadsheets to track website traffic, lead generation, conversion rates, and other key metrics. What’s working? What’s a dumpster fire? Be honest with yourself. (More on this in another post.)
• Team Feedback: Create a system for gathering feedback from your sales reps and CS managers. Use a simple spreadsheet to document their insights, common customer objections, and competitive intelligence. They’re the ones on the front lines. They know what customers are saying. Listen to them.
• Customer Research: Document customer feedback in a spreadsheet. Track their pain points, motivations, and suggestions for improvement. What do they love? What do they hate? Their feedback is invaluable.

Ain’t nobody got time for that.

I know what you are thinking… “This sounds like a lot of work! I’m a fast-moving startup, I don’t have time for all this!” Fair point. But here’s the thing: research doesn’t have to be a monumental undertaking. It’s about right-sizing the effort to your specific needs and resources.Prioritize the most critical elements. Start with a quick-and-dirty analysis, and then progressively deepen your research as you have the time and bandwidth. Avoid “analysis paralysis” — don’t let the pursuit of perfect data prevent you from taking action. Gather the essential information, make informed decisions, and then get to work. Creating a basic spreadsheet is better than none.

Sling a spreadsheet, not spaghetti.

Do the research and you will ditch the guesswork (and wasted budget), and be well on your way to a calculated marketing strategy. You’ll move from haphazardly slinging spaghetti at the wall to crafting a data-driven plan. A marketing strategy that’s not only effective but also precisely targeted. This isn’t about luck; it’s about strategy, insight, and a commitment to understanding your market, your organization, and your performance.

Still feeling overwhelmed? I’ve built a spreadsheet or 2,000. Drop me a line.