Founder & Fractional Chief Marketing Officer | The Hybrid CMO
Founder & Fractional Chief Marketing Officer
The Hybrid CMO
The health tech space has evolved dramatically over the past two decades. What once made it easy to stand out is now much more challenging with increased competition and content saturation.
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The days of “build it and they’ll come” are over. Just look at what’s happened to the health tech space:
What does this mean for you? Even with exceptional technology, you’ll struggle to get noticed without strategic messaging that speaks directly to your buyers’ needs.
We all understand product-market fit – that milestone when your solution perfectly addresses a market need. But there’s another critical achievement many health tech leaders overlook: message-market fit.
Message-market fit isn’t about your product; it’s about how appealing your messaging sounds to your ideal customer. You need to clearly communicate:
Without message-market fit, even the most advanced solutions can stall and fail to gain traction.
The first step toward effective messaging is understanding exactly who you’re speaking to. This requires clarity on two distinct but complementary frameworks:
Ideal Customer Profile (ICP): These are the organizational characteristics of companies most likely to find value in your solution – industry, revenue, location, employee count, etc.
Buyer Personas: This is where your ICP comes to life, going beyond demographics to uncover motivations, pain points, behaviors, and preferences of the actual people making decisions.
The magic happens when these two frameworks align. Your ICP guides where to direct your marketing efforts, while your personas help you connect with decision-makers on a personal level.
For example, if your ICP is “urban health systems in the Southern US,” your persona might be “Rebecca, Chief Medical Officer.” This enables you to speak not just about how your solution impacts the organization, but how it addresses Rebecca’s specific pain points, aspirations, and day-to-day challenges.
Healthcare buying decisions rarely come down to a single person. According to Gartner, complex B2B purchases typically involve buying committees of 6-10 decision-makers, with healthcare purchases sometimes including up to 11 stakeholders or more for complex B2B solutions Madison Logic.
While targeting the ultimate decision-maker (the one with budget authority) is important, don’t overlook the critical influencers within the organization:
These influencers connect your product’s value to the organization’s specific needs and communicate that internally. When the final decision is made, the C-suite relies on these trusted internal voices more than any marketing material you could produce.
Developing effective positioning doesn’t have to be complicated. Start with a “minimum viable positioning” document that includes:
Remember, positioning is internal – it guides how you think about your place in the market. Messaging is external – it’s how you communicate that position to customers.
To create your MVP document, start by interviewing customers or listening to sales discovery calls. Look for patterns in why they’re considering your solution, what problems they’re trying to solve, and what features matter most to them. Use these insights to prioritize your messaging points.
Even with the best intentions, health tech companies often stumble into these messaging traps:
1. Not niching down enough
Instead of trying to serve everyone (and ending up as one of many), focus on dominating a specific segment where you can be THE solution, not just another option.
2. Over-emphasizing features and technology
Everyone claims to be “AI-enabled” these days – it’s no longer a differentiator. What can’t be replicated are your unique stories, customer successes, and proprietary data. Focus on the human impact, not the technical specifications.
3. Lack of clarity
Your number one messaging goal should be clarity. Be crystal clear about:
If you confuse them, you lose them – they’ll simply find a competitor who makes it easier to understand their value.
Would your messaging pass the clarity test if you read it aloud to someone outside your industry? Try it – you might be surprised by what you learn.
For a real-world example of effective health tech messaging, look at Lyra Health, a digital mental health company serving major clients like Zoom and Morgan Stanley.
Their approach balances emotional appeal (“care for your employees”) with rational business benefits (“transformative value for your business”). Their framework includes:
Tagline: “Mental health care for every person, every day, and every need”
Value Props:
Proof Points:
What makes this effective is how it simultaneously addresses multiple stakeholders, focuses on outcomes rather than just services, and backs claims with concrete evidence.
Developing your messaging framework isn’t a quick fix – expect it to take 2-6 months to fully implement. While working on this longer-term strategy, continue running tactical campaigns to drive immediate results.
Remember to test different messages, measure their impact through engagement and conversion metrics, and continuously refine based on customer feedback and sales team insights.
Your technology alone won’t help you stand out in today’s health tech marketplace. But with strategic, audience-focused messaging that speaks directly to both organizational needs and personal pain points, you can transform how healthcare buyers perceive and ultimately choose your solution.
If you’re struggling to differentiate your health tech company, I can help. Through my Marketing Strategy Clinic, I’ll audit your current positioning, messaging, and marketing efforts to develop a 90-day strategy tailored to your specific challenges. Reach out to learn more.
About the Author
Heather Lodge
Fractional Chief Marketing Officer & Founder of The Hybrid CMO
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