B2B Digital Health Brands

Healthcare brands can never be too sensitive, too thoughtful, or too careful. B2B digital health brands need a brand strategy that addresses the needs and challenges of real people with real health challenges. It’s important to remember that no matter what your company offers, in B2B there’s still a person at the end of the line, not a faceless entity. As consumers have more and more information about healthcare through mobile applications and online resources, the demand for people-centric health brands is becoming stronger by the minute. A B2B2C strategy will make your brand more relevant and meaningful to both the businesses you sell to and the people who ultimately benefit from your product or service.

Build a Persona Map.

Before embarking on any business or brand strategy shift, it’s important to really know who your key audiences are and to be able to prioritize them. Whether you are targeting payers, providers, employers, or consumers, building a persona map helps ensure your brand is relevant to those that are most important to your success. Identify the needs, pain points, motivations, and expectations of the people you need to reach. Although your brand may sell to businesses, there’s a Benefits Manager, a Chief Medical Officer, a VP of Population Health, or Vendor Evaluator you’ll need to create a relationship with in order to be successful. By personifying your target audiences, you might find that their needs aren’t all together that different from those of consumers. Your key audience is likely looking for an effective healthcare solution that’s affordable and easy to use, just like the rest of us. After all, we’re all just people at the end of the day.

You Can’t Be Everything to Everyone.

In digital health, your business clients need to understand both your B2C and B2B value proposition. The business messages need to include things that they care about: return on investment, data capabilities, cloud services, trends, and insights. On the other hand, consumers care more about, and are more focused on the end goal of living a healthier life. Your brand can’t be everything to everyone. A B2B2C brand strategy enables the brand to express its narrative to all audiences in the most appropriate ways.  It uses brand-level messages to speak to the big picture aspirations of people. Meanwhile, your B2B messages become more effective when focused on the product or service offering that your sales team can take to market.

Shift Your Brand Strategy Toward People.

Targeting your brand-level messages on the needs, motivations, and aspirations of people means connecting your brand narrative and visual identity to those people as well. A B2B strategy that focuses on actual people is inherently more meaningful because it empathizes with their real healthcare challenges. B2B brands with a B2B2C strategy create a strong emotional impact and, in turn, are more relevant to the people with the most influence: consumers.

And You’ll Create Value for Businesses AND Consumers.

Remember, in healthcare it’s consumers who call the shots. Whether your organization is offering a digital health software platform, a medical device, healthcare data, an app, or wearable device, it needs to connect with real people. Adapting a B2B2C brand strategy will impact your business by making emotive connections to both the businesses you sell to and the individuals who ultimately choose to use it. By shifting your B2B strategy toward people, you will create a more emotive brand that businesses will latch on to.

Emotive Brand is interested in talking with digital health brands about developing more meaningful brand strategies. If you are would like to learn more about our work and experience, contact us here.

Emotive Brand is a San Francisco brand strategy firm.