Campaigns vs Always-On Marketing: Which One is Best for Growth?
Many med device marketers approach their strategy like a sprint: massive all-out effort for a single product launch, and then nothing for the rest of the year. Marketing is not a sprint, it’s a complex process balancing high-impact campaigns and the 'always-on' marketing. The question is: which one is best for growth? Let’s review.
What is a marketing campaign?
A marketing campaign is a set of marketing activities designed to achieve a business objective over a specified time frame. The most common type of campaign in medical device is an awareness campaign for a product launch which has a clear start (typically, FDA-approval marks the start of promotion) and an end (i.e., when paid media coverage stops).
Types of marketing campaigns
Awareness Campaign: Designed to inform (=raise awareness) your target audience about new product/therapy or clinical data
Primary Goal: To reach the maximum number of relevant target audience (relevant = quality)
Channels: Typically a multi-channel mix that includes channels that your TA consumes info on, i.e. relevant display, print, social media, etc.
Targeting: broad
Engagement Campaign: Designed to actively nurture (engage) users who are aware of your product to deepen interest and consideration
Primary Goal: To move engaged users towards conversion in the marketing funnel, i.e. towards the purchase of your product
Channels: Best for Email Nurture Campaign
Targeting: narrow (highly targeted to specific users)
Lead Generation: Designed to obtain a user’s contact info (prospects, or prospective customers) through a filled form for a specific product or portfolio
Primary Objective: To build internal database of prospects for future marketing, i.e. email nurturing
Channels: relevant organic and paid social, webinars or virtual events, medical congresses, etc.
Targeting: narrow
Image: Types of Most Common MedTech Marketing Campaigns
What are the key parameters for a campaign?
Supports a clear business goal
For example, if your business goal is to drive product adoption, you will run a variety of campaign aimed at achieving this goal (can be a combination of awareness + engagement campaign)
Has clear start and end dates [time bound]
To achieve your business objective, your campaign needs to run for a specified timeframe. Duration varies from weeks to months. Not every campaign will run the same length.
Has a key (central) message or a theme
The key message is communicated via every channel used in the campaign. For example, Product X is now FDA approved. This message will be shared on social, display, print, etc. but adapted to each channels parameters. For social media posts, you may have multiple creatives.
Targeting:
You are targeting specific audience or audience segment with your message
Performance is measured (KPIs)
Performance is measured against metrics, Key Performance Indicators, that help to evaluate campaign performance.
Image: What is a marketing campaign
What are the benefits of marketing campaign?
Because campaigns are strategically designed to drive a specific outcome and are measured, they offer insight into customer engagement and behavior—what resonates, where engagement is strongest, and what drives users from interest to conversion (and ideally to sales follow-up). This enables smarter channel selection, more efficient budget allocation, and better use of resources to achieve business goals.
Key Takeaway: You run a marketing campaign to drive a specific outcome.
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What is Always-On Marketing?
Always-on marketing, also known as “ongoing marketing” or “evergreen marketing,” includes all other marketing promotion that doesn’t meet parameters of a campaign. For example:
Social media posts that share different types of information about your product, but are not necessarily connected by a key message (webinar promo, specific event promo, case report, new product video from a symposium, etc.)
A print ad that runs for a few issues
Occasional eblast to communicate any product-related info
What are the goals of Always-on Marketing?
The main objective with Always-on marketing activity is to maintain your brand (product) presence and continuity. It helps to keep your product top-of-mind for your target audience in a highly competitive environment. Continuous engagement is especially important on social media platforms as algorithms favor consistent posting.
There’s an incremental value but not always easily quantifiable as a campaign. It plays a “an invisible role,” like display ads – they are there, but because you aren’t getting quantifiable analytics, you can’t fully determined their impact.
Key takeaway: With always-on marketing, you aren’t driving a specific outcome, you are maintaining your position [in the market] and that alone is not enough to drive product adoption or any desired outcome.
Final takeaway?
Both are important, and because they serve different purposes, they best work together to support a comprehensive marketing strategy.
Campaigns drive outcomes and growth, always-on marketing maintains your position.
Image: What is the Value of Marketing Campaign