By: John Lavey | Hammock President/COO
At Hammock, we are fortunate to be in a field at the crossroads of two technologies that impact the way we live and work:
- MedTech, or medical technology, delivers clinical insights and makes business processes more efficient. Many of our clients develop or use these technologies
- MarTech, or marketing technology, delivers content and measures the effectiveness of marketing efforts. We, along with our clients, use MarTech for patient engagement marketing or in healthcare B2B marketing.
Lately I’ve discovered that these two fields don’t necessarily move at the same speed. MedTech is building a better mousetrap, but I’m not sure that MarTech is innovating as successfully.
Though MarTech and MedTech have some similarities, several recent projects have led me to believe that MedTech is moving much faster in creating solutions. MedTech employs artificial intelligence and exception-based workflows to solve expensive or harmful problems and automate slow, clunky processes. Specifically, MedTech is getting better at cutting through data to deliver answers that help individuals save money or provide clinical insights.
MarTech, however, seems to be delivering lots of data and adding multiple steps to workflows without delivering useful insights or solutions. Marketing automation platforms are owned by many parties who don’t fully understand how to use them successfully, particularly how to measure content delivery effectiveness in support of a marketing goal.
We are awash in data in all areas of our life. It is encouraging to see how MedTech is using machine learning to help individuals solve critical healthcare problems. I wish we could say the same about MarTech.
Takeaway: MedTech is using machine learning to help individuals solve clinical and financial problems. MarTech has a long way to go in the development of tools that provide the same utility to marketers. We need better tools to assist our efforts to better engage patients and business audiences.
Photo: Getty Images
About Hammock Healthcare Idea Email | This post is part of Hammock’s award-winning Idea Email series. Idea Emails are sent every other week and share one insightful marketing idea. Idea Email comes in two flavors: Original and Healthcare. To subscribe to the original Idea Email (general marketing ideas), click here . To subscribe to the Healthcare Idea Email (healthcare marketing ideas), click here.