Growth Hacking is a methodology that seeks, with the minimum possible cost, to achieve the greatest growth of a business. It is, in short, a practice that seeks the continuous optimization and profitability of a business model and its different parts.

How does growth hacking work? Through a practice based on continuous experimentation. After a business analysis, the Growth Hacker identifies the growth drivers; the drivers are those parts whose optimization brings the greatest benefit, taking into account the cost involved in optimizing it.

Once the drivers are identified, the Growth Hacker performs experiments that seek the activation of these drivers and carries out a trial and error record pointing out what works and what doesn´t; what makes the business grow and what doesn´t.

The Growth Hacker requires having a global vision and understanding of the business that allows you to analyze it as a whole and observe how its different parts interact and then analyze it and devise ways to act on the drivers that it identifies.

Is it possible to apply this discipline to the medical device industry? Definitely. It should be said, however, that for this, both the marketing strategy and the product or service we offer must be taken into account. Below we explain how to apply Growth Hacking to this sector.

The first step is to analyze our business and see what is the critical part of our funnel, which will correspond to the one in which we lose more potential or current customers.

• Can´t we be a benchmark brand?
• Do they know us but can´t buy us?
• Are our current customers going with the competition?

Once we identify which is the most critical part, we can set a growth goal. For this to be suitable, it must be specific, measurable, achievable, realistic and temporary.

An example could be the following: "We want to increase the number of customers who buy from us by 20% in the next 3 months and we are going to measure it through the conversion rate to sale and the cost of acquisition per customer."

We know what we want to achieve, it is a realistic goal, we have established a specific growth and timing figure and we know how we are going to measure the results.

Once the objective has been established, we must choose the growth driver that we consider most convenient. The drivers are those strategies through which we will achieve the established objective. To obtain the most optimal strategy, we must choose the one that allows us to achieve the best results at the lowest possible cost.

• How can we get more people to buy from us?
• Through a Facebook ads campaign?
• By positioning in the search engine?
• Through direct contact with the client?
• Asking for programmatic advertising?

When it comes to getting clinics and hospitals to buy medical supplies, there are two basic frictions: The first is the cost involved in investing in more modern machines and devices and the second is the radical change in which we find ourselves given the digital transformation. that for clinics and hospitals it is not only an expense in machinery but also a complete investment to transform the way of working and providing service. Could we eliminate these frictions? And, if so, how can we do it?

The tactics that we use to execute the strategy we choose are called experiments and they must be quick and agile actions to execute. As the word goes, these tactics are trial and error actions by which we aim to find out what works and what doesn´t.

• What experiments can we do to eliminate the main frictions of our customers and thus increase the possibilities of purchase?
• Can we accompany you in your decision process?
• Can we carry out a campaign where we explain the initial investment that they will have to make more of their future profit?
• Can we run a campaign where we appeal to your clients (the patients)? 
• Can we offer help to health professionals to make them get used to the new equipment more easily?
• Can we train them, offer mentoring, create webinars, attend industry events, show them how easy everything is with us, or offer them extra value such as repair services?

Finally, we come to the registration phase. Each experiment that we carry out must be recorded together with the results obtained, the data extracted and the lessons learned.

This will allow us to create a database that we can later analyze and begin to find patterns that will show us what works and what doesn´t.

For more information on the most effective drivers and experiments in the medical device industry, just sign up with Hypertry. There you can find up-to-date content and also ask for personalized consulting.