Frustrated by Floundering Health Tech Sales? You May Be Doing This Wrong.

There’s nothing more frustrating than bringing your biggest dreams into the world only to find out that no one is buying your stuff. You believed you were going to build a game changing business only to find your sales are floundering.

You just can’t gain traction or grow past the glass ceiling. If you can relate, there may be a crack in the foundation of your GTM strategy.

Here’s what you need to know and what you can do about it.

How Ideas Spread: The Diffusion of Innovation Model

When I was in grad school getting my doctorate in business administration (DBA), I came across this alarming statistic: 95% of innovations fail to reach any level of financial ROI or customer adoption. 

I wondered how in the world are we going to truly transform healthcare if the majority of the innovations brought to market don’t get into the hands of the people who need them most?! 

I became obsessed with figuring out why some innovations succeed and why some fail. I am determined to guide health innovators to market success so we can change this statistic.

There are many variables that affect success. But, one fundamental factor to driving your health tech sales is designing your GTM strategy through the lens of the Diffusion of Innovation (DOI) model, developed by sociologist Everett Rogers. 

Created in 1962, Rogers uses the DOI to explain how “an idea or product gains momentum and diffuses (or spreads) through a specific population or social system.” Basically, the technology adoption lifecycle. The DOI model is a bell curve divided up into five segments of market. 

It’s been shown to be 90% effective in driving adoption and growth. So why aren’t people using it?

I’ve interviewed hundreds of people on my Health Innovators video podcast where guests share their commercialization journey. 

Surprisingly, DOI has only come up once.

This is a major pitfall.

Innovators often spend A LOT of time and money pitching the wrong people. And there is often misalignment between the target market, the message, and positioning. 

Let’s use the DOI model to explain what’s happening and what you can do about it.

Market to the Right People and Get More $ales

From the graphic above, you can see the five different types of potential customers within any given market.

Let’s dive into the details so you can see how to align your GTM strategy with the right customer type to get that big money, baby! The following is adapted from Ace Karim’s work.

First we have the innovators, who make up the first 2.5% of the market. As technologists, they want to be the first people to try an innovation. 

Often seen as outsiders, they embrace risk and love trying out and creating new ideas. They’re OK with handling bugs in the tech and understand the tech details of the innovation. 

So how do you pitch innovators? You message the newness and the novelty — why this tech solution is unlike anything they’ve seen before. You can get techie with these folks and nerd out on the specs. They will eat it up!

And because they’re willing to deal with the bugs, you can price your product accordingly (read: low). You can think of this group as your passionate beta testers because they’ll help you improve your product with their feedback.

Next we have our early adopters. These visionaries make up 13.5% of the market. And, they appreciate doing things differently. 

As opinion leaders, they’re well connected with a large network. They’ll put up with some bugs and will be excited about new tech, but not necessarily because of the tech itself. It’s more because of what the innovation does for them.

Early adopters want to gain a competitive edge with your solution and leapfrog the competition. They’re more interested in why your solution is better than other products out there.

They want exclusivity. And pricing wise — they should pay for it.

These first two groups are a part of the early market. The last three groups are a part of the mainstream market.

The third slice of this curve is the early majority. This 34% of the curve wants to keep up with the Joneses. As pragmatists, they’re more comfortable with incremental change.

They want solutions that are proven or the industry standard. They are more influenced to buy by what their peers say about your solution vs what your company has to say.

I find one of the biggest challenges with landing your first paying customers is marketing and sales that aren’t about the DOI model and they end up wasting a lot of money, time, and energy trying to pitch their revolutionary new solution to the early majority segment. These folks will never buy your solution first.

When it comes to marketing to them, they’re looking for the biggest bang for their buck. They want their problems solved. So show them that high ROI and that they’d be fools to miss out on your solution. Pricing is geared more toward mid-market, i.e., the average market price.

Also representing 34% of the curve is the late majority, the conservatives. They realize that something new is out there. They don’t want to fall behind because 50% of the curve has already adopted it. 

They follow the opinion of their peers. And, they don’t want to deal with any bugs with the technology.

When marketing to them, it’s a bit similar to the early majority — “don’t miss out or get left behind!” “Get this problem solved now!” Keep the message simple. 

Also, they want to see some longevity from your company. They want to know that you’re not a flash in the pan. That requires some market penetration and demonstrated success. For this group, pricing should be low market, i.e., below the current market price.

The last segment of the curve are the laggards. Highly skeptical, they don’t want anything new. “If it ain’t broke, why fix it?” is their mantra. 

They can’t see what’s broken or what can be improved. They’re sticks in the mud and can trip up adoption. They are the people that would still own flip phones if they could.

Marketing to them is very simple: this is it. “We’re the only choice.” Product pricing for this group is also below current market prices.

How to Leverage the Risk Takers to Drive Adoption Among the Risk Adverse

What you don’t see on the curve is The Chasm, which exists in between the Early Adopters and the Early Majority. And although there are chasms between each section, this one is the largest and most difficult to navigate.

You see, on the left side, you have the risk takers who understand the technology or they understand that the solution you're offering works. On the right side, you have people who are more risk averse. Maybe they want or need change, but it’s much harder to convince them.

You want the technologists and visionaries as your first customers. They’ll tell their friends and colleagues about your solution through word of mouth. Your job is to make sure those innovators and early adopters are raving fans. You want to help facilitate word of mouth so you can leverage this strategy to cross the chasm and drive adoption among the Early Majority and beyond. 

How to Revamp Your GTM Strategy with the DOI Lens

Most people overlook the DOI model and view their target market as a homogenous group. They try to pitch the whole market at once. 

It’s time to make a change.

It’s time to move from being a laggard to an early adopter when it comes to adopting the DOI model.

First, looking through the DOI lens, assess where the market is when it comes to the adoption of health tech like yours. Then, align your positioning, product configuration, messaging, marketing, and sales with the customer type you’re targeting.

Make the changes to your strategy and then test it.