How a comprehensive inbound marketing plan delivered the difference for HC21

The Client

As one of Europe’s largest suppliers of medical devices and equipment, Healthcare 21 Group (HC21) operates in highly technical and specialised areas. Having worked with Aquilant Endoscopy for many years prior to its acquisition by HC21, we had developed an in-depth understanding of what healthcare professionals expect from their equipment and what challenges need to be met in order to carry out procedures effectively.

This knowledge was invaluable as we embarked upon a series of inbound content marketing programmes, designed to enhance engagement with new and potential partners within the orthopaedic and cardiovascular sectors.

The Challenge

HC21 needed to reach out prospective new partners and maintain relationships with existing partners. Partners in this instance were large, blue chip global medical equipment manufacturers who craved a quicker and more efficient route to market, and with it, the flexibility and expertise in operations, marketing, finance, inventory management and logistics.

In addition, HC21 wanted to demonstrate the above expertise within a a market impacted by Brexit and the Covid-19 pandemic. Messaging was crucial.

The Solution

By analysing industry forums and trade body membership lists, we soon built up a bank of more than 100 active and engaged C-suite individuals. Once these had been identified, we created an industry report detailing the obstacles the sector faced in the wake of Brexit and the Covid-19 pandemic, drawing on resources from HC21 and our own industry research and knowledge. This report acted as the ‘anchor’ for the entire campaign and was issued via email at the same time as an sector-specific PR campaign, pointing to the report, and supporting social media

The campaign did not stop there – to further engage and nurture relationships and keep a consistent conversation between HC21 and its new identified audience, we supplemented our original email push with further, shorter snippets of content which was automated dependent upon the recipients actions and journey to date.

In conjunction with the email campaigns, we set up a sponsored LinkedIn campaign, running for approximately a month, targeting senior personnel at recognised leaders within the medtech space, supplementing organic posts across HC21’s Twitter and LinkedIn pages.

The Outcomes

Emails achieved a click-to-open rate of 39%, far surpassing the average industry benchmark of 15.6%.

In addition, a click-through rate of 7% was achieved – nearly double the industry benchmark of 3.70%.​

  • Content had a direct impact on driving more visitors to HC21’s website. ​
  • The sponsored LinkedIn campaign unearthed opportunities and contacts not previously known​.
  • Campaign resulted in new followers on HC21’s LinkedIn page
  • Organic social media posts and emails both had successful click-through rates.
  • The campaign achieved global reach through emails, social media and PR.