From Snail Mail to AI: Confessions of a Health Tech Marketer
The Dark Ages (a.k.a. Marketing Before the Internet)
Hi, I'm Hila. I have over 20 years of experience marketing in the medical and digital health field, and no matter how you look at it, I have spent countless hours in meetings with regulatory teams over marketing materials.
I’m going to share a little secret with you: I actually started my journey in the medical field before the internet was a major player in business.
Back in the 90s, our marketing was entirely offline. We relied on conferences, working with key opinion leaders, and printing actual, physical brochures. I vividly remember the days when advertising in a medical journal meant preparing physical films. You had to create four separate color films, check them meticulously, mail them a month in advance, and then just pray they arrived safely. Today? You just shoot over a PDF the day before publishing and call it a day. It was a completely different world—formal, slow-moving, and heavily reliant on physical handshakes.
Welcome to the AI Fast Lane (But the Fundamentals Remain)
Fast forward to today, and we’re living in the era of AI-where everything moves faster. Startups are building smarter products, and AI is being used across medical technologies, from diagnostics to patient care. The types of companies being built have changed, and so has the way we communicate.
But here’s the thing: Yes, we live in a time of AI acceleration, but in health and medical tech, the core fundamentals haven’t disappeared. The regulatory process is still demanding. The sales cycles are still long. And the credibility you need to earn is still absolutely critical. So while our tools have evolved, our strategy must remain deeply grounded in the realities of the medical market.
Why Health Tech is NOT SaaS (Spoiler: FDA Approval is Just a Permission Slip) Because of these realities, I often see founders trying to copy traditional SaaS marketing tactics, and I always give them the same piece of advice: please don't. There is a monumental difference between marketing a SaaS product and a medical device.
In the SaaS world, getting to your Minimum Viable Product (MVP) usually means you can launch, start selling, and scale immediately. The buying journey is fast, and a quick software demo can lead directly to onboarding in a matter of weeks.
In health tech? Not so much. Getting FDA approval is viewed as a massive milestone, but the truth is, it’s only the beginning. It gives you legitimacy, but it’s really just permission to start knocking on doors. Once you have that clearance, you still have to convince doctors, nurses, and clinics that your new technology is actually worth the risk of changing their established routines. Even after you convince the clinicians, you still have to navigate hospital procurement and regulatory departments. By the time you get through all these decision-makers, you are looking at a sales cycle of 9 to 12 months (if you are lucky).
The Health Tech Paradox: Where Regulatory Brakes Meet the AI Accelerator
This brings us to a well-known paradox in our industry. On one hand, we have AI pushing us forward at lightning speed. On the other hand, we are bound by a strict wall of regulation. In medical marketing, every single claim—even a simple post on LinkedIn—must be fact-checked against clinical trials and approved by a regulatory department. Patient safety is everything, and that creates a completely different tone.
So, where is the place for a marketer to truly shine?
The answer is simple: Where there is a regulatory brake, Artificial Intelligence becomes our creative force multiplier.
The regulator forces us to be precise, and AI gives us the power to do it effectively. Take video, for instance. We have always relied heavily on videos for medical demos and hospital training, but what used to be a very slow production process is now much shorter. Today, we use AI tools to generate more content and rapidly optimize it for different markets, making the implementation of new technologies in busy hospitals much more efficient.
One final confession: in medical marketing, creativity alone isn't enough. You must deeply understand the science and speak the language of both medicine and business. And a quick tip: once you truly own the clinical data and terminology, negotiating wording with regulatory teams becomes so much easier.
