3 Content Strategies For Femtech Brands to Build Partnerships with Healthcare Providers
Engaging more women in femtech products and services is not about making more sales.
It’s much, much bigger than that.
In a recent Gender Health Gap report, 60% of women reported they've had a health issue not taken seriously by a medical professional.
The gender health gap continues to underserve women, negatively impacting their quality of life as they navigate symptoms, conditions, and pain within a failing healthcare system.
Yet, the practitioners representing this system aren’t to blame.
Medical research is male-dominated, leaving a huge question mark around some of the most debilitating conditions in women’s health.
But, within this gap lies an opportunity for partnerships that could bridge the gender health gap and reshape the future of women’s health.
Practitioners, Meet Femtech 🤝
The landscape of women’s health feels like an uphill battle, yet even though we’re all in the same boat, most of the conversation I see is “us vs. them.”
We (women) have been let down countless times by a healthcare system that has been our only access to understanding our bodies and receiving treatment.
So, it’s no surprise that many of us are now exploring alternative ways to care for ourselves…
However, many of us still need support from a traditional healthcare system to access medical treatments and services.
Here’s where the opportunity for collaboration comes in, one which could strengthen women’s health outcomes for good.
Instead of widening the gap by dismissing our healthcare system, femtech brands can form strategic partnerships with providers to educate them on innovations in women’s health.
These tools can reduce diagnostic timelines, clarify the underlying reasons for symptoms, and help practitioners and the women they’re serving better understand their bodies.
Turning Gatekeepers into Allies 🗝️
General healthcare practitioners are the gatekeepers of healthcare. What they recommend often determines the treatments women feel comfortable pursuing.
But as we’ve discovered, many don’t receive adequate training to address women’s health issues due to the data health gap that remains.
For example, GPs often dismiss natural family planning methods as unreliable. Yet, femtech innovations such as Natural Cycles offer evidence-backed data and FDA approval, with effectiveness rates comparable to or even better than traditional methods.
This disconnect can result in outdated advice, inadvertently limiting women’s choices.
Educating practitioners and physicians isn’t about replacing or undermining their expertise but complementing it with updated technology-driven solutions.
Turning the gatekeepers of women’s health into allies starts with educating them on alternative options that can quicken diagnostic times and empower women to make more informed health choices.
Femtech can support not only women seeking answers about their health but also practitioners who face significant pressure to provide solutions with limited resources and time constraints, which are common in public and underfunded health services.
By bridging this knowledge gap, general practitioners can offer women a broader range of options to manage their health more effectively while reducing the strain on their practice.
3 Key Strategies to Build Partnerships with Healthcare Providers
Building partnerships focused on improving women’s health outcomes begins by supporting the middleman. These people have a significant influence on women’s health and direct access to those who need your solution.
#1 Distribute Brochures and Leaflets
The goal here is to empower the gatekeepers of women's health so they can better serve women, too.
One of the most effective ways to educate healthcare providers is through accessible content in clinics, such as brochures, leaflets, and infographics that present evidence-based research.
These materials should be available in waiting rooms or consultation rooms, where practitioners and patients can easily access them.
Some ideas on what to include:
✔️ Clear, Evidence-Based Research
This is your time to shine. All the hours and resources you’ve spent gathering clinical research to launch your femtech solution? Here’s where it becomes essential. If your solution is a fertility testing kit, share data showing how hormone tracking has been proven to increase conception rates.
✔️ Practical Application of Your Solution
Provide a detailed explanation of how providers can integrate your solution into their practice. For example, demonstrate how patients use a cycle-tracking app to monitor symptoms, track basal body temperature, and log other essential health data, which can then provide valuable insights for practitioners to review during consultations.
These insights can then assist healthcare providers in offering more tailored and suitable treatment options or making informed referrals to specialists when necessary.
✔️ Patient Benefits
Highlight the benefits for patients—better health outcomes, convenience, and the chance to take control of their health. Share testimonials or real stories from women who've used your solution to show how it's reshaping the narrative.
It's not just up to GPs to improve health outcomes; these tools give women the power to be part of the decision-making process, making healthcare more collaborative and empowering.
#2 Send a Quarterly Newsletter to Practitioners
At the core of the problem is the lack of resources and time that general practitioners have to keep up with innovations - especially those that fall outside the traditional healthcare framework.
By creating quarterly newsletters that position your brand as a leading authority in women’s health, you can directly address the education gap healthcare practitioners face and build credibility and trust through expertly written pieces.
If possible, have a representative of your brand physically distribute these newsletters to practitioners. This way, you will build rapport through thought-leadership content and establish real-life relationships with providers.
What should you include in a quarterly newsletter?
✔️ Latest Research, Insights, and Innovations
The ultimate purpose of the quarterly updates is to provide providers with as much value and information as possible to support them in their roles.
Highlighting recent studies that amplify the need for your solutions with your expert opinion to guide them through what this means should be a central piece of content in your newsletter.
Once they understand how these innovations can benefit their patients, they can begin to implement a more holistic approach to care for problems in women’s health, with your solution as their go-to tool.
✔️ Reference Guides
Provide step-by-step guides on how to use your product or platform. This could be a quick troubleshooting checklist or a simplified flowchart that practitioners can reference during consultations.
When practitioners feel educated on using these innovations, they no longer feel intimidated by them and can better support women with questions and the next steps in their journey to improved health.
✔️ Case Studies
Understandably, successful healthcare solutions are rooted in credibility and effectiveness. As a part of your digital marketing strategy, you should implement a process where success stories are a core piece of content.
Nothing helps people adopt products or services more than showing real people experiencing life-changing results. These stories will hugely reflect the narrative that patients repeatedly tell.
When you demonstrate a success story, practitioners can understand how innovations can help solve the problems they hear daily in their clinic.
#3 Host Educational Webinars or Training Sessions
This is your chance to build relationships further and bridge the gap between traditional healthcare and femtech innovations.
Offer healthcare providers the chance to engage directly with your brand through educational webinars or live training sessions. These can be hosted online, making them accessible to practitioners with busy schedules.
If you’re wondering how to add credibility to your webinar to attract practitioners, consider co-hosting these sessions with a respected women’s health professional who can dive deeper into the clinical research behind your product, explain how it benefits your patients, and answer any questions in real time.
This also opens the door to ongoing communication and collaboration with providers who want to stay at the forefront of healthcare innovations. If you’re already sending a quarterly newsletter, use one of the sections to invite practitioners to join any upcoming trainings or events.
Reaching more women with your solution requires a multifaceted approach.
It requires change from the inside out, and the more you can use your resources to network and establish credibility with healthcare professionals, the more you can help close the gender health gap.
Femtech Can Reduce Strain on Healthcare Resources
One of the greatest benefits of femtech is not just the impact it has on women’s health, but the potential to transform the landscape of an overwhelmed healthcare system.
Whether reducing appointment wait times or enabling better patient self-management, femtech can directly contribute to more efficient care by:
Helping patients manage their health at home, reducing the need for follow-up appointments.
Improving patient satisfaction by offering real-time data and maximizing complimentary support.
Supporting GPs in providing a more personalised approach to patient care.
Educating and informing women so they can feel less reliant on practitioners and more empowered with their health.
Work Smarter, Not Harder
If this feels like extra work and you’d rather focus your resources on reaching women who are eager for your solution, here’s how to streamline your strategy by working smarter, not harder:
#1 Start by reviewing the content you already have
Blogs, case studies, educational videos, testimonials, etc. Highlight pieces that already explain the value of your solution or provide insights that can be useful for practitioners.
#2 Look for overlap in messaging where you can adapt your language
For example, a blog post on women’s health benefits can be easily repositioned to highlight how practitioners can help improve patient outcomes by recommending your solution.
#3 Use your core content as a foundation
If you have a guide for women on how your product solves a specific issue, create a complementary version for practitioners.
Developing a watertight strategy is critical to reaching more women with your solution and helping bridge the gap by leveraging the middleman.
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My passion is guiding women to discover resources that help them take charge of their health. That's why I'm eager to connect them with you.
