Healthcare is one of the most crowded markets there is, and getting in front of a buyer has only gotten harder. We brought together two marketing experts to talk through what actually works: building a brand that stands out, turning a website into a lead engine, and showing up when buyers ask AI tools for recommendations instead of searching Google.
Meet the panelists
Jenny McIntyre is Chief Revenue Officer at Blink Marketing, a woman-owned branded merchandise company in Franklin, Tennessee, and a top 100 woman-owned certified business. Founded 25 years ago by a brother-and-sister team, Blink specializes in promotional products and experiential branding. Jenny joined as the company’s first employee outside the founders and brings more than two decades of marketing experience.
Kendall Gilfillan is founder of Gillie Studios, a digital consultancy focused on website design, messaging, and strategic positioning. With over a decade in digital marketing, she also provides Google Analytics services and AI visibility audits, helping companies understand how they appear in both traditional search and AI-driven discovery.
Key takeaways for healthcare suppliers
- Fix the message before the tactics. Most branding problems are message problems, and no giveaway or redesign compensates for an unclear one.
- Find out what AI says about you. Buyers ask ChatGPT for vendor shortlists, and there is no way to buy your way into the answer.
- Cut the insider jargon. People search the way they talk, so the terms that feel precise internally can make you invisible.
- Trade real value for a lead. One useful resource and one form field will outperform a brochure page and an account wall.
- Run trade shows as a 120-day campaign. The 60 days before and the 60 days after produce more than the day on the floor.
- Work your existing network before going cold. The fastest growth available to you is usually already in your relationships.
What is the biggest branding mistake healthcare companies make?
Sounding like everyone else. Every company in the category promises innovation, quality, and compassion, so those words no longer differentiate anyone.
What separates the brands that stick is a clear promise delivered consistently at every touchpoint, from the website to how employees are treated to what you hand out at a booth. As Jenny framed it, branding is less about the physical thing you leave behind and more about how you make people feel.
Kendall added a second mistake: stopping at the logo and tagline. A brand is increasingly defined by what your audience can independently verify about you, not just what you say in the channels you control. When those two stories diverge, trust erodes.
How is AI changing the way healthcare buyers find vendors?
Buyers now ask tools like ChatGPT directly, and you don’t get to be in that conversation.
Blink shared a live example. A university outside the markets they target found them by asking ChatGPT for a promotional company with a specific specialty, got three names back, and reached out cold. No prior relationship and no ad spend.
There is currently no way to pay for placement in AI answers. What you can influence:
- Whether your site is technically crawlable by these tools
- Whether your content states plainly what you do and who you serve
- Whether authoritative sources off your site reinforce the same story
- Whether you publish the comparison and specification detail buyers ask AI to summarize
Some e-commerce companies now publish explicit product-versus-product pages for exactly this reason: if an AI is going to build a comparison table about you, better that it pulls from your data.
Why does plain language matter more than it used to?
Because buyers have shifted from typing keywords into Google to asking full questions in LLM platforms, and insider terminology breaks that match.
Words that are second nature inside your organization often mean something different to the person searching. If your audience would never use the term, it costs you visibility no matter how precise it is internally. The fix is not dumbing down your message. It is writing the way your audience actually asks.
What makes a website generate leads instead of just informing?
Give visitors something worth trading an email for, then keep the ask small.
A brochure talks at people. A lead engine gives them something that moves a purchase forward: a cost-savings or ROI calculator, a value analysis submission template, a clinical evidence summary, an implementation and onboarding checklist. The strongest gated assets map to a step your buyer already has to complete anyway, which is exactly why they are worth an email address. Keep the ask to that one field. Every field beyond email drives meaningful drop-off, and account creation walls stop most people entirely.
Two structural points came up:
- Design choices that look premium can hurt performance. Parallax scroll and heavy animation add load that works against how search engines and AI tools weigh your site. Clarity outperforms decoration, and a dated-looking site gets judged in seconds.
- Organize navigation around your audiences, not your org chart. Most sites are built to explain the company to itself. The higher-value structure gives each audience an obvious place to land and an obvious next action.
How should healthcare suppliers approach trade shows?
Treat the event as the middle of a campaign, not the whole thing.
The results come from the 60 days before, the show itself, and the 60 days after. Before: identify who you want to meet and start conversations, dinners, coffees, outreach to past attendees. During: create interactions worth remembering rather than counting scans. After: follow up with discipline, which is where most teams lose the value they paid for.
On ROI, start from the outcome. Are you trying to book meetings, drive signups, or open a specific account? Define that first, then measure against it.
The same discipline applies to lead scoring. AI-driven scoring tools work, but outreach should carry a real reason tied to the prospect’s situation, not “we noticed you visited our site.” Naming the work you’re already doing in their industry converts better than surveillance does.
Which social channels are worth the effort?
LinkedIn first, then repurpose everything you already produce.
- LinkedIn is the natural home for B2B, and your team is a built-in distribution network. Comments and reposts move the algorithm far more than likes.
- Instagram carries visual storytelling and brand personality, which translates to healthcare better than most people expect.
- Reddit is quietly rising in importance because AI systems pull heavily from it.
- Podcasts, webinars, and video do double duty. Post the recording, the transcript, and the key takeaways on your own site. That feeds AI systems, gives visitors more to engage with, and creates content you can cut up for LinkedIn.
What would you do with 90 days and a limited budget?
Jenny’s three moves: Get clear and authentic on your message, including who you serve and what makes you different. Invest in existing relationships before chasing cold leads, because the fastest growth is usually already in your network. Then audit every touchpoint for consistency, down to the font in your email signature.
Kendall’s three moves: Start with research that costs little or nothing, meaning real conversations with your target audiences about what actually drives them to buy. Run an AI visibility audit to see what the LLMs say about you and your competitors, whether you appear at all, and whether that traffic reaches your site. Then use low-cost tools to close the gap between your current messaging and where you want to be.
Let’s talk
Positioning a company in a crowded healthcare market is the kind of challenge we work through with our partners every day. Reach out to start the conversation.
