In 2013, Grey Matter Marketing conducted a survey of workers in either the medical device or pharmaceutical and diagnostics fields, which revealed some remarkable statistics:

• Almost 20% responded that they had made no digital marketing efforts.
• Only 2/3 of those surveyed said they would do so in the next few years.
• 50% do some digital marketing, but it’s not comprehensive.
• At least 35% found their content to be too static and unengaging.
• Only 30% have an annually updated plan.

This means that 70% of the industry has yet to take full advantage of the progressive strategies that animation and digital marketing bring to the table despite the fact that, by the time a customer reaches out to a product or service supplier, their purchase is 60% complete. The majority of the transaction occurs before that customer has even met a representative.

Just a few years ago company websites were mostly comprised of brochure-ware, but the industry is finally catching up with the times and beginning to engage its customers, whether they are selling B2B or B2C. Those companies at the forefront have learned that if a business isn’t engaging with a customer on the customer’s preferred platform, it doesn’t mean the conversation isn’t happening, it means it’s happening without them:

• 7 out of 8 Americans watched video online and almost all of them watched one every day.
• Visually-oriented social media networks such as Instagram, Vine and Snapchat have all doubled user growth in the last 5 years.
• Facebook registered over 230 billion minutes of user engagement.

3D medical animation advantageously positions companies at the front of this evolution in media technology. It can help cut marketing budgets by training sales representatives, increasing brand awareness, informing media, educating physicians and patients, enhancing a CME program and persuading investors. Moreover, stills can be extracted from the animation for broadcast, brochures, print ads and trade show displays.

Medical animations are an invaluable resource that vividly displays the new drug binding to cellular structures, a retractor smoothly making its incision into the back for spinal decompression surgery, or a screw fastening two bones together. Because the mind fundamentally strives to create a narrative out of the world, animation presents a tight script that taps into the emotional elements that drive a purchaser’s decision making and connect in a way that companies of the past decades could only dream.