By Melissa Wildstein | President & Founder, The Matchstick Group | 15+ years in medical device marketing
Last Updated: February 2026
A pre-launch marketing checklist for medical devices should cover seven critical areas: customer research and insight, competitive and market analysis, brand and identity development, messaging and positioning, sales enablement preparation, digital infrastructure, and regulatory-aligned content planning. Companies that complete these elements before commercial availability consistently reach revenue targets faster than those that scramble to build marketing materials after clearance.
This is the part of the launch process where the most consequential decisions get made—and where the most common mistakes happen. In our work across more than 50 medical device launches since 2011, the pattern is clear: the companies that invest in pre-launch marketing preparation don’t just launch smoother, they build stronger market positions that compound over time. (For the full launch framework, see our Complete Guide to Medical Device Product Launch Marketing.)
Below is the checklist we use with our clients, organized by the sequence in which each element should be addressed. It’s designed for a VP of Marketing or CMO who needs to validate that nothing has been missed—or for the leader who’s building a launch marketing program from scratch.
1. Have You Done the Customer Research That Actually Matters?
This is the foundation of everything. Before brand development, before messaging, before any creative work begins, you need genuine insight into your customer—not assumptions confirmed in an echo chamber.
Most medtech companies have some level of voice-of-customer (VOC) data, often gathered during the product development process. But product development VOC and marketing VOC are looking for different things. Engineering teams ask whether the device works. Marketing teams need to understand why someone would choose it, who influences that decision, and what barriers stand between clinical interest and a purchase order.
- Identify the full decision-making unit (DMU). In medical device purchasing, the person who uses the device is rarely the only person who decides to buy it. Map every stakeholder: the clinician champion, the department head, the value analysis committee (VAC), the materials manager, the procurement team, the C-suite budget holder. If any of these roles are unfamiliar to your team, that’s a signal you need deeper research.
- Conduct qualitative interviews with target customers. Talk to 15–20 people across the DMU—not to validate your product features, but to understand their world. What frustrates them about current solutions? What would make their workflow easier? What criteria does their institution use to evaluate new devices? Pay attention to what they don’t say. The unspoken frustrations and invisible gatekeepers are where the most valuable insights live.
- Validate your assumptions about the buyer journey. How do HCPs in your target specialty discover new devices? Where do they go for clinical evidence? Who do they consult? How long does their institution’s evaluation process typically take? Your marketing strategy should be built around the actual buyer journey, not a hypothetical one.
- Uncover the hidden audience. When we partnered with Avery Dennison on their corporate rebrand, customer insight research revealed that procurement was an entirely overlooked audience. Engineering, R&D, and product marketing teams valued Avery Dennison’s CDMO capabilities, but none of those relationships mattered if the company wasn’t on procurement’s approved vendor list. That single finding reshaped the entire positioning and go-to-market approach. Every company has a version of this blind spot. Customer research is how you find it.
🔥 TMG Approach: The 3V Workshop
At The Matchstick Group, we kick off pre-launch engagements with our 3V Workshop—a structured process that examines Vision, Vector, and Velocity. It assesses the overall market landscape, internal and external factors, and competitive dynamics to position the product (or portfolio) for success over a 2–3 year horizon. The output feeds directly into positioning development, ensuring the brand strategy is built on insight rather than instinct.
2. Do You Understand the Competitive Landscape Deeply Enough?
Competitive analysis in medtech goes beyond knowing who else makes a similar device. You need to understand how competitors position themselves, what claims they make, where they’re strong, and where the gaps are that your product can credibly fill.
- Map the competitive landscape. Identify direct competitors (same device category), indirect competitors (alternative treatment approaches), and the status quo (doing nothing, which is always a competitor). Document each player’s positioning, key claims, clinical evidence base, market share, and known strengths and weaknesses.
- Analyze competitor marketing and sales materials. What messaging are they using? What claims are they leading with? What does their website emphasize? What do their trade show booths look like? What are their sales reps saying in the field? This isn’t about copying—it’s about understanding where the white space is for your positioning.
- Understand the reimbursement landscape. For many devices, reimbursement is the single biggest factor in commercial success. Do existing CPT/HCPCS codes cover your device? Is there a pathway to a new code? What does the payment level look like relative to competing approaches? Marketing cannot be disconnected from market access strategy.
- Assess the clinical evidence gap. How does your clinical data compare to what competitors have published? Where do you have an evidence advantage? Where are you vulnerable? This analysis directly informs your messaging priorities and identifies where you may need to invest in post-market studies to strengthen your position.
3. Is Your Brand Ready to Compete?
Your brand is the first impression you make with every stakeholder who encounters your device—from the surgeon evaluating it in a journal ad to the procurement manager reviewing your submission to the sales rep presenting it at a VAC meeting. In medtech, brand credibility is a prerequisite for clinical consideration.
- Finalize your product name. The name should be distinctive, trademarkable, easy to pronounce in clinical settings, and aligned with the brand personality you’re building. Begin trademark clearance searches early—naming conflicts discovered late in the process are costly and demoralizing.
- Develop the visual identity system. Logo, color palette, typography, imagery guidelines, and design templates. This system should work across every touchpoint—from a surgeon’s mobile screen to a 20-foot trade show backdrop to a printed IFU. When we developed the brand identity for Empyrean Medical Systems, the visual language had to convey technical sophistication in radiation oncology while remaining approachable for the clinical audience evaluating the platform.
- Create comprehensive brand guidelines. Document every element: logo usage, color specifications, typography hierarchy, photography style, tone of voice, boilerplate language. These guidelines become the single source of truth that keeps your brand consistent as you scale across channels, geographies, and team members.
- Determine brand architecture. How does the product brand relate to the corporate brand? Is the product a sub-brand (Company X’s ProductName), a standalone brand, or an endorsed brand? The answer has implications for everything from logo placement to domain strategy to how you introduce the product in sales conversations.
4. Can You Articulate Your Positioning in 30 Seconds?
If your leadership team can’t align on a clear, concise positioning statement, your sales reps won’t be able to either. And if your reps can’t articulate it, your customers certainly won’t understand it.
- Develop a positioning statement. A single sentence that defines: who the product is for, what category it competes in, what unique benefit it provides, and why the audience should believe that claim. This statement will not appear in any marketing material verbatim—it’s the strategic North Star that guides everything that does.
- Create audience-specific messaging. The surgeon cares about clinical performance and ease of use. The VAC committee cares about safety data and cost-effectiveness. The procurement manager cares about pricing, contract terms, and vendor compliance. The CFO cares about ROI and budget impact. One message does not fit all—build messaging tracks for each audience in the decision-making unit.
- Define your proof points. Every claim needs evidence. Map your clinical data, economic data, customer testimonials, and third-party validations to each messaging pillar. Where evidence is thin, acknowledge it internally and plan how to close the gap (post-market study, case series, health economic analysis).
- Test your messaging. Before locking in your campaign creative, test your core messages with a small sample of your target audience. Even 8–10 concept-testing interviews with HCPs and administrators will reveal whether your messaging resonates, confuses, or falls flat. Adjusting messaging before launch is fast and cheap. Adjusting it after is neither.
5. Will Your Sales Team Be Ready on Day One?
A launch is only as strong as the sales team’s ability to execute. Marketing’s job is to arm them with the strategy, materials, and training that make every customer interaction count.
- Build the core sales toolkit. This includes: product sell sheets (tailored to each audience in the DMU), a clinical evidence summary, a competitive comparison matrix, an ROI/value calculator, a product demo script or video, and an objection handling guide. Prioritize the materials your reps will use in the first 30 days—you can expand the toolkit as you learn from field feedback.
- Develop sales training. Product knowledge is necessary but insufficient. Reps need to understand the positioning, the messaging, the competitive landscape, and the buyer journey. They need to practice handling objections and know exactly when to deploy which piece of collateral. If your sales team can’t articulate the value proposition as clearly as your marketing team, the handoff is broken.
- Align on lead qualification and handoff. How will marketing-generated leads flow to sales? What qualifies a lead as “sales-ready”? What CRM workflows are in place? What’s the expected follow-up cadence? These operational details may seem tactical, but misalignment here is one of the most common sources of friction between marketing and sales in medtech organizations.
- Prepare for the first conference. If your launch coincides with a major medical conference, your sales team needs to be fully briefed: who they’re targeting at the show, what meetings are pre-scheduled, what the booth experience is designed to accomplish, and how to follow up after the event. A conference launch is a high-stakes moment—rehearse it.
6. Is Your Digital Presence Ready to Capture Demand?
In 2026, the first interaction most HCPs have with a new medical device is digital. Before they talk to a rep, they search online. If your digital presence isn’t ready to capture that intent, you’re invisible during the most critical phase of the buyer journey.
- Build (or update) the product website. Dedicated product pages with clinical evidence, mechanism of action, indications, and clear conversion pathways (schedule a demo, request information, download a white paper). The site should be optimized for both traditional SEO (so clinicians searching for solutions find you) and AI search visibility (structured content that AI answer engines can extract and cite).
- Implement tracking and analytics. Google Analytics 4, Google Search Console, and your marketing automation platform should be configured before launch. You need to measure traffic sources, keyword performance, conversion rates, and lead flow from day one. Without this baseline data, you can’t optimize post-launch.
- Set up marketing automation. Email nurture sequences, lead scoring rules, and CRM integration should be in place before you start generating leads. Nothing kills launch momentum faster than a flood of inbound interest and no system to capture, qualify, and route it.
- Prepare your SEO and content foundation. Publish pre-launch content focused on the clinical problem your device addresses (disease-state awareness, standard-of-care limitations, unmet needs). This builds organic search authority in your category before the product is even available, so you’re already ranking when HCPs start searching for your solution.
- Plan your paid media strategy. Which channels will you use (LinkedIn, Google Search, programmatic display)? What’s your budget allocation by channel? What audiences are you targeting? What landing pages will ads point to? Have the campaigns built and ready to activate on launch day—not built during launch week.
7. Is Your Content Pipeline Built and Compliance-Ready?
Medtech marketing operates within regulatory constraints that don’t apply to most industries. Every piece of promotional content needs to be accurate, substantiated, and reviewed through your medical/legal/regulatory (MLR) process. Building this into your pre-launch timeline—rather than treating it as a last-minute bottleneck—is essential.
- Develop content in parallel with regulatory review. You can build creative concepts, website wireframes, and campaign structures while your device is in regulatory review. Use “pending clearance” designations where needed. The goal is to be 80% ready when clearance arrives, so you can finalize and launch within weeks rather than months.
- Build your MLR review workflow early. Identify your reviewers, establish turnaround expectations (we recommend 2 weeks per review cycle), and create a submission schedule that gives them adequate time without delaying the launch. Regulatory review is a process, not an afterthought—treat it accordingly.
- Create a claims matrix. Document every clinical and commercial claim you plan to make, the supporting evidence for each, and the regulatory basis for the claim (cleared indication, published study, on-label use). This becomes the reference document that your MLR reviewers, copywriters, and sales team all work from.
- Plan your PR and thought leadership calendar. Draft your clearance announcement press release, identify target publications for contributed articles, and prepare executive quotes and talking points. Having these ready in advance means you can deploy them within days of clearance rather than scrambling.
But Wait—What If I Only Have 3 Months Before Launch?
If you’ve read this far and felt your stomach drop because you’re nowhere near 18 months out—you’re not alone. This is one of the most common scenarios we see.
Maybe clearance came faster than expected. Maybe marketing was brought in late. Maybe the previous agency didn’t deliver. Maybe the company was so focused on the regulatory path that commercial planning kept getting pushed to “next quarter.” Whatever the reason, you’re now staring at a launch window that’s weeks away, not months—and the checklist above feels impossible.
Here’s the truth: you cannot do everything on this list in 90 days. But you can do the things that matter most, in the right order, if you’re ruthless about prioritization.
The 90-Day Launch Triage
When time is compressed, the priority sequence shifts. Here’s what to focus on:
- Weeks 1–2: Rapid customer insight and positioning. You may not have time for a full research program, but you can conduct 8–10 targeted interviews with key opinion leaders and high-value prospects. Combine that with a competitive audit and your internal clinical knowledge to develop a positioning statement that’s grounded in reality. This compressed discovery process won’t be as deep as an 18-month program, but it will prevent you from launching with messaging that misses the mark entirely.
- Weeks 2–4: Brand identity and core messaging. Move fast on visual identity and key messaging. In a compressed timeline, you’re making decisions in days that would normally take weeks of iteration. That’s okay—a good-enough brand that’s ready at launch beats a perfect brand that arrives three months late. You can refine post-launch. What you can’t do is launch without a cohesive identity.
- Weeks 3–6: Sales toolkit and digital essentials. Build the minimum viable sales kit: one core sell sheet, a clinical summary, a competitive comparison, and a demo script. Simultaneously, get your product website live—even a strong landing page with clear messaging and a conversion pathway is better than no digital presence. Set up analytics and lead capture from day one.
- Weeks 6–10: Campaign activation and sales training. Get your sales team trained on the positioning, messaging, and materials. Build and launch your initial paid media campaigns. Prepare trade show materials if a conference falls within the launch window. Deploy your press release and PR outreach.
- Weeks 10–12: Launch execution and rapid iteration. Go live. Monitor everything. Gather feedback from the field immediately and use it to refine messaging, update collateral, and adjust campaign targeting. The first 30 days post-launch are your live market research—treat them accordingly.
🔥 TMG’s Accelerate Program: Built for This Scenario
Our Accelerate service tier was designed specifically for medical device companies facing a compressed launch timeline. It’s a 90-day sprint that covers rapid market assessment, brand development, core sales enablement, digital presence, and launch activation—delivered by a team that has executed this playbook dozens of times and knows exactly where to focus when time is the constraint. If you’re 90 days from launch and looking at this checklist thinking “where do I even start?”—that’s the conversation to have.
The compressed timeline is survivable. What isn’t survivable is launching with no strategy at all—no positioning, no sales materials, no digital presence—and hoping the product sells itself. It won’t. Even the most clinically differentiated device needs a commercial foundation. The question is whether you build it proactively or reactively, and how much market opportunity you lose in the gap.
When Should Each Pre-Launch Element Be Completed?
Use this timeline as a general guide. Adjust based on your specific regulatory pathway, market complexity, and team capacity.
| Pre-Launch Activity | Start By | Complete By |
|---|---|---|
| Customer research & insight | 18 months before launch | 12 months before launch |
| Competitive & market analysis | 15 months before launch | 12 months before launch |
| Brand identity & guidelines | 12 months before launch | 8 months before launch |
| Messaging & positioning | 12 months before launch | 8 months before launch |
| Sales enablement toolkit | 8 months before launch | 1 month before launch |
| Digital infrastructure & website | 8 months before launch | 1 month before launch |
| Content pipeline & MLR review | 6 months before launch | At clearance |
| PR materials & press release | 4 months before launch | At clearance |
| Sales training | 3 months before launch | 2 weeks before launch |
| Paid media campaigns (built) | 2 months before launch | Ready to activate at launch |
The single most important takeaway from this checklist is timing. Every item on this list takes longer than you think, especially when regulatory review, cross-functional alignment, and MLR approval are involved. Starting 18 months before launch may feel premature; starting 3 months before launch is almost certainly too late.
Frequently Asked Questions
When should a medical device company start pre-launch marketing?
What is the most commonly skipped step in medical device launch preparation?
What should a medical device sales enablement toolkit include?
How do you market a medical device before FDA clearance?
How much of the launch marketing budget should be spent pre-launch?
Need Help Preparing for Your Medical Device Launch?
At The Matchstick Group, pre-launch preparation is where every engagement starts. Our Accelerate and Launch service tiers are designed specifically for medical device companies that need to move from regulatory milestone to market presence quickly and strategically. Whether you’re 18 months out and building the foundation or 90 days from launch and need to execute fast, we’ve been there—more than 50 times.
Schedule a call to discuss your launch timeline.
