Transform Your Health Tech Messaging with Value Proposition Canvas + Real-World Case Study
A clear value proposition isn't just nice to have. It's the difference between gaining traction and burning through your Series A funds with nothing to show for it.
Ever notice how some health tech companies seem to speak directly to your soul while others sound like they’re reading from a technical manual?
Many health tech startups jump straight to marketing execution without defining their core value proposition first. They’re creating content, running campaigns and attending trade shows with a message that’s muddled.
In healthcare especially, where decisions involve complex buying committees and long sales cycles, a clear value proposition isn’t just nice to have. It’s the difference between gaining traction and burning through your Series A funds with nothing to show for it.
Why Most Health Tech Value Propositions Fall Flat
Here’s a pattern in health tech companies:
The founder understands the healthcare problem deeply (often from personal experience)
The product team builds an amazing technical solution
Marketing is brought in to “tell the story” after the solution is built
The resulting messaging focuses heavily on features and technical capabilities
Healthcare buyers struggle to connect these features to their actual problems
The issue is that we’re working backward. We start with what we’ve built rather than with what our customers are trying to accomplish.
The Value Proposition Canvas: A Framework that Works
I use a simple framework to help health tech companies get super clear on their messaging before executing a single marketing tactic.
Step 1: Map Your Customer’s Jobs-to-be-Done
Start by listing out what your customer is actually trying to accomplish.
For example, a Chief Medical Information Officer (CMIO) might be trying to:
Ensure clinical documentation is complete and accurate
Reduce physician burnout related to EHR use
Implement solutions that integrate with existing workflows
Demonstrate ROI on technology investments to leadership
These “jobs” should be specific to your target healthcare audience. A CMIO has different jobs than a CFO or a Director of Nursing.
Exercise: List 3-5 primary jobs your ideal customer is trying to accomplish. Be specific enough that you could ask them about these jobs and they’d immediately recognize them as their own.
Step 2: Identify Their Pain Points
What’s getting in the way of your customers accomplishing these jobs? What frustrates them? What keeps them up at night?
For our CMIO example:
Current EHR requires too many clicks and screen transitions
Physicians are resisting documentation requirements
IT resources are stretched thin across competing priorities
Previous technology implementations have failed to deliver promised results
The key is to be specific about the obstacles that are preventing success. Generic pain points like “inefficiency” or “high costs” don’t help you craft a compelling value proposition.
Exercise: For each job you identified, list 2-3 specific pains that make that job difficult today.
Step 3: Define Their Desired Gains
What would success look like for your customer? How would they know if the job was being done exceptionally well?
For our CMIO:
Documentation completed during patient encounter without extending appointment time
Physician satisfaction scores with technology improve by 30%
Integration with existing EHR requires minimal IT resources
Quantifiable improvement in clinical documentation completeness
Gains are the positive outcomes and experiences your customer hopes to achieve. They go beyond simply removing pain points and create additional value.
Exercise: For each job, identify what “better than expected” success would look like from your customer’s perspective.
Step 4: Articulate Your Solution
Only after completing the first three steps should you talk about your solution. And when you do, focus specifically on how it:
Helps complete their core jobs
Relieves their specific pains
Creates their desired gains
For example:
"Our AI-powered documentation assistant integrates directly into the EHR workflow, automatically capturing and organizing clinical conversation data in real-time (helps complete the job). This eliminates the need for physicians to click through multiple screens or stay late entering notes (alleviates pain), reducing documentation time by an average of 2 hours per physician per day while improving documentation quality by 45% (creates gains)."
This sounds completely different than typical tech-focused messaging like: “Our advanced NLP engine leverages cutting-edge machine learning to streamline clinical documentation workflows.”
How to Validate Your Value Proposition
Once you’ve written your value proposition using this framework, you need to test it. Here are three approaches I recommend:
The Unnamed Test
Share your value proposition with a potential customer without mentioning your company name. If they can immediately tell it’s you, congratulations! You’ve developed a differentiated position. If they’re not sure which company you’re describing, your message isn’t distinctive enough.
The So-What Test
After sharing your value proposition, ask “So what?” at least three times. Each answer should reveal a deeper level of value to the customer. If you run out of meaningful answers, you haven’t connected your solution to what truly matters to them.
The Elevator Test
Can you explain your value proposition in 30 seconds or less? If not, it’s likely too complicated or unfocused. The best value propositions are simple without being simplistic.
A Real-World Example: Tech-Enabled Physician Services Company
Let me share a real case study from a client of mine that perfectly illustrates this challenge.
A tech-enabled physician services company approached me to develop a messaging and positioning framework after coming back from a healthcare trade show. Their technology-focused booth messaging completely fell flat with hospital leaders. As their founder/CEO later said:
“We went to this conference, and our signage made us look like we’re a [medical] carts company. Everything was just technology, just stuff. Nothing alluding to the fact that we actually provide physicians.”
This highlighted a common disconnect in health tech messaging. The company was presenting itself as a technology provider, but what potential customers actually valued was access to specialists.
The CEO described the moment of clarity: “The minute we said, ‘oh no, we have physicians, too,’ all of a sudden the story changed, eyes lit up. There was a different temperature in the room.”
Working through the value proposition canvas with this company revealed several key insights:
Jobs-to-be-done: Community hospitals needed to provide specialty care locally without transferring patients
Pain points: Limited specialist access, lost revenue from transfers and cost of implementing new technology
Desired gains: Better patient care, increased revenue and seamless implementation
Based on these learnings, I got to work overhauling their messaging. Instead of leading with their telehealth platform’s technical capabilities (which was their initial approach), we developed a positioning statement centered around “Complete specialty care for every hospital, in every community.”
Their core value propositions became:
Immediate Specialist Access
True Partnership Approach
Proven Technology
Financial Benefits
Implementation Excellence
Each supported by concrete proof points like:
“Network of 50+ board-certified specialists across multiple specialties”
“Reduced patient transfers by 25%”
“Added significant annual revenue for partner hospitals”
“Dozens of successful hospital implementations”
During the readout meeting, the CEO’s response was immediate: “This is amazing! This is awesome! This is exactly what we were looking for.”
The framework became particularly valuable as the company prepared for Series A fundraising, providing clarity on how to position the company for both hospital decision-makers and potential investors.
Putting It All Together
Developing a compelling healthcare value proposition isn’t a one-time exercise. It should evolve as you learn more about your customers and as market conditions change.
Revisiting your value proposition canvas quarterly is beneficial, especially in early-stage companies where you’re still refining your product-market fit.
Your value proposition should focus on the transformation you enable for your customers, not your technology.
In healthcare especially, where decisions carry significant complexity and high stakes, clarity of message is a business imperative. You need crystal-clear communication to cut through.
If you’ve found yourself struggling to gain traction with healthcare buyers despite having a great product, it might be time to revisit your fundamental value proposition before investing more in tactics.
What’s your experience with developing value propositions in healthcare? Have you found certain approaches work better than others? I’d love to hear your thoughts.
Want to work through this framework for your health tech company? Let’s talk.
The post Transform Your Health Tech Messaging with Value Proposition Canvas + Real-World Case Study appeared first on The Hybrid CMO.
About the Author
Heather Lodge, Fractional Chief Marketing Officer, The Hybrid CMO
Heather helps growing health tech and healthcare service companies transition from ‘spaghetti-against-the-wall’ marketing to scalable operations so they can go toe-to-toe against better-funded rivals. She helps establish clear market positioning, develop focused account-based marketing programs and build the systems and teams needed to scale effectively. Heather’s approach combines strategic leadership with hands-on execution, building marketing programs that drive consistent revenue growth.