Episode 52: Strategy Before Execution: Why 72% of MedTech Companies Miss The Mark

Only 28% of med tech companies have a documented marketing strategy, according to McKinsey research. On this episode, Saul Marquez, founder and CEO of Outcomes Rocket, joins Aaron Burnett to unpack why so many teams skip straight to execution, and what it costs them.

Drawing on 20 years in med tech sales and more than 2,000 interviews with healthcare leaders, Saul shares his approach to grounding marketing in research before action, why regulatory clearance doesn’t equal sales traction, and why clarity of message is one of the strongest predictors of market success. The conversation also covers the growing convergence of health tech and med tech, and why traceable, multi-touch measurement is essential for proving marketing’s contribution to revenue.

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Introducing Saul Marquez 

Aaron Burnett: Welcome to The Digital Clinic, the show where we dig into what actually works in digital marketing for healthcare and med tech: the strategies, tools, and thinking that move the needle when the rules are tighter, the stakes are higher, and ‘that’s the way we’ve always done it’ is no longer a viable answer.  

The beauty of a marketer who started in sales is that if they were a good salesperson, becoming highly attuned to the needs of the customer is in their bones. It becomes part of the fabric of who they are as a marketer, and it can make them very effective. Today’s guest is Saul Marquez. Saul is the founder and CEO of Outcomes Rocket, a healthcare-exclusive market research, media, advisory, and marketing firm that helps med tech and health tech companies accelerate growth. Saul spent years as a senior sales executive with the likes of Medtronic and Stryker, becoming highly attuned to the needs of the customer, the dynamics that influence sales processes, and developing a keen understanding of the marketing that truly delivers value. He now helps healthcare leaders turn strategy into measurable pipeline, revenue, and market credibility. As you’ll hear, Saul is a bundle of energy, insight, and practical wisdom. I think you’ll enjoy the conversation. Let’s get to it. 

This podcast is sponsored by Wheelhouse Digital Marketing Group. Wheelhouse provides exceptional performance marketing for healthcare and medical device manufacturers. Every Wheelhouse client saw record performance in 2025, even after implementing HIPAA-compliant data solutions. Find out more at wheelhousedmg.com. 

Podcast to Agency Origin 

Aaron Burnett: Okay, Saul, I really enjoyed chatting with you at Device Talks. I love being a part of your podcast, and I’m intrigued by the origin story for Outcomes Rocket. I’ve heard it said that yours is a company that started from a podcast. So just tell me briefly, that story. 

Saul Marquez: Yeah, Aaron, thank you so much. I really enjoyed having you on our podcast at Device Talks, as you mentioned, and I’m a big fan of you and Wheelhouse DMG and the work that you guys do, so I’m really flattered to have the opportunity to be here. I’ve been in healthcare for 20 years (I’m a legacy med tech guy, sales and marketing), and as I was in med tech, I always had a curiosity to learn more and not just be boxed into medical devices. So I started this podcast roughly nine years ago as a way for me to become a healthcare expert. That was sort of the goal, right? Become a healthcare expert and meet people who are interesting and doing great things. So Outcomes Rocket was born. I never expected that, fast-forward to today, it would become a market research, strategy, and full-service execution marketing agency. But through over 2,000 interviews I’ve done, I found that no matter the size of the company, whether they were a startup or a multi-billion-dollar enterprise organization, there were always marketing gaps. And when you see that signal over and over, you say to yourself, ‘I could do something here.’ So I was doing sales and marketing one relationship at a time. I decided to do it at scale with the agency. 

Spotting Marketing Gaps 

Aaron Burnett: Yeah. Well, prior to Outcomes Rocket, your focus was heavily on the sales side in med tech. You mentioned you saw this pattern: the same marketing gaps over and over. What are the gaps you identified, and how have you gone about filling them with what you do at Outcomes Rocket? 

Saul Marquez: Yeah, that’s a really great call-out, and those gaps are different. As an agency, we serve two segments: health tech (software solutions in healthcare) and med tech (medical devices). Health tech and med tech have different problems. And when you think of med tech, there’s the enterprise and then there’s the mid-market, right? So those problems and solutions are unique. But there’s one thing I see as consistent across all of them, and if you want, Aaron, we could dig into the different segments and sub-segments. 

Execution Without Strategy 

Saul Marquez: But the one common denominator problem across all of these is that, with as good intentions as you and the team might have, teams go straight into execution. And when you go straight into execution, you’re very limited in the number of people you have to do what needs to get done adequately. It doesn’t matter how big you are. The problem is still there. And in the end, you’re chasing your tail trying to justify the investments you’ve made and trying to pin down the data that tells you it’s worked out for the best. This is a common problem across all three segments we serve. Marketing people, especially now with AI, it’s gotten even worse. Leadership teams want you to do more with less, and you don’t have enough people to support you. That’s a very common problem overall. 

Aaron Burnett: All right, so you said these marketing teams go immediately to execution. What is it that you’re doing that enables them to pause, be more thoughtful, more deliberate, more focused, and I guess choosier, about what they actually do? 

Discover, Define, Deliver 

Saul Marquez: There’s a stat that I love. It came out of McKinsey: they did a study on med tech companies and found that only 28% of med tech companies actually have a documented marketing strategy. That’s eye-opening. What happens is, when you’re forced by the business to get results, you get straight into action. It’s what we call the marketing treadmill. One of the quotes I often share with people internally at our organization, and with customers, is that ‘tactics are the noise you hear before the war is lost’: that’s Sun Tzu, in The Art of War.  Man, I’ll tell you, you probably see this all the time, Aaron. You want results, so you get straight to action before really questioning your assumptions. The process we use is called 3D: discover, define, deliver. We believe it’s non-negotiable to do the discover phase. Sometimes you might feel you don’t have the time, but that’s why we have a version of the discover phase called the discover sprint, which you can actually do in one week. The discover sprint forces you to lay out (if you don’t already have it documented) who your competitors are, what the lay of the land is, what your market opportunity is, your TAM and your SAM, who the top competitors in the space are, who owns the digital footprint. All of these things, if you don’t have them laid out, they should be. And if you do have them laid out, the opportunity is in questioning some of the assumptions. With some quick VOC (voice of customer) from your customers on the sprint, because on a sprint you don’t have much time. If you’re going to do it in a week or two, you can move very quickly. The cool thing is, while we’re doing it, we can also get you some customer testimonials along the way. So we don’t just get you feedback: we actually get you digital assets you can leverage for conversion optimization on your website, et cetera. It becomes a really cool way to get things done while you’re validating. So that discover piece is really key. Then you go into define, and then you go into deliver. Deliver is where a lot of people tend to start, but making sure you get those first two Ds done is critical for success. 

Aaron Burnett: It’s a surprise to me, if I understand you correctly, only 28% of med tech companies have a defined and documented marketing strategy. So 72% of med tech companies go straight from, ‘We’ve got a device, we’re commercializing it, let’s create the sales collateral and go out and talk to people.’ Is that what you’re telling me? 

Saul Marquez: Yeah, that’s what I’m telling you. And when this happens, you have an opportunity, right? Essentially, you’re only competing with 28% of the market at this point. 

Aaron Burnett: Yeah, that’s incredible. 

From Insights to Action 

Aaron Burnett: And so I understand the research phases, discovering and defining. Do you also help with campaign execution in the delivery phase? 

Saul Marquez: Yes. The nice thing is, I spent many years at different device companies, and I had the opportunity to work alongside marketing on some of these research campaigns. You get this really amazing deck with all these insights, and then they say, ‘Good luck, go do it, and when you need more research, let us know.’ Inevitably, at a company, especially a large company, you run into the quarterly fire drills that come with being publicly traded. You’ve got to hit the numbers, you’ve got to make it happen, and that fire drill becomes the priority. Oftentimes, what’s in that deck gets dusty and doesn’t happen. So we realized there’s an opportunity to close that gap. One of our differentiators is that we’ll do the research, we’ll get the strategy, but then we bolt on a 90-day execution sprint. That execution sprint is what allows you to take those insights and put them into action: that’s where our execution arm comes into play, and we help you get it done. Whether it’s content creation, live conference activation, digital campaigns like webinars, whatever it might be, we help you make it happen. So when those fires come up, you have us as your team by your side, rolling up our sleeves to make sure the investment you made in the research actually sees the light of day. That’s a huge differentiator for us and what we’re able to help our clients with. 

Aaron Burnett: Yeah, I can believe that. 

Lessons From 2000 Interviews 

Aaron Burnett: All right, let’s go back to the podcast, because you’ve interviewed more than 2,000 guests, which is admirable, that’s incredible. I aspire to get there one day. So across those, what’s that? 

Saul Marquez: Or crazy. 

Aaron Burnett: No, it’s great. I mean, you’re good at it, you’re engaging, so I’d imagine it’s a lot of fun and you get to have a lot of interesting conversations. As you reflect on those 2,000 guests, or even just the last 100 or 200, what patterns emerge? What are people missing, where you think again and again, ‘Wow, people just aren’t seeing this thing that I see,’ because you can pattern-match across all of these interviews and conversations? 

Saul Marquez: Yeah, wow, there’s so much. Actually, very recently, with AI, we grabbed all 2,300-plus of our episodes and plugged them into a Claude project. That’s become quite the repository for insights we can pull from, whether it’s for clients, conversations, or content. 

Clarity Creates Urgency 

Saul Marquez: One of the things that has consistently come about is this: the leaders who come on the podcast and can, within five minutes, clearly articulate what they do, why they do it, how it’s different, and create urgency to take action: those are the teams and companies that do the best in the market. 

Aaron Burnett: Sure. 

Saul Marquez: I’ve seen them, over the past eight years, get acquired and accelerate ahead of competitors. It comes down to how clear you are on what you do, why you do it, and your differentiators. I’ve seen this time after time: can your leaders articulate the vision? Can the leaders then have the team share that vision? And are you doing it across all channels to create the trust that helps you accelerate? 

Aaron Burnett: You know, intuitively, I’d think that must be table stakes for a marketing leader or executive. I suspect you’ll tell me that’s not the case. So hazard a guess, on a percentage basis, how often do you encounter someone who can be clear, concise, and create urgency the way you describe? 

Saul Marquez: Man, there are a lot of talented people with amazing stories, and we get to interview a lot of them. But I’d say it’s probably like 50%. And if I were to create percentage levels, there’s probably a solid 10% that just crush it. And you know, Aaron, everybody knows this, when you talk to somebody who crystallizes it for you, it inspires you. 

Aaron Burnett: Absolutely. It’s an infectious talent. 

Saul Marquez: It is. It leaves you thinking, ‘Wow, tell me more,’ because the problem is clear and you clearly understand how they’re different. Clarity has a gravitational pull to it. That’s the one thing that shines through all the conversations. I’ve seen it work. 

Aaron Burnett: I think that’s true. I think clarity is compelling and infectious. From my perspective, even more infectious is an authentic sense of mission: the reason why you’re doing something. If you can combine those two things, then you’ve really got something. All right, so that’s one thing that’s been notable. What are some other things? Maybe something you’ve heard from folks where there’s a prevailing wisdom that people are getting wrong? I know I see this pattern of false assumptions too. You mentioned challenging assumptions as part of your initial discovery process. 

Approval Is Not Sales 

Saul Marquez: Clearance or regulatory approval doesn’t get you sold. That’s one of the biggest false beliefs out there. You get approved. That doesn’t mean anything. It just means you can sell now. What you have to do is really think through your user’s journey. You have to map out exactly how they do their procedure, how they care for a patient, or, if it’s a technical workflow, what that workflow consists of. Once you’re cleared, that just means you have a license to hunt. Now you have to make sure you’re truly resolving a need, because you have to create a solution that’s going to make a customer want to change their workflow, potentially take a risk to change what they’re doing, which could be very costly. So you have to build that commercial model. Aaron, the best products don’t always succeed. 

Aaron Burnett: Tell me more, because I’ve read, as I was doing research, other comments from you to that effect, that it’s not the best product, it’s something else that enables success. So what’s the secret ingredient? 

Saul Marquez: I’ve been on the winning side, and I’ve also been on the losing side of big deals. Back in my device days, we lost deals knowing we had the best product, because our competitor came in more prepared, with a better commercial story. I remember losing a $3 million deal I was counting on to make the number for the quarter. Reflecting on our after-action report, they came in with a better commercial story: the way they connected to and relieved the friction points of the clinicians and the IT department in that situation. After that happened to me, Aaron, I woke up to the reality that best doesn’t always win. You really have to sharpen your pencil and think through your commercial plan, your commercial story, and all the stakeholders in the room who have to say yes. You’re getting ahead of the game and anticipating the snipers. We call them snipers. I actually just wrote a newsletter on this: you don’t have a pipeline problem, you have a buyer map problem. 

Aaron Burnett: Yeah, I just read that. 

Saul Marquez: Thanks for reading that. What do you think? Am I off? Is it resonating? 

Aaron Burnett: No, it resonated a lot. In fact, it aligns with another conversation I had on a similar topic yesterday: just the complexity of the buying committee, the failure to identify all the different constituents who are actually involved: the ones that are self-evident, and the ones you think are secondary but turn out to be completely influential. 

Saul Marquez: And you work so hard to get to a certain point, so make sure your plan is commercially viable. It’s so important. 

Aaron Burnett: I think I know the answer, but I’d like to hear from you. 

Sales Lens Advantage 

Aaron Burnett: There are lots of folks who do what you do, serve the same market, but I’d assume they come to their current business, their service offering, from the commercialization side or the marketing side. You came up on the sales side. In what way does your sales experience give you an advantage, a different perspective? 

Saul Marquez: I really appreciate that question, Aaron. We did a report on the state of go-to-market in 2026, and it revealed a lot of the friction that exists between healthcare sales and marketing teams. There was a moment when I got involved in a marketing project and became super close with our marketing team, and I had this aha moment. I used to be the sales guy who thought sales was the best, that we did everything. 

Aaron Burnett: These leads are no good, right? 

Saul Marquez: I was that guy. I had this epiphany halfway through my career, and I said, ‘Wow, marketing does so much.’ I realized that marketing is actually more important than sales, because it’s the foundation: it’s the positioning, it’s the differentiation. They’re both important, but that was the realization I had. So now we run a marketing agency, and I wear the lens of a salesperson: I understand the pressure our customers face from their sales counterparts. One of the things we’re able to bring to the table is quick wins, because sales wants quick wins. But the more durable thing is setting our clients up for success in how they handle conversations with sales, and how they position what marketing is doing to a sales leader. That’s half the battle. So we have very candid conversations and make sure everything we’re putting together, from the deck to the analytics report, is aligned with what the sales leader is thinking about, because they’ve probably faced harsh realities that haven’t gotten to our desk yet. Opening up that channel of communication (that empathy, walking a mile in their shoes) has really been a difference-maker for us because of that sales experience. 

Aaron Burnett: Yeah, yeah, yeah. 

Aaron Burnett: You know, another thing marketers have been perennially challenged with, no more so than right now, is proving the contribution of marketing to revenue. That’s an issue that’s endemic across most industries, and it’s particularly challenging in healthcare and, depending on your climate and company, in medical devices as well. I know that’s a focus for you, how do you create an environment that allows the contribution to revenue to be demonstrated for marketing? 

Saul Marquez: At the end of the day, you’re responsible for traceability. The one thing we’ve all learned in marketing is that there’s no single touch that does the job. It’s a multi-touch, omni-channel opportunity, so being able to document it across the board is important. This is where your tech stack matters a lot. There are things you can subscribe to. Aaron, I know you guys have done a nice job creating a proprietary system for this kind of work, right? 

Aaron Burnett: Yep. We’ve created a HIPAA-compliant measurement framework for our clients. 

Saul Marquez: To be honest, we haven’t built that ourselves. I’d actually be more curious to hear from you, help us learn more about your thinking there, because I’d rather build by partnering, right? 

Aaron Burnett: I feel like you’re my senior on this. Well, from a certain perspective, certainly from the digital side, in broad strokes, philosophically, what we do is create a measurement framework that’s privacy-compliant. Rather than optimizing and instrumenting for the conventional moment of conversion (we generated a lead, we got someone to submit a form), we integrate much more deeply with our clients’ systems, particularly the CRM, and identify deeper and deeper points of value creation in the conversion cycle. Ultimately, we’re optimizing for the moment a prospect becomes a paying patient, customer, or user, and then, as we mature with our clients, we’re optimizing to maximize lifetime value. We’ve built a measurement system and some technology that lets us provide a real-time signal back to digital advertising platforms, based on a real-time propensity model we develop from the lifetime value of a customer. So we get these cycles with compounding returns that just get better and better. 

Saul Marquez: That’s great. So essentially, you’re taking a look across the life cycle, pulling data from your own systems, and piping it in, is this kind of like a custom-made intent platform too? 

Aaron Burnett: We certainly focus on prospect intent, but really the constituent parts are a HIPAA-compliant data collection system, a HIPAA-compliant data warehouse, and a form of propensity modeling we develop that’s real-time, rather than a moment-in-time model used for audience definition. 

Saul Marquez: Got it. I love it. 

Aaron Burnett: But it really starts with something you mentioned early on: you have to challenge your assumptions and not think of things conventionally. The conventional way to do digital marketing and advertising is to use the conventional forms of conversion: I got a lead, I got someone to sign up, I got someone to schedule an appointment. When you challenge that as the assumption of having done something valuable, you realize the moment of real value is much deeper in a system that digital marketers usually don’t have access to. So it’s about earning access to those systems and then being able to leverage that data to provide a real-time signal back to the platforms. 

Saul Marquez: That’s really neat. And going back to your question: partner with an organization like you guys. Get a tech stack like Marketo, Eloqua, or Bombora for intent. There are so many out there to make it work. So I’d partner with Wheelhouse. 

Aaron Burnett: You’re very kind. First, though, they should come to you to take care of all their market research and go-to-market work, and get that initial implementation sprint. 

Future and Wrap Up 

Aaron Burnett: So, as you think about where the market’s headed, the next 12 to 18 months, what’s in the offing for healthcare and med tech marketers? What should they be anticipating, thinking about, protecting against? 

Saul Marquez: Health tech and med tech are converging. It’s very interesting, and the rate of acceleration is insane. Software as a medical device, as a category, is growing exponentially, and you’re seeing a convergence of both markets. Med tech is used to operating in a highly regulated environment, moving a bit slower. Health tech is used to moving fast and breaking things. They don’t need the FDA approvals. However, with the advent of vibe coding and the new risks and cyberattacks happening because of code-based errors and issues, you’re seeing increased regulation on software, especially in healthcare, requiring these software companies to work within more of the guardrails med tech is used to. At the same time, I’m having conversations at Device Talks with innovators in 3D printing and robotics telling me how much faster things are innovating: you can set up prototypes within days or a week, whereas before it took months. So they’re moving a lot faster, and physical devices are becoming digitized: rather than bedside monitors, you’ve got algorithms. These two fields are converging. What I’d say to our listeners is: right now is the opportunity to look across the aisle and learn from your peers, because there are innovative things they’re doing that can help you accelerate your growth. The field is changing rapidly. Look outside to your health tech or med tech peers, because there are things working for them right now that you could take advantage of. 

Aaron Burnett: Yeah, things that maybe you thought weren’t relevant to you, but are becoming quite relevant as the industry changes around you. That’s very well said. I’ve really enjoyed talking with you, and I’ve appreciated the conversation. Is there anything I haven’t asked you that you’d love to chat about? 

Saul Marquez: Aaron, I think this has been a great conversation. I’ve enjoyed it as well. If people are interested in doing more data-backed marketing, we release two insights reports every quarter. I’d invite listeners and viewers to check out some of our research: it’ll support the work you’re doing and help bolster the discover side of your marketing. 

Aaron Burnett: That’s great. And where can they find more information about you, about Outcomes Rocket, and about those research reports? 

Saul Marquez: OutcomesRocket.com is the place to go. 

Aaron Burnett: All right. Very good. Thanks again, Saul. I really enjoyed it. 

Saul Marquez: Appreciate your time, Aaron. Thanks everyone. 

Aaron Burnett: You too. 

Aaron Burnett: What Saul has learned through thousands of conversations in this industry is that the companies that succeed aren’t necessarily those with the best product, or even the deepest pockets. They’re the ones who invested in strategy before execution. Only a quarter of med tech companies have a documented marketing strategy. The other thing Saul consistently sees in the leaders whose companies outperform is clarity: the ability to walk into any room and, in just a few minutes, explain what you do, why it matters, and why someone should act now. That combination (strategic foundation plus the language to bring others along) is what the best teams have in common. You’ll find Saul Marquez on LinkedIn and at OutcomesRocket.com. I’m Aaron Burnett, and I’ll see you next time on The Digital Clinic. 

Sponsored by Wheelhouse DMG