Social media is now a larger part of most every medical company’s marketing mix, but does that mean traditional medical marketing materials are no longer relevant? In the final part of this three-part series on medical marketing and social media, I posed this question to Los Angeles-based Copywriter and Internet Marketing Consultant, Derek Rudnak.

Now for the big question, has social media made leave-behind print materials obsolete?

Derek Rudnak – This is a very generational thing. Older sales people don’t see the value of online campaigns and they are not quick to embrace and adopt them.

But I do believe there is a ton of value in doing the old school, traditional stuff. This is still a very real part of medical device marketing. This makes it a challenge because you are trying to move forward and leverage all these new technologies, but at the same time they aren’t replacing anything yet.

The drawback is that companies and people in them sometimes believe they have plenty of time to adapt to new changes in the market. This of course is wrong.

You do need to start getting into new technologies—especially as young people who are comfortable with them begin to move into key positions in the medical device and healthcare space.