MedTech World Magazine: Stop selling. Start mapping.

Claudia Holy built Podymos on a single conviction: that MedTech companies are leaving adoption on the table by getting their marketing fundamentals wrong. She speaks to Wara Samar about stakeholder mapping, AI-driven hyper-personalisation, and why bad messaging is like sailing with the anchor still down.

There is no shortage of brilliant technology entering the medical device market. What there is, according to Claudia Holy, Founder and CEO of specialist MedTech marketing agency Podymos, is a persistent failure to communicate that brilliance in a way that moves people to act. Working exclusively within MedTech, Holy argues her team sees what generalist agencies cannot.

“We work across so many MedTech companies that we see what works and what doesn’t,” she tells Samar.

“A marketer sitting inside one medical device company sees what works for that company. We see what works across the whole sector… what resonates with healthcare professionals, how they are moving towards digital assets. That’s where our real advantage is.”

The mapping problem

Samar asks Holy to name the costliest mistake companies make at launch. She answers without hesitation: stakeholder mapping (or the absence of it). Before messaging, before content, before channels, organisations must know who stands between their device and adoption, what questions those people will ask, and what evidence they need to say yes.

“Bad messaging is like sailing with the anchor still down. Everything else becomes very, very painful.”

“You’ll end up bumping into a brick wall if you haven’t mapped this out,” she says. “Who are all the people you need to speak to in order to get your technology into a hospital? What do they need to see? Map this at the start of development. It tells you what clinical evidence you need, what health economic evidence you need. Once you know that, the marketer’s job becomes simple.”

Messaging flows directly from that mapping. Founders, being close to their technology, tend toward complexity when buyers need clarity. Holy draws on StoryBrand, the framework built by Donald Miller on the principle that people don’t buy the best product; they buy the one they understand the fastest. It gives Podymos a structure for stripping messaging back to what matters. But without the stakeholder map underneath it, even the sharpest messaging misfires.

Three places the funnel breaks

The journey from pipeline to sustained adoption, Holy says, breaks down in three consistent places. First: awareness. AI-generated content has flooded every inbox, meaning salience now demands hyper-personalisation. Generic outreach no longer clears the noise.

Second: the website. Holy cites the statistics that 80 per cent of a buyer’s decision is made before they ever contact a company. “If you don’t have content that answers the questions your customers have, and those questions are issues, fears and concerns stopping them from buying, you lose people before you knew they were there.”

“80% of a buyer’s decision happens before they contact you. Without the right content online, you’re invisible.”

Third: follow-up speed. Even when the website converts, slow responses to lead forms squander the moment. Holy sees agentic AI as a near-term fix, voice agents that immediately qualify and route inbound enquiries so no lead goes cold.

Regulation as competitive moat

MedTech’s regulatory complexity, be it FDA or EU MDR, country-specific promotional guidelines, or evolving digital rules, is often treated as a ceiling on marketing ambition. Holy reframes it as a differentiator. An agency that truly understands those frameworks does the maximum possible in each geography, rather than defaulting to cautious copy out of uncertainty. Podymos accompanies every client document with a regulatory summary: claims mapped to their source, content checked for compliance.

“If your marketing partner doesn’t understand the regulations, they’ll try things you simply cannot do,” she says. “But if they do, they’ll enable everything you legally can. And that’s a much bigger space than most companies realise.”

“Founders are so close to their technology that it becomes very difficult to create messaging that is understood in seconds. If this messaging isn’t in place, your marketing costs will rise, conversion rates will drop, and ADOPTION WILL SLOW. Your device may gain some traction, just not nearly as much as it should.”

Looking ahead, Holy sees MedTech marketing accelerating online, driven by Answer Engine Optimisation pulling from websites and social channels before a sales conversation ever begins. Her closing message to every MedTech founder is the same one she delivers every day: get the stakeholder map right, get the messaging right, and everything else flows. Ignore it, and no matter how much you spend on the rest, you are sailing with the anchor still down.

If you have a story to tell or an insight to share, we’d love to hear from you for a future edition of the magazine.

Up next: MedTech World Europe 2026 | Malta

MedTech World returns to Malta for MedTech World Europe 2026, its biggest edition yet. Taking place from 11-13 November 2026, MedTech Malta Week expands the traditional conference into a five-day experience across Malta and Gozo, bringing together investors, founders, healthcare leaders, innovators, and industry experts from across the global MedTech ecosystem.

The week opens with the MedTech World Investors’ Retreat in Gozo from 9–11 November, offering accredited investors and senior industry leaders an exclusive setting for strategic conversations, networking, workshops, and curated experiences. The programme then moves to Malta for a cultural immersion day in Valletta and Mdina on 11 November, before the main MedTech World Europe conference takes place from 11 to 13 November at the Mediterranean Conference Centre in Valletta.

Throughout the conference, attendees can expect keynote sessions, panel discussions, workshops, company showcases, investor meetings, an exhibition floor, and the MedTech World Startup Pitch Competition, followed by the MedTech World Gala Awards, honoring achievements across the global MedTech ecosystem.

Interested in being part of the biggest MedTech World Europe yet? Book your ticket now.