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How to Use Product-Market Fit to Position Your Product Effectively
- Michael Colling-Tuck
- 4 days ago
- 3 min read
By Michael Colling-Tuck, Founder, Agency Medical Marketing
If your product doesn’t fit the market, it doesn’t matter how good it is.
In healthcare, we often start with the product designer's vision, the clinical insight, technical breakthrough, or unmet need that sparked the innovation. That vision is crucial. But it’s only one side of the equation.
To accelerate adoption, you need more than just a great reason for creating the product. You need to prove it fits into the market as it exists today. That means understanding who needs it most, how it will be used, what might block its adoption, and where the early wins are hiding.
Product-market fit isn’t just a milestone. It’s the bridge between your product’s intent and its commercial reality. And when you get it right, it gives you a far higher chance of early traction, sales momentum, and long-term success.
This week's how-to guide breaks down how to use product-market fit to position your product effectively and avoid the pitfalls of launching to the wrong audience, with the wrong message, at the wrong time.
1. Stop Thinking of Product-Market Fit as a Box to Tick
Too many teams treat product-market fit like a milestone. But it’s not. It’s a lens.
If you’re preparing to launch or relaunch, your first job is to deeply understand:
Who really benefits from your product
Why they’d choose it over existing solutions
What barriers stand in their way
Fit is about aligning your innovation with the realities of the clinical setting: patient pathways, procurement hurdles, behaviour change, and capacity constraints. The tighter the fit, the easier the traction.
2. Define the Real Problem Your Product Solves
Not what you want it to solve. What it actually does in the real world.
Is it saving time? Reducing risk? Improving outcomes? Making workflows easier? Enabling access to new procedures or patients?
This clarity will become the bedrock of your messaging. Get it wrong here, and everything downstream—from pitch decks to sales scripts—will miss the mark.
3. Segment Ruthlessly. Prioritise Strategically.
The total addressable market is never where you start.
You need to segment your audience down to a beachhead market:
Where is the pain most acute?
Who is actively looking for a better solution?
Which personas have both the motivation and authority to act?
Where are the fewest barriers to adoption?
Can you get a fast win that gives you a story to tell?
In healthcare, this might mean: Targeting private clinics with faster procurement pathways, focusing on surgical specialties where your product unlocks new procedures or starting with an enthusiastic innovator team inside a large NHS trust.
Example: If your product improves recovery times post-orthopaedic surgery, don’t try to launch it across all surgical departments. Focus first on high-volume knee replacement clinics where shorter recovery means faster throughput, and where there's a clear operational or financial incentive to adopt.
Your beachhead is your first win. It helps you generate evidence, case studies, and internal champions so you can expand into tougher, slower segments later.
4. Translate Fit into Positioning
Once you know where you fit, you need to articulate that clearly and consistently. This is where positioning turns insight into action.
Effective positioning answers:
Who is this for?
What does it help them do?
How is it different from what they’re using now?
Why is it the better choice, now?
Don’t try to say everything to everyone. Positioning is as much about what you leave out as what you include.
5. Use Fit to Shape Messaging and Commercial Strategy
Your product-market fit should influence:
The stories you tell
The channels you use
The language you speak
The sales approach you take
For example: if your product fits best with overworked clinicians, you don’t lead with innovation jargon—you lead with time saved. If procurement is the blocker, you show cost-effectiveness and ease of implementation.
Good fit gives you a story. Great fit gives you focus.
Final Thought: Fit Is Ongoing
Markets shift. Pathways change. Competitors evolve. What fits today might need adapting tomorrow.
The best teams don’t just look for fit once, they keep checking it. They review data, listen to the field, and refine positioning as they learn.
If your product fits the market, prove it.If it doesn’t yet, find the shape it needs to take.
Need help refining your positioning before launch?
You can download our free Product Messaging Playbook Framework here: https://www.agencybristol.com/download-product-playbook-framework Or if you are looking to generate demand you can download our how-to guide here:
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