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Merit Medical Systems is a leading manufacturer of medical devices used in diagnostic and interventional cardiology and radiology procedures. The company's first product was a specialized syringe that injects constrast solution into a patient's arteries for an angiogram diagnostic cardiac procedure.
As the company expanded its project lines and entered international markets, it became clear that Merit's brand identity and website needed a serious shot in the arm. |
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The Challenge
Early in the discovery phase, it was obvious the Merit’s website wasn’t doing justice to the company’s brand. To compete in the competitive medical products marketplace, Merit needed a brand image and website that would portray the company as a professional, world-class medical goods supplier and could convey the quality of the products it provided.
The company’s growing product lines were making it more difficult for customers to locate product information on the old site. Previous attempts to accommodate new products had resulted in a very product-centric home page that did little to build the corporate brand or help visitors find desired information. The company also needed to respond to market changes, launches and opportunities by efficiently managing and updating its own web content for product information, news and events, and employment opportunities.
The Approach
The project involved an in-depth study of Merit’s strategic goals, brand anatomy, functional requirements and application requirements. The discovery phase also included a review of competitive sites, capabilities and effectiveness. It became clear the competitors were doing a better job of online branding. By overemphasizing a variety of products on the home page, Merit risked being perceived as a provider of commodity medical goods. Merit’s existing page layout lacked content prioritization and navigational prompts to guide visitors to additional information. In addition, the content itself needed to be better composted and structured for web readership.
Extractable helped validate and choose applications to fit Merit’s requirements, including Ektron’s CMS400 (content management solution), Autonomy’s Ultraseek (enterprise search) and Visual Sciences’ HBX web analytics suite. As part of the strategic planning process, Extractable also created a multi-year web development roadmap that includes the creation of a product catalog and helps guide creative and technical decision-making, allowing for progressive refinement as the site evolves over time.
The second phase of the project included site user interface design, application integration, template build out, page development and deployment. Extractable’s design approached focused on emphasizing the company’s brand on the home page and improving navigational prompts to guide visitors to web-friendly product sections. Extractable also greatly improved the site’s search capabilities.
The Impact
With its redesigned website, Merit places increased focus on using the web as a strategic sales and marketing channel. "In addition to designing a fresh new look for the company’s website, we also established a new visual language to enhance and build Merit’s corporate identity, positioning the medical device leader as flexible, innovative and committed," states Dennis Presiloski, Extractable’s creative director. "This corporate identity can be extended throughout other Merit communications programs."
According to Presiloski, "The light overall treatment evokes the sensibilities of the medical industry, the attention to detail and subtleties in the design demonstrate commitment, and the wave motif combined with imagery shows flexibility."
The Bottom Line
- Positioning the company as international player in medical devices
- Creating more compelling content with content management tools
- Using web analytics to optimize site performance
The Merit Medical website is live at http://www.merit.com.