[vc_row][vc_column][vc_column_text]Marketing can make or break a brand. In fact, great products have failed because they didn’t have the right brand strategy. It’s important to take the time to consider and build out the right architecture for your business, whether that company is public or not. Many marketers have even found that incorporating brand building into a campaign often increases the overall return on ad spend.

At the end of the day, a company logo is only as good as the brand foundation it sits upon. For public companies, every investor is still a consumer, and every consumer loves an enticing brand. These are five things marketing professionals should consider when marketing public companies.

Always know your audience

Every marketer understands the need to target the right audience(s); however, your audience can expand beyond your traditional customers. Remember, one size doesn’t fit all. When marketing to any audience, be creative and try different messaging. You’ll find success in testing, learning, testing again, and so on.

At a health company, for instance, patients fall under one target group, and physicians who refer patients and investors are another target group. It’s important to develop the right strategies for the right audiences and deliver the right content to each.

Add some sizzle

Unique content is critical. Just because you have an investor audience, doesn’t mean you have to be boring. Curate content to fit your audience, but be sure to keep everyone interested and engaged. Think about the visual impact your brand makes across all touchpoints. Define your brand, make it shine, and be consistent.

Healthcare brands often have the challenge of explaining complex concepts. Take chronic pain for example – it’s both complicated and difficult to understand. To teach audiences about pain, a company may create a stylized yet branded animated video that helps people to understand the condition with simple language and beautifully illustrated visuals. Other ways to stand out through the use of illustrations are to avoid excessive text or use data visualizations to draw attention and focus on key concepts. After all, a picture is worth a thousand text files!

RELATED: How This COO is Reimagining the Landscape for Women in Tech

Use marketing to promote your people, not just your products

Your talented team should not be the world’s, or your investor’s, best-kept secret. Look for opportunities to showcase your company’s great work and the great people behind the work.  It makes people feel valued, builds thought-leadership credibility, and it can build trust with investors. Not only does thought-leadership marketing build relationships and increase ROI, but you can also enjoy the positive brand attribution that comes along with it.

Use marketing to demonstrate and build your companies’ relevance

Marketers are often challenged with promoting products or services that are new or are within a very niche. If this is the case for you, look for opportunities affecting the broader population to draw attention to your brand.

Let’s revisit the chronic pain example. During the pandemic, pain became associated with long haul COVID-19 symptoms. For healthcare companies, this provided an opportunity to raise awareness about this condition, and provide access to resources and treatments that can help. Marketing was the vessel used to connect with audiences that were unaware of the treatments available to those that suffer daily with everyday aches and pains.

Play the waiting game

Don’t underestimate the power of the tease campaign. Sometimes, marketers are at the mercy of product development, so learn to use the “waiting game” to your advantage.  It’s the campaign before you launch the “actual” campaign, but you would be surprised at the results that you can generate in the “pre-launch phase.” Although tease campaigns are admittedly more work, they tap into human curiosity and FOMO (fear of missing out). You’ll likely generate solid buzz and investor reassurance that exciting things are about to happen.

A lot of marketing is digital, and as we know, the online world moves quickly. To produce the best results, marketers need to not only keep up with trends but need to act just as fast. This will help win customers, market-share, build recognition, and so much more.

Ultimately, to thrive as a marketing leader, you need to acknowledge and celebrate successes, both in-office and at home. With 36 percent of women holding senior management positions in Canada, it’s important women feel empowered and motivated to excel and climb the corporate ladder in male-dominated areas. Networking with other female marketing professionals allows for collaboration and learning, which is powerful within itself. Females can learn a lot from one another and it’s valuable to build professional relationships that you can leverage to help excel in your chosen career.

Elaine McCulloch is the Vice President of Marketing at NeuPath Health, Canada’s leading healthcare provider for category-leading pain, sports-related injuries, and concussions. With over 20 years of experience, Elaine now leads the brand, digital, and B2B marketing strategies for NeuPath. She is passionate about providing improved access to holistic pain management and treatment solutions to all Canadians. 

[yikes-mailchimp form=”1″ title=”1″ submit=”SUBSCRIBE”][/vc_column_text][/vc_column][/vc_row]