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Corporate Communications & Creating Your Company Brand — The 3 Things to do First

By Betsy Raymond Stevenson , posted January 29, 2012

Getting Started

Your biotech is about to go public. Your company has just gone through a merger or acquisition. Your organization has experienced a major crisis. Whatever the reason, you need to create — or recreate — your company brand.

How do you create a brand with staying power that reflects who you really are and what you really offer? Like most things, it involves a lot of upfront work. The great brands are profoundly connected to their markets and stakeholders.

You want to be sure that your brand team is immersed in these three things

Your market

Your current stakeholders’ beliefs and behaviors

Your company’s goals

Know Your Market –

If you have a marketing department or other marketing support, they should be a great resource for you. If not, make the commitment to put in the research time. Investing your time now will save you and your organization more time, money and headaches down the road.

Who is your competition and what are they doing? What are their reputations? If they have marketed products, what is their market share? What is in their pipelines?

What is the economy like in your sector and/or therapeutic areas? What are the payment trends and who is making those decisions? What are the regulatory guidelines?

Who are your key players? Physicians? Patients? Investors? Regulators? Are their needs being met in the current market? What do they wish were different or better about your sector or therapeutic areas?

What strengths does your organization offer the market? Are they unique? What is your promise to your key players? What are your weaknesses, especially compared to your competition?

Once you have found the answers to these questions, go back and do the whole thing again projecting five years ahead.

Know Your Current Stakeholders’ Beliefs and Behaviors –

Do research and conduct stakeholder interviews so that you can answer these questions for each group:

What is their:

• Current belief — about their condition if they are patients, about the current treatment options if they are physicians, about the sector and/or your pipeline if they are investors?
• Current behavior — what does a patient do after diagnosis? How are physicians making their treatment choices and why? Are investors investing in your sector or are they waiting to invest and why? Do they see the circumstances changing and when?

Now is the time to conduct some soul searching with your company management and thought leaders.:

Read on…

Tags: Betsy Raymond Stevenson, Betsy Stevenson, business strategy, company brand, corporate communications, healthcare communications, RaymondStevenson Healthcare Communications, RSHC, science communications
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