Episode 136
Jackie Brusch, Marketer and Advocate
We are back for another great interview in our creativity series. In today’s episode, we chat with Jackie Brusch, a marketeer and communications leader from Philadelphia.
Jackie Brusch is Director of Marketing at Open Clinica, a healthcare company that focuses on using data and technology to help clinical trial professionals, clinical researchers, data managers, biotechnology, and pharmaceutical companies really get the information that they need, to make their clinical trials successful.
In this episode, Jackie tells us about a creative challenge she’s currently working on as a marketer in clinical trials, how video marketing is making a breakthrough to reach customers and why, & how to ensure remote team collaboration, especially in a marketing role.
As a writer by profession, Jackie has been able to apply a lot of the collaboration techniques to solve the problems she faces but also in applying these skills to her own personal brand as a top content marketer in this industry.
- Her role enables her to come up with solutions when faced with a creative challenge. At Open Clinica, it's about getting at those pain points and creating the marketing materials, programs, and campaigns that resonate with their audience.
- Jackie discloses how she tackles her failure or problems while at work applying the GEMO formula- which translates to:
- Get good
- Enough,
- Move
- On.
- Additionally, she tells us how she applies technology tools to her creative problem-solving tools, by executing her 4 marketing strategies.
- When it comes to generating ideas, Jackie says following content platforms and organizations in your specific field, even if you're not using that product, or technology is advantageous to you so that you can, see what's up and coming, and then incorporate that into your strategy.
Jackie’s Website: JackieBrusch.com
LinkedIn: Jackie Brusch
Company Website: Open Clinica
Transcript
Welcome back friends to our podcast, unlocking your world of creativity. This is the podcast where we talk to creative professionals all over the world about how they get inspired with new ideas and how they organize those ideas. And most of all, how they gain the competence and the connections to launch their creative work out into the world. And it's my pleasure today to be talking with a marketeer from Philadelphia, Jackie Brusch. Jackie, welcome to the program.
Jackie Brusch: (:Thank you so much for having me. It's a pleasure to be here.
Mark Stinson: (:It's going to be so fun to compare creative notes in a very, data and technology-driven business. And that is the management of data in clinical trials. It sounds really fascinating.
Jackie Brusch: (:Yeah, it's great. What we do is really revolutionary for teams that are, typically, using paper for everything. and the fact of the matter is the world is digital, especially now in the post COVID world, we are all using digital way more than we ever have. I think that we're seeing that after, almost two years of COVID, we're probably gonna keep using technology for a lot of things and, clinical trials and healthcare is, no different.
Mark Stinson: (:Well, open Clinica seems like the type of company that's doing a lot of innovative things in that records management kind of space. What do you feel was the creative, I guess, burn the creative problem that the company is really trying to address?
Jackie Brusch: (:That’s a great question. So I would say that, as patients are participating in clinical trials, there's data from many different sources that clinical trial professionals need to collect and have access to, really make sure that their clinical trial is a success. So the need there is to make sure that your data is accurate, it's clean, it's clear, and that ultimately it's actionable. That at the end of your clinical trial, you have, data that tells you a story about whatever you're testing, the drug or treatment that you're testing. What we do is really help, clinical trial professionals, data managers, clinical researchers, biotechnology, and pharmaceutical companies really get the information that they need, to make their clinical trials successful.
Mark Stinson: (:Wonderful. And then your role in marketing, that kind of service, it's gotta be a creative challenge.
Jackie Brusch: (:It really is because, as marketers, I think our job is to really, ask the right questions and understand everything about our product, everything about the industry, and really understand those pain points so that we can market effectively to our audience. For me, the creative challenge is all about really getting at those pain points and creating the marketing materials and programs and campaigns that resonate with our audience, just like every other marketer. But we do it in a way where we're trying to reach people who are extremely busy and again, especially with COVID-19, there's added pressure on these professionals right now. So it's even more difficult to, make sure that we find the right messages and even more important that we find the right messages that reach them and resonate with them.
Mark Stinson: (:Well, I always have fun comparing creative notes with folks like you, Jackie, and trying to make this really practical. And I think about is there a creative challenge on your desk today that you say I'm really gonna have to put that right side of my brain to work?
Jackie Brusch: (:Yeah. One of the things that we're launching right now, or in the midst of working on is a video program. video is I think becoming an extremely important part of marketing and marketing programs. When I say video, what I really mean is not so much the actual form of video, but getting your people on camera to give a face to your business, and also to get your thought leaders actually presenting their ideas and, and talking about the things that are resonating for them and sort of trending in the industry. I'm working right now with our team to kind of develop that strategy and, really take our video strategy to the next level. we don't want to just explain to people what we do, we want to push the envelope on the ideas and the strategies that are already out there and say, how can we take this a step further?
Jackie Brusch: (:One of the ways I think we can do that is through video and, and videos that are, one to two minutes long, not long, right enough where you can watch it in a minute you sort of get the idea and then you can explore and learn more if you want. That creative challenge is something that I truly enjoy because, you're getting to work with people and, talk to them sort of how we are right now. but you're taking it a step further and sort of building that as part of your marketing strategy and as part of your marketing campaign.
Mark Stinson: (:Thinking about your own sort of personal, the creative approach, do you have a way when you say I'm faced with a creative challenge, a creative question, even, an approach you like to take, not just, I guess I would call it your own personal creative brief, what's the first step that you like to take with a creative problem?
Jackie Brusch: (:It's such a great question. I'm a trained writer. I went to school to learn how to be a professional writer. I often tell people that writing the book is easy. It's writing the title that is difficult. How I do that is, I really start to just throw a document up there and start to think through ideas. As I'm writing more and more the same way I am when I'm writing a book, I'm thinking about more and more titles. I can eventually come up with something that, is punch-worthy. Again, it's working in collaboration with my team, I don't do it alone. Don't try to do it alone. I think it's really important to take those creative challenges and embrace them as an opportunity to bring together all the creative minds in your business. Some of who may be outside of marketing and that's okay, that's perfect. Actually, that's what you want. You want to make sure that you're working with kind of all sides of the business to make sure that you're coming up with something that is really, really, creative and innovative.
Mark Stinson: (:Coming back to the use of technology, oftentimes we say, well, I just want to be creative, but your list of technology tools is quite extensive. How do you find the application of technology to your creative problem-solving?
Jackie Brusch: (:Great, great question. So, as a marketer, we all know there are so many different technologies out there. When you start to look at a MarTech stack, the list can get very long. I think it's really about, for me, our marketing strategy has four pillars. When I'm thinking about those four pillars, I'm thinking about the things that are going to ladder up into each of the pillars and how we're going to successfully execute on that pillar or that strategy. From there, that's when you start to build out the campaign and start to understand our demand gen pillar is going to be much different than say our brand identity pillar and the technologies that we use for demand gen maybe, paid advertising channels like LinkedIn and Google. Whereas our brand identity channel maybe something like organic LinkedIn posts, where we're really just trying to build our brand, on social media. I think when you start to kind of break down your pillars and your strategy, that's where you can really start to hone in on your technologies and how you want to use them to be most effective.
Mark Stinson: (:I really wanted to underscore something you said a moment ago about working as a team. Creativity is a team sport, isn't it? How do you find that especially in our remote working, universe that we live in now, how's the team collaboration for you?
Jackie Brusch: (:I think it's so important to, really bring people along. For me it's about not just reaching out to somebody when I need help, but about bringing them along for everything that we're doing. I send at least a monthly email explaining what happened in the last month with marketing. But during that month, I'm also consistently emailing people to let them know what we're posting about what we're doing, the campaigns that we're running, and not just the leadership team, but really the entire team, all staff, because every person at your company should be a marketer. They should be doing some form of marketing for you. Your efforts are only as strong as the people that are supporting them. If you can get everybody on board and collaborating with you and contributing to the messages that you're putting out into the market, that's the way to win in my opinion.
Jackie Brusch: (:To me, the collaboration is really about making sure I'm bringing people along for the story and the whole journey and not just when I need something. As we all know if people's jobs are not marketing, It's not their top priority. They'll help you when they can but I think it's really important again, to just bring them along for that whole journey, because then when you do need something or they have an idea, you can collaborate on the next great thing, the next blog, the next video, the next ebook, whatever it might be.
Mark Stinson: (:Similar to the work that your company does in clinical trials, marketing is kind of an R and D process sometimes too, isn't it? The ideas don't always work. I'm curious, how you face those, call them failures if you will, but when the tactics simply aren’t working, what do you do?
Jackie Brusch: (:It's so cliche to say, but I truly have found this to be a true statement. And that is, with every failure you're closer to success. So when you fail, you need to look at it as, okay. It didn't work. I worked for a company once, we had a conference room called GEMO, G. E. M. O. It stood for Get Good Enough, Move On. and that's the point. When something is good enough when something is maybe not working, let's move on, let's move to the next idea. In marketing, it's a balance, of I need to test this and see if it's really not working, or does it just mean more time? or is it something that's truly failing and we need to move to the next thing? I think for me when I look at failure, it's really about using that as the fire to propel you onto the next great thing. That has, for me been a huge part of my success in my career.
Mark Stinson: (:Wonderful. Where do you get your own inspiration? Is there anything that you're reading or following these days or creative experts that you like to benchmark?
Jackie Brusch: (:I follow a bunch of different organizations you could say. Content Marketing Institute is one that I truly love. As you can tell, I'm pretty much a content marketer at heart. I think content marketing is where everything stems. It's the heart of your marketing program. If you don't have that, you don't have the messaging for your ads, you don't have the organic posts, all of that stuff. It's all stems from your content program and your content marketing. I follow, American marketing association, and the MarTech platforms that are out there all have really good, blogs and different, newsletters and things that you can follow. I like HubSpot, drift is a new company coming up with chatbots and things like that for your site. Really following along, even if you're not using that product, following along with those technologies so that you can, see what's kind of up and coming, and then incorporate that into your strategy.
Mark Stinson: (:Wonderful. You've really spent a lot of time, with your personal brand, and not just in a way that says I'm looking for the next job, but it's really as a content marketer, as we always say, physician heal thyself, you've been looking at your own brand and developed quite a nice personal website. How did you, organize those ideas?
Jackie Brusch: (:For me, part of marketing and I touched on this a little bit when we were talking about employee engagement and bringing people along for the journey, but so much of marketing in my opinion is about relationship building. and so, the portfolios and things that I created for myself and even the content that I put out on my own personal LinkedIn, is to build my own brand, but it's also to gain the trust of my audience. Marketers sometimes get a bad rap when they're putting stuff out. You want to make sure that you're amplifying the voices of your thought leaders, and that can be difficult if you've got marketing in your title. I think it's important to really build up your own brand, to gain the trust of the audience that you're reaching, whether that's for a new job or to reach the audience that you're currently trying to reach in your current position, or even the employees that, work at your own company, they will see that and sort of follow along.
Jackie Brusch: (:As they're seeing the example in front of them of, oh, this is how we can kind of post to get further along in our messaging. That's the way that I look at it your personal brand is a way to build relationships with the people that you work with and the people that you're trying to reach.
Mark Stinson: (:As you think about that, then how do you see things over the horizon? What's the future, hold in your mind?
Jackie Brusch: (:Great question. So I'm new in my role currently, working on building out a team. I think we're in a very exciting time, as weird as that is to say because, with COVID, there are so many opportunities for us to take a look at the way we've always done things and say, is this working, or is it a failure or is this a good inflection point for us to take a look at what we're doing and make a change? I think as we go on here in the next year or two, I think we're going to see many businesses, many of which have never really incorporated a digital marketing strategy start to incorporate that. I go to my local restaurant and there's a QR code on the table now for me to scan and look at the menu, so I don't have to touch a physical menu. That's a new change for me. I never had that experience here in my town, so I think that we're going to continue to see that. I think it's a pretty blanketed, statement, but I think it's one that many, many businesses will take on as we move forward here in the next couple of months and years, to be honest with you.
Mark Stinson: (:Yeah. I agree. There are many opportunities for sure. Well, Jackie, what a wonderful conversation. I've enjoyed comparing creative notes with you. Remind us how we can find you follow your work and stay in touch.
Jackie Brusch: (:You can find me on LinkedIn. It's just at Jackie, Brusch that's where I prefer to connect with people. and, you can follow me there and see all the things that we're doing. Then of course, if you're interested in looking at my portfolio, my personal branding work, you can follow along there at jackiebruce.com.
Mark Stinson: (:Fantastic. Well, such a great conversation and wish you all the best in those creative endeavors.
Jackie Brusch: (:Thank you so much. It was a pleasure to be here. Thank you.
Mark Stinson: (:And listeners, I think you've gotten a lot of good ideas and examples, and even some specific things to follow and ideas to kind of build your own personal brand. And that's, what's exciting about this program. So I'm hoping you'll follow along with us, subscribe to our podcast, and come along for our next episode. I'm mark Stinson and we've been unlocking your world of creativity. We'll see you next time.
