Marketing Mondays_Brian Maurer: Audio automatically transcribed by Sonix

Marketing Mondays_Brian Maurer: this mp3 audio file was automatically transcribed by Sonix with the best speech-to-text algorithms. This transcript may contain errors.

Andreea Borcea:
Welcome to the Marketing Mondays podcast, where we explore how we can make your offerings stand out in the health and wellness space. Through conversations with thought leaders and innovators in health and wellness marketing, we’ll discuss marketing best practices, case studies, and innovative ideas to help scale your business and grow revenues with impact. I’m excited to be your host. My name is Andreea Borcea. I’m a fractional CMO and owner of the Dia Creative Marketing Agency.

Andreea Borcea:
Hey everyone, and welcome back to another episode of Marketing Mondays. I’m super excited today to be with Brian Maurer, one of the co-founders of Bristle Health. Once again, I’m your host, Andreea Borcea, CMO of Dia Creative, and we love working with healthcare companies and, you know, making marketing work in health and wellness. So, cool, Brian, why don’t you start us off with a little bit of how you came up with the idea of Bristle and your background here?

Brian Maurer:
Yeah, first off, thanks so much for having me. Really excited to be here and be speaking with you. Yeah, so my background, I originally was in the genetics space. I worked at a company called Illumina, who is the backbone of a lot of consumer genetics and larger genomics platforms. So I was always in the commercial organization there, didn’t actually have a science background. My mom had just called me one day and said, I think she heard an NPR article about DNA sequencing. It was like, you need to go do this, and there was an internship there. And so I went and you know, next thing I knew I was in the genomics world.

Andreea Borcea:
Love that.

Brian Maurer:
Yeah, and so through Illumina, it was actually where I met my now co-founder, Danny. We were working with a number of different startups, applying genomics technology to solve a variety of problems, from oncology to rare disease, to the gut microbiome, to CRISPR, all anything under the sun. So we were working with all these people doing just really impactful work, and we were always thinking, you know, where else can we apply next-generation sequencing and genomics to solve problems for people? And so the story goes, we were at a pitch competition and we heard, you know, five or ten people pitching the next gut microbiome company. And we were sitting there and I was dreading the next day because I had a dentist appointment and I’m someone who, I brush, I floss, I always do the things and just inevitably have some sort of new issue. We were just talking and we were realizing, why isn’t anybody looking at the oral microbiome? It’s this whole community, and we’re profiling the skin microbiome, every other type of microbiome, but nobody’s looking at the mouth. And so we started digging in and really uncovered a huge there in terms of not just how the oral microbiome impacts your oral health, but all these really interesting nascently understood connections to the oral-systemic health, how oral bacteria may play a role in heart disease, Alzheimer’s disease, adverse pregnancy outcomes. And we saw that and then just set off to talk to as many people as we could about our idea.

Andreea Borcea:
I love that. It’s interesting, there are, I think microbiomes are definitely becoming trendier. So, anyone that’s really into health and wellness, they’re testing every different microbiome. So it’s funny that oral had kind of been missed. Do you think there’s a reason for that? Is everyone just like equally as scared of you about the dentists that just like, all ignoring your mouths?

Brian Maurer:
I think there might be an out-of-sight-out-of-mind element to it. But it’s, it is interesting because I talked to so many people and it’s just not how we understand our oral health. I feel like we tend to have more of a mechanical relationship with our mouths in terms of when we need, when we have holes in our teeth, we go and get them filled. Or when I need my teeth cleaned, I go and get my teeth cleaned without really digging into the why behind it. Or you look at flossing, I think a lot of people may think of flossing is just to get food particles, but there’s all these anaerobic species that are actually causing gum disease and by flossing you’re actually exposing them to oxygen, actually helping solve that problem, and when I explain that to my friends, then all of a sudden they start flossing, but I don’t have a great answer. It seems at some point in history we took the mouth out of the body in terms of healthcare and we really created this silo, and I think that’s something we’re really trying to break down at Bristle, is to recognize, one, the importance of it. And two, there’s a community in there and we need to take care of it and actually nurture it like we do the rest of our body.

Andreea Borcea:
So that must be a particularly interesting challenge for you marketing-wise. Like not only are you launching a product that has to do the marketing, like prove that you’re worthwhile, prove that you’re trustworthy. But it sounds like there’s probably a lot of education in how you have to market because you have to educate people that they should even care about their oral health.

Brian Maurer:
Definitely, yeah, and that was a burden we knew we were going to bring in for a long time, and I think, maybe naively thought it would be, had we’d be able to do it a lot more effectively and a lot sooner than we have. We probably could have taken notes that the dental industry has been trying this for a long time, but I think where we really invested was in our content marketing and in our approach of how do we convey this information and take people on this journey of understanding. One, you have bacteria in your mouth. Two, they impact your oral health. Three, Your oral health is important, and Bristle’s the right company to trust with for your oral health. So it is a challenge and it’s something we think about a lot.

Andreea Borcea:
So where are you finding the most resistance from customers when you first launched? You know, you’ve been live, what, now, nine months? Is that about right?

Brian Maurer:
Yeah, right about nine months.

Andreea Borcea:
Okay, cool. So launching for the first time, take us back. Like, how did you decide what channel to start with? How did you decide your messaging? Were you already thinking the education angle and just not thinking how big that would be? Or was it more of a, eh, we’ll educate as we go?

Brian Maurer:
Yeah, no, it was a conscious decision from the get-go. We, so we had the luxury of a pre-launch where we had gone out, we had done a big release on Reddit and Hacker News, which is like the Y Combinator version of Reddit. And very quickly, we were able to understand all the questions and all the hesitations that people would have around our product and our offering. And even before that, when we were still formulating the idea, we would pitch this and we would tell people exactly what we’re doing. And so often you would just get, well I brush my teeth and I’m fine, so why would I care? Or I just go to the dentist, so why would I care? And it’s, I think when we were originally launching, we still had this idea of possibly making it like an alternative checkup for people who weren’t going to the dentist because that was how we had envisioned it. But where we’ve really found our footing and really found our users and the people we can help are people who are frustrated and have had to suffer through oral disease. These are people who are constantly hearing brush and floss more and they’re doing that and it’s not yielding their results. When we initially were planning out our launch, we weren’t having the content initially. So really writing long-form blogs, trying to be that scientific authority on the oral systemic connection and on the oral microbiome. And that, even months now from when we originally wrote the content yields dividends when we have people visit our site and they’re like, who are these people? And they can go on and actually find really well-written and well-researched articles. Yeah, and then from there it was, how do we marry the scientific and the genomic and the novel information to a consumer offering into the consumer platform? And so it’s a lot of message testing and a lot of trial and error on, does this landing page make sense? And having my mom go through it and tell me, I have no idea what this panel means, and then having to go back to the drawing board.

Andreea Borcea:
The mom test, that’s like the most scientific marketing test you can use.

Brian Maurer:
Exactly.

Andreea Borcea:
That’s awesome. I also remember you did something really cool with Reddit and I don’t think a lot of health and wellness companies even, I mean, yes, they’re kind of dabbling in social media or trying to really find their place, but like Reddit’s a scary place. So I’d love for you to talk a bit more about that.

Brian Maurer:
Yeah, so Reddit and Hacker News, kind of what I was alluding to earlier, it is a scary place, particularly if you don’t understand what you’re getting into. So when you put yourself out there and you talk about what you’re doing, you are going to get questions from the depths of the Internet of what are you doing with my data? Why should I trust you? Is there even research behind this? And I think a lot of it comes in of people have just been burned by snake oil salespeople of health and wellness brands or of different consumer offerings, where it’s basically just harvesting their data and not really backing it up with supportive claims. We were very confident in what we were putting out there, and I think our founding team was very familiar with Reddit to know one of the best things you can say is we don’t know. I think that goes a long way with consumer trust in general of when somebody asks, you know, what about this association or what about this? Like, why are you saying this is causal? We’ll say it’s not causal. Science is early. What we’re going to do is arm you with what we know. We’re going to cite everything on Reddit in our comments. We’ll have links to papers. And I think once you really show your cards that you’re transparent and you’re here for the right reasons, then it becomes an incredible platform for soliciting what those objections are and really finding different niches and communities of, you know, we had people coming and they said I have struggled with this for years, this one condition that we hadn’t even thought of. And then three other people comment and they’re like, If you’re doing a study, let’s get in on it. So it’s yeah, it’s a scary platform, but I think it brings out the best of what you need to do to build trust.

Andreea Borcea:
And to be honest, it feels like all platforms right now are really trying to lean towards trust. You know, I think TikTok has gotten a lot more preferential about any content that feels honest. Instagram is still a little aspirational, but we’re getting there. So actually starting on Reddit might have given you a really good filter for everything you’re saying and doing because you’re right, with health and wellness in particular, trust in marketing is so huge, and Reddit’s such an interesting way to build that.

Brian Maurer:
Yeah, yeah, I think you’re totally right, and it’s where consumers’ interests are going. It’s where everyone’s kind of shifting is. We’ve seen the bad examples now where, you know, we’ve gotten all the fairness questions and now it’s, I think it’s the ball is in the marketers’ court and the company’s court now to really prove why should someone trust you? Like what is the data, how are you actually helping people? So it’s a tough shift, but I think it’s a healthy one.

Andreea Borcea:
Definitely, so as you’re shifting through your business and learning more, what are you finding working in marketing or marketing channels and how do you prioritize where to spend your focus, especially with such a small team to start?

Brian Maurer:
Yeah, it’s a great question, something we think about a lot. One of the things I think we’ve really come around to is letting your users’ needs and letting your user research really dictate the channel strategy. When we’re envisioning our user journey of how people go about trying to solve their problems for Bristle and some of the things we do, a lot of times these conditions can have feelings of shame and have feelings of I don’t know who to go to for this or I don’t want to talk to somebody about this, and so they go ask Dr. Google. And so you start to think of that and it naturally lends itself to a content strategy, an SEM strategy, and so we found some success there. And then I think on the pillar of trust, you know, influencer marketing and influencer marketers really have become the de facto trust-building network in a lot of senses. Everybody has their podcast they listen to, everybody has their people that they have a lot of affinity to, and I think if you can go then and build the trust with those influencers, you’re able to leverage some of that trust and really shortcut building it yourself with each individual. So those are some of the channels we’re pursuing the most.

Andreea Borcea:
With influencers in the health and wellness space, are you finding that they’re interested in willing to try the test, or does it feel more of like a superficial relationship when you first reach out to them?

Brian Maurer:
I’ve been pleasantly surprised. Most of the people we’ve worked with have insisted on trying the test out first, which complicates the initial conversation. It spreads it out, but we really want them to, like we really want, because there’s so much value and then hearing it, how they convey it to their audience, what was the value they found in it? Because their audience is with them for a reason. They are speaking to their problems or they are resonating with how this person communicates and there’s so much we can learn from them just in feedback of I love this about the product, I hated this about the product, and then just listening and understanding how do they sell it.

Andreea Borcea:
That’s very cool with, it’s interesting too because your particular product can do both B2C and B2B in that sense, right? Because maybe they’re considered influencers, maybe micro, but you’re working with a lot of dentists now too, right, and dental hygienists. And I think you are finding like hygienists might actually be a better market for you than dentists. Like, tell me a little bit about how that came about.

Brian Maurer:
Yeah, so it’s going to sound like I’m painting with broad strokes here. But this is the, begging of conversation, I suppose. When we first started Bristle, the first thing we did was we went out and talked to as many people as we could. We were emailing all these dentists, anyone who would talk to us, and a lot of what we got in the initial conversations were, I don’t get how this fits into my practice, I don’t get logistically how this would work, this doesn’t really fit with my model of how I run my practice and my business. And so, but we were steadfast in our faith in the power of the product. And a bit further down the road, we had a hygienist, I was reading some hygienist magazine, RDH Mag, specifically the website, and I had seen a hygienist who had written this really great article on saliva testing and the potential of it. And so I just reached out to her and started talking and it was just incredible, the depth of the knowledge and just the passion behind trying to advance prevention-focused dentistry and prevention-focused oral health. And from there it was, oh, I need to introduce you to five other people, and then I need to introduce you to five other people. And oh, you’re talking about this treatment? You need to look at these ten things because they are all way better than what you’re recommending, and it was really game-changing for Bristle to really tap into the hygienist community that we still leverage a lot. And I think that was a huge point for us. And now we’ve had a lot of dentists coming around. I think part of it was finding the right dental practices, people who are a little more forward-thinking and have a bit more flexibility to introduce new technologies, and people who are, want to have those deeper conversations with their patients about their heart health or their brain health or any of these other ways, their oral health is impacting them.

Andreea Borcea:
It does feel like healthcare is becoming more holistic, or at least people are wanting to think of their health a little bit more holistically. I think we’re a little bit, you’re right, but dental might be one of the ones that’s a little slower, as you write, I go to the dentist because I’m in pain, I need a tooth filled or something. But overall health, I think people are starting to try to understand preventative medicine and holistic. Do you think that we’re going to be heading down that same way with oral healthcare?

Brian Maurer:
I think so. We were very lucky to have an advisor, Dr. Mark Breheny, who’s been a huge proponent and advocate of the oral microbiome for years and is really helping spearhead functional dentistry. Stacey Whitman is another doctor we were lucky to work with, and you can sort of feel the groundswell of it coming of people understanding, I found alternative ways to heal myself in my gut health or in this practice or that practice, and wow, like I realized that changing my diet could completely shift all these feelings of my body and like it all connects. And so it’s just still so ironic that the mouth has been the missing piece here, but once you tell people the story, it just clicks. And it’s particularly for people who kind of have that mindset, it’s like, well, yeah, it’s the start of the digestive tract and it’s connected to everything else, it’s how we interface with the world, so yeah, it makes more sense. But I think in the next ten years we’ll see a huge push there.

Andreea Borcea:
Are you finding that people are open to hearing that story and specifically with the marketing efforts like how do you reach people to tell that story effectively?

Brian Maurer:
I think it’s trying to meet them where they are and finding people who are really motivated to learn. The people who are out attending webinars or out looking for Facebook groups or different communities to discuss what issues they’re having or discuss where to learn more. So it is, it does present a bigger barrier in terms of finding these people. I think, particularly with a lot of the algorithm-based ad platforms not doing the targeting for you anymore as well, I’ll shout that out. But yeah, it’s, I think if we talk to people who aren’t in the right framed mindset, it can fall flat and it can kind of a lot of times we got the, oh, that’s really cool, which is devastating.

Andreea Borcea:
Yeah.

Brian Maurer:
Yeah, what you really want to hear is, wow, this solves a problem I have like, how can I get it? And so, yeah, that’s, that was another learning for us at one point.

Andreea Borcea:
Yeah, the cool factor is just more of a, oh, that’s fun, that’s nice you got this thing, how nice for you. But really what it is, is finding the early adopters but finding the early, I think you’re identifying your early adopters based on their suffering, right? And of course, when you start a new business, you want to start with the customers that are most eager for your product. Those are your easy lifts, and then they’ll convince everybody else once you convinced them. I can see that growing.

Brian Maurer:
Exactly, and I think it’s you know, the purpose of any company is to convey value and really offer value. And people with the most hair-on-fire pertinent problem that you can solve is where you can offer the most value at the start is how I tend to think about it.

Andreea Borcea:
Yeah. Have you seen any interesting surprises as you’ve been exploring different marketing angles or events or anything?

Brian Maurer:
We have been pretty surprised at, I think like most conversations, they’re very much factions of how people feel about certain ingredients or how people feel about different approaches. And it’s, we, I think that was something we weren’t anticipating, the fervor behind. And so that did take some work internally to figure out what are we going to say when people ask us this? Or if people tell us, I can’t support your product because you recommend this. And so that was a huge learning in terms of how are we going to handle these conversations? Like what? What is our line?

Andreea Borcea:
That’s, yeah, that’s got to be really, I mean, that’s the evolution of the product, right? Do you feel like you’re pretty solid in the product, the brand, and the messaging at this point, or still some evolution there?

Brian Maurer:
The product we feel very strong about. It’s, we know it’s conveying value. We built it with a strong backbone in science and empathy of really trying to make sure it’s an experience that people can understand and act on. I think in terms of the brand, we have a strong brand internally and I think the way to message it is where we sometimes can run into difficulty, or messaging the value because our team is amazing, everybody is so bought in on the mission and the purpose of doing everything, and I think to a fault we tend to want to word vomit a lot in terms of here’s the entire story of why it’s the coolest thing you ever need to hear. And as we know, attention spans are short. And so it’s I think on the messaging front where we’re constantly working and we’ll always be evolving is, what is the story we tell in a short amount of time to really let people know we’re credible, we’re backed in the science, and we really care, and we’re here for the right reasons.

Andreea Borcea:
Finding that balance between education, because you do still have a high barrier to entry through that education is understanding, but it does make sense, right? If you’re eating, your mouth is the first place to touch anything, that’s your gut microbiome.

Brian Maurer:
Yeah, everything.

Andreea Borcea:
It’s all there. Are you finding any unique challenges because you’re in the health and wellness space versus if you were selling sunglasses or something a bit more approachable?

Brian Maurer:
Yeah, I think it’s a lot of what we’ve spoken about, aside from the regulatory angles of just what you can and can’t do on certain platforms, which is its own challenge. But I think the bigger one is, it’s not obvious why somebody would buy an oral microbiome test. A toothbrush? I get it. Like a cool new toothbrush that tells me when it’s time to change which quadrant of my mouth I’m using, like, I get that. But it’s exactly what you were mentioning of the educational burden of, you look at the, like you look at the bacteria in my mouth, okay?

Andreea Borcea:
Now what?

Brian Maurer:
Yeah, and so I think it’s, that’s like the messaging, the constant journey of, what is, how do we frame it in the terms of why it matters. And maybe it doesn’t even matter that it’s an oral bacteria test. Maybe it’s just that it’s going to give you an insight into a problem you have, and leaning away from this is how we do it and this is the why you should care.

Andreea Borcea:
And how often do you think people should be re-checking on their mouth?

Brian Maurer:
And yeah, I think we talk about this a lot too. I think it’ll depend on what your goal is. So just speaking from my personal experience, if I have come in and like we did when we were first starting Bristle and realized I have a high abundance of gum disease-causing bacteria. What I wanted to do was get my recommendations, get my research in and figure out, okay, this is a regimen I need to try and I’m going to implement it for a month, and then afterwards, I’m going to test and actually measure like, did this work for me? You know, we see this practice with continuous glucose monitors and with a lot of other tests of, you’re unique, and you know, what works for one person isn’t going to work for the other, and so I think there’s kind of a period of more frequent testing of maybe you’re doing it after a month or after three months of after trying another regimen. And then moving towards more of this, now I want to check every six months and just make sure that all that work I’ve done to get my microbiome balanced is still there. And if it’s not, then I can go and make a change, test again, make sure it works. So it’s I think it sort of depends on what the goal is, but ultimately that’s the general framing.

Andreea Borcea:
Nice, are there any marketing tools that you just can’t live without at this point?

Brian Maurer:
Working with you.

Andreea Borcea:
I appreciate that.

Brian Maurer:
Yeah, there’s so many tools. I love, and I’m struggling because there’s so many I use, I do love Mixpanel for like funnel visualization and really being able to answer questions quickly. Google Analytics I think goes without saying, but I think the most powerful tool for me and throughout Bristle has just been sending cold emails or just knowing how to send cold outreach, it’s really been transformational for us in terms of the partners we’ve been able to find and the, now relationships and opportunities we’ve gotten just from sending cold emails. I think it’s, everybody tends to go through all these different channels to try to reach people and get noticed and it’s time, you just got to send them an email.

Andreea Borcea:
Yeah, and I think a lot of people, especially in this space, are really willing to help each other out because it’s such a unique challenge, and at least the majority of people that I’ve ever gotten the pleasure to interact with are all doing this for the right reasons. They’re doing it because there’s a problem and our healthcare system is broken and they want to fix it and they want to empower themselves and empower other people, and so if we all work together, how much better is that?

Brian Maurer:
Totally, yeah, that is, I will tell anyone who is starting a company or thinking about starting a company, that has been one of the most rewarding things is just the generosity from everyone around you. Your friends and family, obviously, who will shock you at how long they’ll sit with you and answer your stupid questions and walk through your website with you. But complete strangers who, just like you said, know you’re trying to solve a problem and have that shared passion and will give you the time. It’s, yeah, I just don’t have good words for it, but, the warm and fuzzies.

Andreea Borcea:
Nice, if you were going to start over today, is there anything you would have, you’d do differently based on how you originally started?

Brian Maurer:
Yes.

Andreea Borcea:
Everyone answers the same, right?

Brian Maurer:
Yeah, it’s, you know, it constantly just thinking like, wow, if I could just go back and talk to myself back then. And I think it just comes down to really simple points of talking to your users and talking to the people with your problem. I think a lot of times we, or there’s this concept of learning through ads testing or learning through trial and error of different landing pages or things like that, and I think that’s a powerful tool. But I also think you can shortcut a lot of those learnings by just talking to your users and hearing what value did they get, what were they trying to solve, how do they talk about their problems? And then just reciting that back into your copy and into your different areas, I think that would have been probably one of the bigger changes is just, and we’ve done a great job evolving it since, but just from the get-go, customer-obsessed, constantly interviewing, constantly testing with the people you already know or bought in on your product.

Andreea Borcea:
Yeah, and I wouldn’t feel bad about that because I feel like that’s every company’s miss. I can’t tell you how many times I start working with a company, the very first thing I’m like, let me talk to who’s in charge of customer support, because they’ll actually have the closest idea of what the customers actually think, and then we can go from there.

Brian Maurer:
Yeah, yeah, we had to kick ourselves because we were lucky enough to go through a Y Combinator and it’s, one of their only rules is talk to your users and then build something they love. And it’s, the closer you can just stick to that principle, the better off you’ll be.

Andreea Borcea:
Definitely. All right, so what’s the last thought or key point you’d like to leave our listeners with?

Brian Maurer:
Big question. One, recognize the importance of oral health, but, two, I mean, I think broadly in marketing, in healthcare, it’s, I think we’re seeing this big shift, as we’ve discussed, towards trust, transparency. And I think content is, we’ve known content is king, I think, for a long time, and it’s taken the back seat at one point, but just, that has been such a powerful tool for us, where even one of our advisors originally saw us on a Facebook ad and then was coming to the website to look at how to find the next snake oil, find the next like flimsy company trying to market this stuff, stumbled into our blog, and he ended up reading like five or six of our long in-depth blogs, and then he wrote us an email. It was like, okay, this seems legit. And so, I mean, I think in terms of winning customer trust, winning provider trust, and just in general, the more legwork you can do to build that credibility and answer those questions up front, the better off you’ll be.

Andreea Borcea:
Yep, be legit, that’s the response. Well, perfect, so once again, this was Brian, co-founder of Bristle. Do you want to tell them the website?

Brian Maurer:
Yeah, so you can find us at BristleHealth.com. That’s B R I S T L E Health.com. You can find us on Twitter and socials @BristleHealth.

Andreea Borcea:
Perfect, thanks so much for being here, Brian. Once again, this is Andreea Borcea, CMO of Dia Creative. That’s DiaCreative.com, and you are listening to Marketing Mondays. Thanks so much.

Brian Maurer:
Thank you.

Andreea Borcea:
Thanks again for listening to Marketing Mondays. If you have any marketing questions at all, feel free to reach out to me directly at DiaCreative.com. That’s D I A Creative.com.

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