How do you market a brand that changes lives?
Advertising as a start-up business on a small budget is no easy feat, but when your business proposition is changing lives, it becomes even harder. How do you put into words the impact your business has on people’s lives? How do you anchor that impact into a brand? And how do you market that?
These are all questions that Nikki Williams, founder and chief executive of Mentwell is stuck on.
Mentwell is a first-of-its-kind as Australia’s first health and wellness gift card service. People can purchase a Mentwell gift card for those they want to support, to use for mental health and wellness services including GPs, psychologists, acupuncture, reiki, and more. The gift cards are available for use at every health and wellness service provider across the country, and a year in to the start-up, around 900 have been purchased and used.
Having been through her own mental health struggles, Williams said she created Mentwell to help others going through it too, and show people that they are not alone.
“I was socially isolated for two years in my early twenties,” she told Mumbrella. “It was one of the toughest mental health related times in my life.
“And then during Covid, I went through another difficult time to do with my mental health, and the idea for Mentwell – that lightbulb moment – came for me. I knew I wanted to challenge the stigma associated with mental health.”
Getting between 800-900 organic website views a month, with $30.5 million worth in the sales pipeline, and $50,000 worth of existing social impact dollars through its work with charities, Mentwell is certainly building momentum.
And while Williams, who comes from a PR background having previously founded a digital agency, has been giving the advertising and marketing her best shot, the ideal execution – the how – is yet to be truly accomplished.
Williams and the Mentwell team have done the automatic, organic processes – think along the lines of email marketing, LinkedIn outreach, direct sales. She has created events to support the concept. She has done deep dives into the various demographics the business is looking to – B2B, B2C, service providers.
She even spent the first six months perfecting the brand’s visual identity and assets.
The many stages of perfecting the logo
Mentwell also did a Birchal campaign last year – a capital raise strategy which was also a marketing push – to help get it off the ground.
“The cost of running ads at the moment is way too high,” she explained. “So we do everything we can in our wheelhouse that is free or cheap to get the momentum going.
“With Birchal, it did put us out of pocket a little in the scheme of things, but the positive certainly outweighed the negative in that is was an opportunity to market Mentwell whilst raising capital at the same time.”
The business came out with $230,000 for its pre-seed, and the campaign gave it a strong word-of-mouth boost too.
“We now have a large community from that, people are spreading the word, they’re essentially becoming our champions and cheerleaders.”
But, according to Williams, it is all so much more complicated than that.
“We’re not just dealing with a business, what we’re really doing here is structural change,” she said. “And how the hell do you do that on a small budget? How do you create mental change in people, behavioural change in people?
“The crux of it, is how do you market to advocate for human connection without sounding like you’re either a cult leader or some kind of philanthropic-only organisation?”
With goals to start doing multi-channel campaigns – including one planned for Christmas time this year – and eventually be in a position to use traditional channels like TV, OOH and radio, Williams has a lot of ambition for the business. But, the barrier of how, remains.
So really, asking the experts of the media and marketing world, how do you market a brand that truly changes lives?
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Lauren McNamara is the associate editor at Mumbrella, covering the creative and PR beat. She joined in November 2022 as editorial assistant, after completing a Bachelor of Communications (Journalism) at UTS.
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