Expert Mode: Creating a Category, Humanizing a Brand, and Building B2B Resonance in Regulated Industries
This article was based on the interview with Kristin Russel, Chief Marketing Officer at symplr by Greg Kihlström, Marketing Technology and AI keynote speaker for The Agile Brand with Greg Kihlström podcast. Listen to the original episode here:
In B2B marketing, especially in highly regulated industries like healthcare, “bold” and “memorable” aren’t usually the adjectives that spring to mind. But Kristin Russel, CMO at symplr, has a different take. With a background that spans government speechwriting, spinning classes, and multiple executive marketing roles, she brings a refreshingly pragmatic—and occasionally irreverent—lens to brand-building in complex sectors.
In this interview, Russel offers a candid, tactical, and occasionally wry breakdown of what it really takes to build a memorable brand, align cross-functional teams, and even create an entirely new market category. If you’re a marketing leader navigating conservative industries or looking to do more with less, there’s plenty here to underline, highlight, and maybe even steal (ethically, of course).
Make the Brand Memorable—Even in a Sea of Baby Blue Scrubs
For Russel, the opportunity in health tech branding isn’t in reinventing the wheel—it’s in moving beyond the default imagery. “A lot of healthcare marketing involves people dressed up like doctors wearing baby blue scrubs, looking over iPads,” she jokes. “The challenge in healthcare of helping your brand stand out is… a relatively low bar.”
This isn’t just snark; it’s strategic. If your competitors are asleep at the creative wheel, even subtle differentiation—like bold color choices, unique photography, or a tone that’s not robotic—can significantly raise brand recall. “People can’t buy brands they don’t know,” she points out. Visibility leads to recognition, which leads to re-engagement. And that matters in B2B where, as Russel reminds us, only 5% of your audience is actively buying at any given time.
Her advice: Stop treating brand work like fluffy indulgence. Start treating it like a pipeline enabler.
Speak to the Human, Not Just the Buyer
Healthcare may be a regulated industry, but the buyers? They’re still people. This may seem obvious, but as Russel puts it, “One of the things that happens a lot in healthcare… is you forget that the company’s just made up of a lot of people.” That mental shift—seeing the buyers not as job titles, but as parents, runners, weekend chefs—isn’t just warm and fuzzy. It’s commercially intelligent.
Symplr went so far as to reorganize its entire product architecture around the humans who use its software, shifting away from traditional vertical labels like “provider data management” toward categories based on roles—e.g., clinical users or HR users. “It’s one thing to do it in marketing,” Russel explains. “It’s another thing to have your sales team show up thinking that way, or your product team building for those users.”
This alignment across departments isn’t just about clarity. It builds trust. When messaging, product design, and sales engagement all align around the real needs of real people, customers feel it.
Category Creation: The Long Game (with a Lot of Coffee)
If brand differentiation is the warm-up act, category creation is the headliner—and Russel doesn’t sugarcoat the effort involved. “It takes a lot of coffee. You better have some good wine on hand too, and a lot of determination,” she quips. But the mechanics she lays out are anything but vague.
Symplr’s move to establish “healthcare operations” as a distinct category came from customer insight. “They had a name for their ERP. They had a name for RevCycle. But for everything else, they just called it ‘the other budget,’” Russel says. That void was the opening.
From there, symplr:
- Educated analysts.
- Crafted a compelling narrative.
- Engaged competitors to validate and populate the category.
- Partnered across internal teams to embed the idea into training, learning, and development.
It’s a textbook case in how category creation isn’t about dreaming up jargon in a boardroom. It’s about naming and shaping something the market already experiences—but hasn’t yet defined.
One of her most pragmatic warnings? “If you’re not careful, you can end up creating a market for the competition.” First mover advantage isn’t enough—you have to be strong (and relevant) enough to stick around once others join the party.
Measuring Brand in a Scrappy, Share-of-Voice Way
Marketing leaders often face pressure to “justify” brand spend. Russel’s approach is refreshingly unsentimental: use brand to drive demand. “Brand done well drives your acquisition,” she asserts. Rather than investing in expensive brand tracking studies, symplr uses tools like:
- Word clouds from social platforms.
- Share of voice metrics through PR agencies.
- Competitive context via LinkedIn, Google Analytics, and SEMrush.
- Google Trends to track search relevance.
The goal? Be number one in share of voice within the industry. “And we are,” Russel adds—though not without quickly knocking on wood.
Importantly, she sees brand and performance marketing as two sides of the same coin. A memorable brand makes every campaign work harder. That alone should silence a few skeptics.
Staying Agile as a Marketing Leader
As a final insight, Russel highlights the importance of staying connected. Her strategy? A mix of peer conversations and vendor curiosity. “I still take a lot of vendor calls,” she says. Not necessarily to buy, but to understand what’s emerging.
She’s also part of CMO Huddles, which she likens—half-seriously—to a 12-step group for marketing leaders. “You all get together and you talk about what are you doing, how are you doing this,” she says. It’s a reminder that agility isn’t just about speed—it’s about listening, adapting, and surrounding yourself with smart perspectives.
Final Thoughts: Building Brands That Do More Than Look Good
Kristin Russel’s approach to brand, category, and cross-functional alignment is a reminder that marketing isn’t just about messaging—it’s about meaning. Whether it’s reorienting around the human buyer, defining a market that didn’t exist before, or measuring brand impact with pragmatic tools, her team at symplr shows that even in conservative sectors, marketing can drive transformation.
For marketing leaders in regulated industries, her advice is both clear-eyed and inspiring: Don’t wait for permission to be memorable. Don’t confuse constraints with limitations. And never forget—your buyer is a human first.
