How a young genetic testing company developed its brand strategy and core messaging on a budget

Prioritising spend to make tight marketing budgets go further

The context, the challenge

Volta Technologies Ltd (Halogene) approached Copestone at a pivotal stage in their development. Halogene was positioning itself as a UK Centre of Excellence for rapid genetic testing, diagnostics and genetic counselling from its base at Imperial College London. During the pandemic, the company had focused on COVID testing. As the pandemic threat receded, the focus shifted back onto genetic testing with a shorter-term goal of selling genetic testing to healthcare organisations and professionals, such as oncologists, in private hospitals and clinics. In the medium term, Halogene planned to expand testing to B2C markets.

But it faced multiple challenges. It was a young company with limited brand recognition that needed to build trust with its target audience: clinicians and doctors. It also had underdeveloped marketing collateral and scant resources to spend on marketing. Nevertheless, specialist marketing and copywriting support was required to develop a brand strategy and rework core messaging to build trust and awareness.

The solution

Copestone developed a brand strategy to target all stakeholders that would build trust in, and awareness of, the company’s genetic testing capabilities. We suggested Halogene create marketing assets and collateral to help achieve both these aims and recommended where to prioritise spend. As a priority, Copestone’s healthcare copywriter reviewed Halogene’s existing website content and reworked it in the form of a narrative and in a language appropriate for the target audience and the diagnostic and genetic testing industry.

The impact

The new core messaging helped position Halogene as a prospect stakeholders could trust and rely on to provide rapid, reliable and affordable genetic and diagnostic testing. The reworked copy simplified Halogene’s message and helped to bring the company’s story and its key offering – The HALO System – to life.

Chief Operating Officer, Alistair Ruffett, noted: “Copestone’s strategic input and content provides the infrastructure we need to relaunch our brand with our core proposition, placing it front of our target stakeholders’ minds.”