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Strategic communications: your brand’s growth engine
What is communications strategy?
At Bader Rutter, we use communications strategy to connect audiences to brands. It’s our foundation for creating unique, resonant brand experiences that meet people where they are and when they’re most ready to engage. A smart strategic communications plan ensures every message and touchpoint works together to strengthen the audience connection throughout each buyer’s journey. With endless media options, it’s not just about reaching your audience — it’s about prioritizing the touchpoints that matter most.
Building Brand Salience
A great communications strategy does more than inform your audience — it inspires them. It turns every interaction into a cohesive, unforgettable brand experience. Through consistent messaging, thoughtful media, and emotionally charged content, we create a brand presence that’s not just recognizable but irreplaceable.
In today’s B2B landscape, being seen isn’t enough; brands must stand for something meaningful. Many of our clients offer cutting-edge products, but their value can get lost in a sea of similar claims. Communications strategy bridges this gap by focusing on emotional connections — how a product helps people spend more time with family, fuels their sense of pride or simply makes their day-to-day life easier.
Ultimately, business decisions are still human decisions. Leaning into the human side of marketing builds trust and loyalty, driving both immediate results and long-term value. An effective strategy reinforces awareness while building the loyalty that ensures your marketing efforts deliver lasting impact.
Being There in the Moment
Connecting with your audience requires a deep understanding of their needs, habits and decision-making moments. A great strategy positions your brand like a trusted friend: always around when it matters most.
By mapping the buyer’s journey, we identify the moments that matter so we can craft messages that resonate. With the right mix of content and channels, your brand doesn’t just show up – it becomes relevant and trusted. The more your audience experiences your brand in meaningful ways, the stronger the connection and the greater the action. That’s how we build salience.
Bringing It to Life: Building Healthy Herds
We helped our client Zoetis US Cattle by designing their Building Healthy Herds campaign to help cattle producers manage herd health with a simple but personalized approach. While the program originated as a one-off lead-generation effort, by digging deeper for audience insights we identified producers’ needs and pain points. With this understanding, we launched a web-based tool that provided them with actionable resources, including peer testimonials to build trust and make it more persuasive. Producers got helpful information exactly when and where they needed it while we gathered valuable CRM data to fuel future engagement. The platform mirrors the branding of the parent Cattle brand, seamlessly tying this digital experience to a broader campaign narrative and boosting brand salience.
Our communications strategy also relied on a diverse media mix, leveraging email, social and direct channels to maintain mental availability. We sent timely and personalized communications to drive immediate conversion. The result? A scalable platform that drove both customer acquisition and brand salience, proving that strategic communications can turn campaigns into sustainable growth engines. And vice versa.
About the Author
An accomplished strategist, Emily O’Brien excels at connecting audiences and brands. With extensive experience across clients like SC Johnson, Intel, Morgan Stanley and MillerCoors, she has a proven track record of driving impact. Notably, she developed the communications strategy and measurement solutions for the Coors Light Experience app, successfully modernizing the brand to attract new drinkers. Emily also played a key role in creating a Cannes-nominated program in collaboration with WSJ Custom Studios, Huge and Morgan Stanley — a groundbreaking virtual reality series that redefined immersive storytelling. Additionally, she spearheaded Intel’s media strategy toward new B2B audiences, enabling expansion into new sectors such as healthcare, retail and education. Central to all her work is a deep focus on leveraging human connection to drive impactful outcomes for her clients.