Hertility's oh shit moment

Charlotte Ponnelle is an Up Club member and the Brand Lead at Hertility. I got to grill her last week in what might be the first of a series of members interviews, if you enjoy it. She took me through the journey they’ve been on over the past few years.

The lesson?

You don’t just build a brand.

You nurture it, lovingly, step by step.

Picture the scene… It was 2023.

Hertility knew they needed more awareness.

There was a strong conversion from awareness to action (as it turns out, anxiety about fertility isn’t a niche issue), so they needed more eyes on the brand.

Digital wasn’t enough.

Their data suggested that their performance marketing returns were plateauing, and they’d seen exciting uplift from some OOH tests in the past.

They wanted to be relatable.

“Your gynae, but on the sofa in your PJs,” as Charlotte put it.

Then JC Decaux came knocking with a massive opportunity…

High-impact media space, at a price they felt they couldn’t refuse.

Attention-grabbing copy.

Massive locations.

BIG moment for a small team.

The outcome? Awareness soared.

But here’s the catch….

They were tracking brand perception with Tracksuit and the data was scary.

Trust in the brand nosedived.

Charlotte put it eloquently. This was an oh shit moment.

Awareness had grown (yippee!), but the goalposts shifted quickly… Now they needed to rebuild trust.

The next quarter, they pivoted their marketing strategy to focus on credibility. And it worked.

They put the Founders on podcasts

From Caggie Dunlop’s Saturn Returns to Working Hard, Hardly Working with Grace Beverley, podcasts allowed the Hertility founders to enter into existing conversations amongst their target audience and gave them time to showcase their expertise in the field.

They produced rich scientific content

Amongst the data dearth that exists in women’s health (omen have been excluded from clinical trials since 1993), Hertility analysed their growing dataset of almost half a million modern women today and published it in their ReProductive Report that was picked up by The Times, The Telegraph, The Guardian and Dr Helen O’Neill, the Founder, was interviewed on Sky News.

They built partnerships outside of their industry

Previous partnerships within other femtech start ups hadn’t worked. So they looked outside the category and partnered with Cult Beauty, aligning them with a more established brand for credibility while using the campaign to raise funds for their research into Black women’s health.

The small team re-evaluated everything through a trust-building lens.

With the new strategy in play, it was a nail-biting month, but the next Tracksuit data refresh showed a whopping 16% increase in being known as an advocate for women’s health and a 14% growth in brand trust… It was working.

The best bit? All this data is now helping them innovate even better products, to serve their mission and reach more women.

Inspired?

We are too. We'll be sharing more of these stories so keep an eye out.

Lottie x