Success Story
CI’s B2B Content Strategy Framework Helps Haltech Clients Accelerate Market Entry
Global startups find rapid market entry into North America with CI’s brand strategy and go-to-market framework through Haltech’s Acceleration+ Program, winner of the Global Startups’ 2024 Visionary Award.
THE BACKGROUND
Haltech Helps Canada Welcome International Business
Regional Innovation Centre Haltech serves startup and scale-up companies across industries in Ontario. Its Acceleration+ program exists to support innovative international startups looking to enter Canadian and US markets.
While many of these startups could leverage professional networks and contacts in their home country, their knowledge of the Canadian market is limited. Haltech’s expansion program offers a broad network of domestic connections, educational resources, and advisory services — but to make the best use of these services, startups must know who they’re marketing to, and how.
| Details | |
|---|---|
Client | |
Founded | 2011 |
Sector | Incubator | Regional Innovation Centre |
Product | Business Advisory, Innovation Services & Workshops |
Services | B2B Content Marketing Services |
THE CHALLENGE
Developing Impactful B2B Content For the Canadian Market
By definition, success in any new market — Canadian or otherwise — requires local market knowledge. While many of these startups arrive here with brilliant ideas — from clean tech to healthcare or entertainment — they aren’t necessarily marketers. Even when they do come with marketing experience or infrastructure, the product features and benefits deemed crucial in their home country might not carry the same impact here. Indeed, they often lead with a solution-first approach, rather than understanding how to position themselves and how to fulfil an unmet customer need in this market, a foundation for impactful market entry — and impactful marketing.
Most startups in the Acceleration+ program needed help discerning and articulating their value proposition before developing a content marketing strategy for Canada. Complicating Haltech’s task further, some startups already were in the market. But what was their local value proposition? Without baseline go-to-market strategies, and accompanying marketing and content marketing plans, Haltech advisors struggled to move them further down the road to successful market entry, and apply the wide array of beneficial services Acceleration+ offers.
“The program goal is to speed the commercialization of these startups. We found with earlier cohorts that advisors were bogged down with messaging and minutiae. By partnering with Content Innovo, we now have the tools and structure to scale participants faster, knowing we will have a cohesive content and marketing plan that can be applied throughout the Acceleration+ program.”
Perla Lopez
Program Director, Haltech
THE SOLUTION
CI’s Scalable, Localized Go-to-Market Brand & Content Strategy
Developing content marketing strategy and creating content within a brand voice is what we at Content Innovo do for all our clients. To meet the needs of Haltech clients, leading strategists at Content Innovo (CI) developed a structured, adaptable framework to build go-to-market strategies for international startups.
Step 1: Market Positioning & Competitive Analysis
Startups worked through a templated and detailed suite of questions to discover business insights to enlighten and sharpen their marketing. The results informed their buyer personas and preliminary strategy — something rough for them and their team to react to — minimizing back-and-forth debates.
Step 2: Detailed Go-To-Market Strategy
With personas and strategy in hand, we dove into market and competitive-landscape research — vital in unearthing insights into their niche. The insights were synthesized into a detailed go-to-market strategy. We reviewed the results thoroughly with them, so everyone was involved in the process and learning in real time.
Step 3: Activation Content Package
We worked with the startups to create an initial content package for activation. It aligned to their needs and came with a video reel to promote their business through social channels. Plus, we built a 6-month content calendar to engage their primary audience and influencers.
The Haltech solution is plug-and-play. Each completed package detailed the given participant’s value proposition, ideal customer, and proposed content plan.
“Honing in on the new market value proposition was a critical first step for participants,” explained Perla Lopez, Program Director, Haltech. “The Content Innovo team helped participants think through their existing proposition, how this could be applied to the Canadian market, and how to differentiate from new market competitors to gain traction quickly.”
THE RESULTS
Quicker Market Penetration for the Startups at Haltech
The results for Haltech were immediate. In just 2 months, Content Innovo was able to complete the program for a cohort of 15+ clients, and CI has helped this Ontario centre for innovation with facilitating three cohorts of startups. Haltech’s business advisors could then move forward quickly and work with these organizations on other critical business plan elements, and start generating sales from the Canadian market.
Perla Lopez, Program Director at Haltech, saw a real difference after they implemented the approach developed by Content Innovo. “The program goal is to speed the commercialization of these startups. We found with earlier cohorts that advisors were bogged down with messaging and minutiae. By partnering with Content Innovo, we now have the tools and structure to scale participants faster, knowing we will have a cohesive content and marketing plan that can be applied throughout the Accelerator+ program.”
About Content Innovo Solutions & Services
Content Innovo’s approach to B2B content marketing services and branding is to employ narrow and deep. That is, we retain quick access to 80+ specialists in varying niche sectors to accelerate the success of small and medium businesses.
Another CI differentiator? We provide clients with easy-to-follow industry-specific thought-leadership strategy. We can take your B2B content marketing — or, as with Haltech’s example, their clients’ — from its earliest stages of strategy through months of content planning and execution, through to ongoing website design, professional proofreading and editing services. And anything in between.
