CASE STUDY

Like many startups, a New York based health IT company hit the ground running, focused on product features and not benefits. They were doing the right thing as a young, growing organization by pursuing sustainable revenue, but they were missing out on the efficiencies of targeting their core business, perhaps one of the most mission critical components for any young company.

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To grow, they knew that they had to do three things:

1. Articulate the value they offered and position it to specific audiences as a competitive advantage

2. Confirm their market segment

3. Define their business category

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The solution to accelerating growth in health IT

With strong capabilities and a desire to grow, the health IT company keenly understood their market potential, but to develop and close leads, they needed to determine the priority in positioning the things they were best at to a specific target. Hippos provided the Answer Key to how the company should message to the market, communicate value to core customers, and position against competition. We helped the management clear thru the clutter of startup demands to focus on strategic growth. They overcame a common issue for young startups: even with a great product, without the right message and target, there’s a barrier to success.

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The Answer Key for accelerating growth in health IT

The Answer Key focuses not just on product, but the overall company, as well as specifically targeted lines of business. It identifies the market segment and defines a business’ category while providing a unifying approach for everyone in the company to talk about why the company is important, why clients should work with them and how they are better than the competition.

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Seeing the Answer Key in action, the CEO uses it in interviews and external industry interactions. It’s used for lead generation campaigns. As part of onboarding and internal engagement, employees gain a better understanding of what the company does, its impact and how it positions itself in the market. The Answer Key is used with media to ensure that thought leadership, bylines and messaging are aligned. It’s used for industry panels to make sure the organizers and their panelists know what to highlight about the company. It guides social media initiatives. In the case of the NY health IT company, whereas analysts didn’t have a category for the business, the company is now working with analysts to create one, employing the Answer Key to define it.

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Hippos’ Answer Key provides health IT startups and other companies with a tool to grow by clarifying who they are in the market, their prime customers and how they should present themselves against competition. We also provide a separate Answer Key on how to implement.

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If you’d like to learn more, please contact nevillebetsy@hipposhealth.com.