Agritech Marketing Case Study: Brand Relaunch

Ostara

Overview

Ostara is a North American technology company founded in 2005. It originally specialized in water treatment, using its proprietary Pearl technology to help cities recover excess phosphorus, nitrogen, and magnesium from wastewater. These recovered nutrients became Crystal Green®, now CG P2X, a granular fertilizer with growing demand. As Crystal Green consistently sold out, Ostara rebranded as a fertilizer company and prepared to launch its new brand in Canada, with expansion planned for the U.S. The company’s challenge was to explain its new vision and product value to a market that resists change, while sustaining momentum and supporting rapid growth.

With shifting customer expectations and an industry that is ripe for disruption by startups and new technology, agriculture suppliers have new opportunities to capture the attention of farmers and retailers by solving specific industry problems while showcasing innovation – turning to agritech marketing strategies to achieve this.

Ostara found itself at this crossroads after rebranding from a water treatment company to a fertilizer company. While its proprietary Pearl technology and Crystal Green fertilizer drove strong demand and sold out inventory, the company needed to translate that momentum into long-term growth. The challenge was to explain Ostara’s new vision to growers and retailers and differentiate itself in a market resistant to change.

Pace Strategy was brought in to design and execute a digital-first B2B product launch in agritech. The goal was to clearly communicate Ostara’s value, support its sales team, and position the new brand for expansion across North America. The product launch aligned the brand, content, and digital experience with the needs of modern agricultural buyers.

How Ostara’s Approach Differed

Farmers have moved much of their research online. McKinsey’s 2026 Global Farmer Insights found 36% of farmers now use digital channels to evaluate and compare products, up 14 percentage points from 2024. Trusted advisers still turn that research into purchases.

Ostara built for both in 2022, ahead of that shift:

Research-ready. An education hub farmers can use on their own, organized around the questions they ask at each stage of the sales journey.
Adviser-ready. Content retailers and salespeople can send, so the adviser conversation and the website tell the same story. McKinsey identifies distributors as the most efficient channel for introducing new products.
One brand. A single website carried one sustainability and performance message across every channel.

40% annual revenue growth

38% reduced bounce rate

150% increased time on site

Challenge

The plant-produced Crystal Green had the same properties and benefits as Crystal Green Pearl. It lacked the water treatment story that made the sustainability message easy to tell. Ostara and Crystal Green also ran on separate websites, splitting the brand when it needed one voice most.

Ostara needed answers to five questions:

Which agritech marketing strategies would work best for a newly rebranded fertilizer company?
How could Ostara communicate the rebrand coherently to its stakeholders?
How could buyers discover Ostara’s thought leadership content?
How could the website put users first?
How could Ostara showcase its expertise?

Product Launch Risks

The rebrand carried three commercial risks, each addressed in the launch activation plan:

Losing the sustainability story. Plant-produced Crystal Green no longer came from wastewater, the origin that made its environmental case easy to tell. Content moved the story from where the product came from to what it does in the field: releasing phosphorus in response to crop roots.
A split brand at launch. Two websites meant two stories. Consolidating them into one brand removed the risk of buyers and retailers meeting conflicting messages.
A compressed timeline. The launch had 16 weeks to be ready for the Canadian launch. The timeline included measures to protect search rankings during the website consolidation. The team mapped all necessary redirects to prevent traffic or organic visibility loss, safeguarding the company’s digital presence and minimizing disruption to lead generation.

Ostara case study — Ostara online navigation focused on the customer experience

Solution

Leadership & Change Management

The chief commercial officer (CCO) set the initiative’s objectives and coordinated with the marketing lead to ensure alignment with overall business strategy and market needs. The CCO reviewed and approved the brand positioning, while the marketing lead oversaw the creation and execution of launch materials. The CCO provided final sign-off on the launch. The CCO and marketing lead reviewed progress regularly to ensure milestones were met and objectives stayed on track.

Agritech Marketing Rebrand

Pace Strategy audited Ostara’s existing marketing channels and content. The team then consolidated the Ostara and Crystal Green websites so the company presented as one brand. The team optimized the new site for search and mobile. A new blog and resource center gave Ostara a home for thought leadership.

Digital Enablement Strategy

An educational content strategy guides buyers through each phase of the sales journey. The goal is to build trust earlier and shorten the sales cycle, so buyers researching Crystal Green can easily find what they need. See how the same thinking shapes sales enablement content architecture.

SEO Strategy

Pace Strategy optimized the website for earned and organic search. The aim was to attract relevant traffic from growers and retailers to the education hub and product pages. When considering ROI, a sophisticated SEO strategy has showed to be the best marketing investment companies can make.

Storytelling Content Creation

The team wrote technical and storytelling content to create demand for Crystal Green. That included a rewritten About story and high-value articles for the online education hub, used for organic search, social media promotion, and lead nurturing.

User-Centric Website Design

A new site map and content flow put the customer experience first. The design gave buyers a simpler path to answers, aiming to reduce bounce rate and increase engagement.

Marketing Technology Infrastructure Consulting

Pace Strategy built the insights section on WordPress, using PHP, jQuery, and custom development. The rest of the website runs on a headless Gatsby build. The team chose this stack to keep pages fast and the digital experience aligned with the innovation behind Pearl technology.

The architecture was built to grow with the business. One consolidated domain means a new market adds pages, not a new website. The WordPress content hub lets Ostara’s team publish education articles directly, and the headless front end keeps pages fast as the content library grows.

Editorial Calendar

A quarterly editorial calendar plans high-value articles for the education hub, each tied to key messages in the customer journey. Salespeople send these articles to prospects in emails and newsletters to stay in touch between conversations.

Case Study for Ostara — Crystal Green Pearl product image

Results

Return on Investment

The launch was highly successful, with strategic partnerships forming immediately and contributing to revenue growth from the outset. These relationships have proven long-lasting, positioning Ostara for a high customer lifetime value (LTV) that will continue for years to come. The business operates on a distributor model, enabling broad market access and ongoing partnership-driven growth.

Launch Outcomes

The new website launched the Ostara brand in Canada, and Ostara then expanded into the United States. Bounce rate fell 38% and time on site rose 150%. Ostara also reported 40% annual revenue growth, supported by strong demand for Crystal Green.

After launch, Ostara continued working with Pace Strategy on a series of educational assets each quarter, promoted as part of its campaigns.

Where Ostara Is Today

Ostara’s growth continued after launch. The company raised USD $70 million to complete a St. Louis plant with planned capacity of 200,000 tons a year. It now sells through retailers and distributors in North America and Europe. In January 2026, Crystal Green became CG P2X, a name built to carry Ostara’s product pipeline.

Capital, manufacturing, and product innovation drove that growth. The digital foundation built in 2022 gave each step one brand and one content hub to build on.

For the lessons behind this work, read why a B2B product launch in agritech should start with the story, not the spend.