Byblos HorizonB2B · Brand Acquisition · CEMAC
Ecua Market: B2B Brand Acquisition Across the CEMAC Region
A LinkedIn-first outreach system that opened direct conversations with international brands and built a procurement pipeline the team now runs in-house.
Shopify Partner · Beirut and Paris
Client and context
Retail and distribution from Equatorial Guinea
Client
Ecua Market, retail and distribution, Malabo, Equatorial Guinea
Market
Equatorial Guinea and the wider CEMAC region
Services
LinkedIn-driven B2B outreach, procurement lead generation, distribution partnerships
Ecua Market, based in Malabo, had a clear thesis: become the entry partner for international brands coming into Central Africa. The wider CEMAC region formed the expansion context.
The assignment focused on brand acquisition and procurement relationships rather than consumer advertising. LinkedIn offered a way to identify relevant export managers, distributors and procurement leads in a professional context.
Problem
Finding and reaching the right brand contacts
Ecua Market had limited access to procurement decision-makers at established international brands. The challenge was to find contacts with a plausible connection to the regional opportunity, then approach them with enough context to make a discussion worthwhile.
The process also needed to be repeatable. Ecua Market needed a structured path from identifying a suitable brand contact to opening and tracking a distribution discussion.
That required more than a contact list. Research, qualification, outreach and pipeline management had to work as one process that the internal team could continue using.
What we did
A LinkedIn-first system for brand acquisition
We designed a LinkedIn-first B2B outreach system targeting export managers, distributors and procurement leads. AI-assisted identification and qualification organised the research, while personal outreach gave each contact a relevant business reason to respond.
We built a pipeline for brand acquisition conversations, from first contact to distribution discussion. We also mapped expansion targets across the CEMAC region, with Equatorial Guinea as the operating hub.
- • Designed LinkedIn-first outreach for relevant brand contacts.
- • Used AI-assisted research and qualification.
- • Structured the path from first contact to distribution discussion.
- • Mapped CEMAC expansion targets from the operating hub.
Results
A repeatable route to brand conversations
- • Direct conversations opened with international brands across multiple categories.
- • A repeatable procurement-lead pipeline the team now runs in-house.
- • Active expansion footprint across the CEMAC region, with Equatorial Guinea as the hub.
What we would do next
Refine the pipeline with operating data
The next step would review the data produced by the in-house pipeline. The team could compare contact types, brand categories and conversation stages to decide where continued attention is most useful.
AI-assisted research would continue to support identification and qualification, while personal outreach would remain central to each conversation. The pipeline would show where contacts stall and where the process needs refinement.
The review could also compare the reasons conversations progress or stop. Those patterns would help the team refine qualification criteria and outreach context without replacing personal judgement with automated volume.
The methods already named here connect to the LinkedIn growth and client acquisition service. The commercial context also relates to the e-commerce growth practice. More examples appear on the case studies index.
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