Home services brand
Monthly revenue that used to take a year.
A family firm restoring period windows across Edinburgh had spent more than fifty years earning a reputation the market rarely saw. Turnover sat near £300K a year on word of mouth alone. We built the commercial system the craft deserved, and by the close £300K was the monthly number.
The situation
Five decades of craft the market could not see.
Edinburgh is a conservation city: around fifty conservation areas and roughly 4,500 listed buildings inside a UNESCO World Heritage setting, most holding original timber windows that eventually need expert hands. This firm had those hands, and five decades of proof behind them, almost none of it public.
Around 1.5 orders arrived each week, nearly all referred. There was no tracking, no structured acquisition, hardly any public reviews and a manual onboarding process that put friction between enquiry and order. In a market where buyers had learned to be wary, the craft deserved a far larger share than the business was taking.
The market model
Sizing the prize before spending a pound.
We built the addressable market from public conservation and heritage data before any media went live. The in-market pool ran to roughly eight or nine orders in any given week, and at an average order value of £10,000 the sums were stark. Moving from 1.5 orders a week to five would take close to 60% of that pool and make the business the clear market leader. The £1M growth target was set on that basis, and every activity that followed was planned against it.
| Step | Reading |
|---|---|
| Population, ages 40 to 65 | ~220,000 |
| Period properties in scope | 4,500 |
| In-market each year, at 10% | 450 |
| In-market each month | 37.5 |
| In-market each week | 8.65 |
The ceiling was self-imposed. Five orders a week makes the firm the market leader.
The programme
Four phases, each compounding the last.
Set-up built the foundations: strategy, advanced tracking, landing pages, a CRM changeover and deep research into competitors and customers. Implementation switched the system on: review generation, paid search, SEO, outbound partnership work and a rebuilt acquisition process. Optimisation sharpened every touchpoint from discovery to aftercare with automation, retargeting and conversion work. Brand building layered content, partnerships, showroom experience and referral programmes on top once the engine was earning.
Foundations first, then the engine, then the compounding layers.
The activity map, phase by phase. Nothing launches before the layer beneath it can hold it.
Customer intelligence
Messaging built from evidence.
Sentiment analysis across reviews, forums and buyer communities mapped what the market feared and what it valued. Pain clustered around maintenance burden, heat loss, noise, price uncertainty and the rules governing period properties, while value clustered around workmanship, guarantees, communication and aftercare, with real buyer price reports benchmarking the market. Every proposition the business now runs traces back to a documented customer need, which is why the messaging converts.
| What buyers fear | What the firm proves |
|---|---|
| Maintenance burden | Engineered, pressure-treated timber finished in the workshop. Lifespans past sixty years with care. |
| Draughts and heat loss | Precision double glazed units and draught sealing, built for period frames. |
| Outside noise | Modern acoustic performance inside original profiles. |
| Price uncertainty | Clear quotations set against buyer-reported market rates, with repair offered where replacement is unnecessary. |
| Slow, opaque trades | A ten-year guarantee, factory finishing and a six-week lead time from order. |
Every claim maps to a documented fear, so the marketing answers the questions buyers were already asking one another.
The review engine
Proof, engineered around a decay curve.
A premium price needs public proof behind it, and the review base could not carry it. We segmented the CRM into converted and non-converted customers, then sequenced contact around the moment of highest goodwill: a warm call referencing the specific project, a same-day email carrying the direct link, and spaced follow-ups for anyone who had not yet acted.
Willingness to review peaks at a positive milestone and decays by the day, so the team was trained to spot those moments and move while the goodwill was live.
Goodwill decays by the day. The sequence moves before it does.
- Rapport first, with points specific to the project rather than a script.
- Reference the finished work while it is fresh.
- Flag the email already on its way, so the link lands expected.
Leave a review →
- Carries a direct profile link. Testing showed the platform’s own review links misfire on some devices.
- One gentle nudge with the same link, and breathing space so it stays welcome.
- Customers who never bought are routed to a different sequence, for market intelligence rather than reviews.
- Staff with direct customer contact trained to spot the delight moments and start the sequence.
The sequence as the team still runs it. Personal, specific and timed to the goodwill, with the incentive of being helpful to the next owner.
Demand capture
High intent, tight control.
Paid search targeted high-intent terms with a disciplined negative keyword list, a regional focus and cost-per-lead thresholds. Search query reports ran weekly, bidding stayed manual until the account had earned automation, and landing pages carried the reviews and casework the engine was now producing, so every click landed on proof. A four-figure budget against a £10,000 order left no room for waste, and discipline was the strategy.
| Item | Setting |
|---|---|
| Budget | £1,000 a month |
| Lead target | 5 to 10 a month |
| Cost per lead benchmark | ~£80 |
| Click-through aim | 10 to 12% |
| Months 1 and 2 | Learning and data population |
| Month 3 | Optimisation and retargeting |
| Reporting | Looker dashboard, weekly calls, monthly deep dive |
The search unit and the plan behind it. Every claim in the ad is one the firm can prove.
The trade layer
The people who specify the work.
Alongside consumer demand, outreach reopened relationships with the people who specify this work: architects, heritage bodies and local institutions. The offer led with the value the product brings to their projects, and the workshop itself made the close, with prospects invited in to see the craft first-hand. Partnerships with architectural practices, councils and charities were sequenced into phase four so the brand layer landed on a working engine.
The outcome
A year’s turnover, every month.
Revenue grew from £300K to £2.18M, 118% above the £1M target set at the start of the programme. The business closed the engagement generating in a month what it had previously turned over in a year, on infrastructure it now owns outright.
| Measure | Before | After |
|---|---|---|
| Annual revenue | £300K | £2.18M |
| Growth target | £1M set on day one | 118% above |
| Monthly revenue at close | The prior year’s turnover | |
| Orders a week | 1.5 | Around seven, implied by the closing run rate |
Where does your brand sit against the business?
Every engagement starts with the Brand Alignment Diagnostic, a fixed first step that scores your brand against the business and shows what to fix first.