Let’s do this. We have space for 2 more clients this November. Book your free strategy call now.
Let’s do this. We have space for 2 more clients this November. Book your free strategy call now.
JJ and his brother Alf are the founders of Woodfashioners, an Essex based sustainable business. They only use FSC certified wood, their workshop is powered by 100% renewable energy and 95% of their waste is recycled.
The business started in 2008 as a “solo” carpentry business and in 2018 evolved into a bespoke exhibition and event stand design & manufacturing service, serving clients all over Europe at events such as Cannes Lions.
And then… we all know what happened in March 2020!
All events were cancelled.
They had just expanded into a bigger workshop and hired staff 
But, there were no orders coming in 
Alf and JJ quickly pivoted into building bespoke furniture since everyone was stuck at home and suddenly needed better spaces for work and learning.
Afterall, they had 12 years of woodworking experience, a commitment to sustainability, and a great eye for design! The only thing missing was more leads, especially as the pandemic went on and on and never seemed to end.
JJ and I have been friends for a few years. During the pandemic, I started a mastermind for a handful of business owners so we could share ideas and support each other through this hard time. This is where JJ shared his pain with the group, and we immediately got to work.
“Our website is just a business card. Most of our business comes from referrals and word of mouth so we never really focused on digital marketing” – this is what JJ said.
The website was a basic, but well-designed Squarespace website they had created themselves. It didn’t really say anything about what they did.
They had a Google Maps profile, but there weren’t any reviews or photos so safe to say – not really working hard for them.
So my first recommendations to JJ were very basic, but also what proved to be the most effective:
It sounds simple, but so many businesses aren’t doing these basic steps right.
At the time, they were running Google Search Ads with the minimum budget of £1.5 per day (£45/month or S$75) and getting 1-2 enquiries per month. More often than not, those enquiries didn’t convert because they were looking for cheap furniture or something the Ryan brothers didn’t want to deliver.
In a way, I wanted their digital marketing to similarly be as sustainable as possible and I knew that just spending more money in ads without any other work would have been a waste.
So the next step was plumping up with the blog with very few but very well written articles that showcased their unique expertise. When we started: 0 articles. May 2024: 10 articles. So you can see: quality, not quantity.
Titles such as:
Are incredibly valuable because they not only build their authority on Google over time, but also show their expertise and experience to perspective clients.
Once the content was ready on the website, it was time to finetune the Google Ads.
We knew we wanted to keep the budget small because all they needed were 10 good quality enquiries per month.
The strategy was to ruthlessly eliminate search terms which didn’t align with what Woodfashioners offered and restrict the location to Essex and London.
In the words of JJ who shared this in an interview:
Do you have a CMO or a dedicated marketing team?
As the business focused founder of a small family company – I take on the responsibility of marketing and sales myself.
Before joining the pickling club [the COVID mastermind] that seemed like quite a daunting activity, but having put in the ground work during covid, and through a combination of digitisation and regular updates, the marketing is more or less taking care of itself and we are getting more leads then we can handle at the moment.
So much so that we have stopped any paid advertising with Google (we were only paying the minimum of £1.5 a day) and on social media.
What digital activities do you do to grow your business?
We primarily focus on SEO through a combination of blogging, new content and social media at the moment. We were paying the minimum per month for Google Ads, but stopped it earlier this year as we were starting to get too many leads through our website. That is still the case despite stopping the ads.
So after an initial iteration and website improvement period, the ads quickly started to deliver 10-15+ highly qualified, easy to convert leads. This in turn improved the organic ranking of the website content, which is why JJ was able to turn off the Search Ads campaign and STILL receive a similar amount of leads.
Luckily, events resumed in 2022 and Alf and JJ were able to go back to their main business of building exhibition / retail / event stands – and I’m proud to say they haven’t advertised since because of how well their website is working.
I hope this inspires all other business owners who think they need a marketing team, an expensive website or thousands in ads campaigns…. If your product is truly valuable and unique, it only takes a few small but well placed adjustments to fix your sales pipeline!
Not sure where you fall on the spectrum? Book a free strategy call and we’ll help you figure it out.