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How you can grow your business on a budget with a tailored content marketing solution
Growing a business is tough, and finding the right tools to grow is vital, especially in the early stages.
Not all clients who approach us know exactly what those tools are, but they do know they need to connect and engage with the right customers and demonstrate value to them – especially if their solution isn’t widely known.
Below, I wanted to share this open case study, as an example of my work so far with Portolio, an estate agent specialising in tenanted property sales and purchases, who have an incredibly proactive and healthy attitude towards growing their business.
They know they need to be answering their customers’ biggest questions, and addressing their challenges and pushbacks – and usually, they even know what these are. Just not how to shape this into helpful content as part of a wider strategy that helps them grow their business.
Below, we’ve highlighted an example of how we worked with Portolio to help them put together a solid strategy that grew their business by 153% in the past 12 months alone.
The challenge
As a fairly new business, co-founded by Chris and Ross – two property pros with a combined 30+ years in the industry – Portolio were already part of the Royal Bank of Scotland Accelerator programme, and approached me about what they should be doing to grow their business.
I was impressed with the guys’ proactive attitudes towards making Portolio a success, and I could tell they were already doing a lot of the right things. So, I explained more about content marketing, and why it would be a good fit for their industry based on their average sale value.
However, budget was an issue for them. When I explained the standard costs for our content marketing package, including the setup fee (which usually takes 6 – 8 weeks to complete), Portolio realised this would be a challenge for them at this stage of their business.
Having set their heart on content marketing by this point, they were willing to look at solutions, as they didn’t want to pass up the opportunity to invest in long-term growth for their business, and new content marketing was the best way forward.
The solution
Fortunately we were able to put together a plan that meant not exactly reducing our costs, but stretching the setup period for Portolio’s seller’s funnel out over a longer period of time, to a few months, whilst also working on other aspects of marketing.
Towards the beginning of working with them, Portolio also decided they wanted a new website, so another aspect of the work we carried out for them involved putting together all-new web content and call-to-actions.
In terms of their content marketing, one of the first things we did was to create two decision stage landing pages (something we’d usually do last), so that we could help Portolio with some more immediate social media and Facebook ads, directing traffic to those landing pages and getting some immediate leads.
Another thing I did to help with Portolio’s budget, was come up with some very clear guidance for Chris to write three awareness blogs, and three awareness case studies.
I then edited these, before publishing them on their website and using them to create an email nurturing automation with ActiveCampaign, to provide their leads with all the right information, at the right time.
The awareness and consideration stage guides were designed by Carolina based on one main template, with an agreed minimum for edits. She also provided some wonderful, bespoke illustrations to ensure the guys got some amazing value for money.
Slight hitch along the way… (COVID-19)
Portolio made it clear they were prepared for the long-haul, and for putting in a lot of work to get results that would help them grow for years to come. It was important to get all of the pieces (new website, marketing automation, helpful content and premium downloadable guides) in place before their monthly content started going out.
Unfortunately, their content started going out in April 2020, which meant their business was greatly impacted by COVID-19, and the fact that the property market pretty much had to shut down. It also caused us to change strategy, coming up with plenty of content to help landlords and investors through the strange time we found ourselves going through.
This included blog titles such as: ‘COVID-19: 8 of the Biggest Challenges Facing the Scottish Property Market’, ‘We Asked Over 1000 Scottish Landlords About the Impact of COVID-19 – Here’s What They Had to Say’, and ‘9 Tips When Attending (Live) Interactive Virtual Property Viewings’.
The results
Now the property market has reopened, Portolio has seen an incredible surge in sales, and over the past 12 months have reported an amazing 153% increase in annual revenue!
However, I am pleased to say that so far, with our help, the number of visitors to Portolio’s website has more than quadrupled, and the number of sessions have tripled.
Not only that, but organic traffic has increased by over 300%, and they’re regularly seeing new leads come into their automation funnel.
Here’s what Chris had to say:
Bronwen was introduced to my business in the middle of 2019 – at a time when myself and my business partner needed some direction! Like many businesses, we knew we had to find a way to get the word out there.
We needed someone who could help us clarify our message and then share it with the right people – all in an effort to grow our business. I’m delighted to say that Bronwen has proven to be everything we needed. We’ve grown as a business and we continue to work with Bronwen to grow even more.
Employing Bronwen has helped our business grow – by 153% in the past 12 months! A more hard-working, organised and switched on person you could not meet.
CHRIS WOOD
Founder and Managing Director of Portolio
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