02 — THE NUMBERS AT A GLANCE
46%
Growth in leads
132%
Organic traffic growth
62%
Reduction in manual workload
03 — the Situation
BTN Academy delivers nutrition qualifications to the fitness industry, Level 2 through to the high-ticket Level 4 professional qualification.
The business had been neglected by its owner for years. In practice one person ran it, and that person also taught the courses. When your only operator is stood in a classroom, nothing else gets done.
There was no sales process. Enquiries arrived and were handled by whoever noticed them, if anyone did. No follow-up, no pipeline, no view of what was in progress.
More fundamentally, the strategy was wrong at the top. The business marketed to fitness professionals and only fitness professionals, which put it in direct competition with larger providers on their terms, for a limited pool of people, on price and brand recognition. It couldn't win that fight and nobody had asked whether it needed to.
Wrong positioning. Audience too narrow. No route to market beyond hoping people found the site. And a product ladder with a gap at the bottom where the entry point should have been.
04 — THE FUN BIT
what
We dId
01
audited the data before anything
Where enquiries came from, what converted, what the pipeline looked like, and what the business was actually worth by product tier.
That analysis produced everything below. Without it, the obvious move would have been "more marketing for the Level 4", which would have been wrong.
03
widened the audience
The Level 2 foundation course had been sold to the same people as everything else. We repositioned it two ways: to Level 2 fitness instructors as a natural progression, and to people outside the fitness industry entirely with a personal interest in nutrition.
That second group was the significant one. A market the business had never spoken to, and one it wasn't competing with anyone for.
02
rebuilt the sale process first
Before any acquisition work, the process for handling an enquiry had to exist. There was no point generating leads for a business that couldn't follow them up.
Sales process, automated follow-up, and a defined pipeline so the business could see what was in progress rather than finding out at enrolment.
04
built a new entry level prodcut
A one-off purchase that worked as a lead magnet into the higher-ticket courses. Low commitment for the customer, and something for marketing to sell to people who weren't ready for a qualification.
The ladder had been Level 2 to Level 4 with nothing before it. Now there was a first step.
05
rebuilt the level 4 pipeline
06
The high-ticket product needed a different approach entirely. Longer consideration, higher value, more reassurance required. Dedicated nurture, dedicated follow-up, and intake planning rather than a continuous drip.
built the organic engine
Keyword strategy, content pillars and site structure, planned against the new audience segments rather than the old one. We utilsie dbacklinks through partner organisations to drive traffic to our site. This drove the 132% organic growth over two years.
04 — the outcome
What Worked
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£75,000 additional revenue within year 1
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Organic traffic grew 132% over two years, driven by content and search rather than paid spend.
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Manual workload fell 62%, measured on time saved. In a business with one operator that isn't an efficiency gain, it's a capacity gain. The person running it got their week back.
What Went Wrong
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The website rebuild was handed to an external agency who locked down the build. Every subsequent change had to go through them, so a landing page test that should have taken an afternoon took a fortnight and a purchase order.
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That one decision slowed everything downstream of it for the rest of the engagement.
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It's why we now insist clients own their platforms outright. Your website, your CRM, your ad accounts, in your name. If a supplier's commercial model depends on you not being able to make changes yourself, that isn't a technical constraint, it's a business model, and you'll pay for it every month.
