02 — THE NUMBERS AT A GLANCE
310k
Monthly reach from 40k
6
Months to achieve the numbers
£70k
A month recurring income
03 — the Situation
A large independent builders & plumbing merchant with a LinkedIn page nobody was reading.
The content was what you'd expect. Vehicle updates, product offers, delivery announcements. Company news for an audience that didn't work at the company. Reach sat around 40,000 a month across 4,000 followers, and it was treated as a box to tick.
The interesting part isn't the content problem. It's why the content problem existed.
The directors didn't want to name customers, for fear it would help competitors poach them. They didn't see the value in a digital journey for a business built on trade counters and relationships. And they didn't want to post from their own personal profiles. Which left one option: post about products. So that's what happened, and nobody read it.
04 — THE FUN BIT
what
We dId
01
made the arugment, then made it again
The case had to be won before any content changed. Naming a customer on a project post isn't a risk, it's a referral in public. Trade businesses are built on reputation, and reputation is a social artefact. Losing that argument would have meant no case study to write.
03
put the team behind it
Content produced by a mix of the marketing team and branch staff. People on site who knew which projects were worth showing and could get a photo without it being a production.
02
pivoted from products to people focused content
Customer projects. Large commercial builds. Staff promotions. Charity events. Partnerships, including work with Microlise. The stories happening inside the branches every day that never left them.
04
keep it consistent
Not a campaign. A permanent change in what the channels were used for. Whilst sales and product campaigns still featured, building relatable content for our customers was the main focus.
04 — the outcome
What Worked
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Monthly reach grew from 40,000 to 310,000 over six months. Followers grew from 4,000 to 5,000 in a year, which is the less impressive number and the more honest one, because reach puts you in front of people and followers are what happens afterwards.
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The commercial outcome mattered more than either. Enquiries for larger commercial projects increased, including one that became a customer now spending around £70,000 a month.
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The sales team also stopped treating LinkedIn as marketing's hobby, because prospects started referencing the content in conversations.
What Went Wrong
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Longer written pieces. Thought-leadership posts and long-form articles consistently underperformed against a photograph of a finished project with two lines about who built it.
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Trade audiences want proof, not prose.
