Launching a new brand in a niche sector

New brand in a niche sector

I quickly learned that the world of freelancing can lead you into some really diverse sectors, and granny annexes are no exception. Even though I knew nothing about this industry to begin with, as always, I really enjoyed learning the ropes on behalf of Anexo, to create an entirely new brand which would help to shape the success of this business from its very first day.

At the beginning of the summer I had rebuilt a former Wix website, for Sussex Garden Rooms. They had wanted to increase their organic visibility and better present their website content. Due to the complete redesign, which had user experience at the very forefront, the results were instantly noticeable and the weekend after the new site was launched, enquiries reached an all time high. As a result of the success of this project, the guys at Sussex Garden Rooms had asked for my assistance with Anexo, the new sister brand of their garden rooms business.

Laying the foundations

My roles within this project were very varied. I was responsible for the initial keyword research, crafting all of the on-site content, building the website within WordPress (as per an excellent wireframe from another designer), inputting the metadata, setting up Google Analytics and subsequently tracking enquiries, and lastly, creating the team email address and Google business listing. A kind of one-stop-shop for launching an online business!

I love working on a project like this, where I can see everything slotting together and working as it should. When I run my first test through the contact form and I see it fire a goal in Google Analytics and rightfully flash up as a new email in a brand new inbox, I get a real sense of satisfaction. I know that there’ll be many more enquiries dotted on these graphs in future, but from real users who are enquiring about an annex for a loved one. I know that these enquiries keep a local business bringing in revenue and paying their employees. And I know that this insight in Google Analytics, is exactly what a business needs in order to understand how they can adapt and continually improve.

Design considerations

The design of the Anexo site is perfect for it’s target demographic – often those in their 50’s looking to add space to their home on behalf of a parent, or parent-in-law. It’s clean, uncluttered and confidently makes use of white-space, with elegant and easy to read fonts and bright, crisp images which really show off the product and workmanship. I added some subtle hover effects to the images to make the website feel more interactive and there are carefully placed calls to action throughout which aid navigation.

Client satisfaction

As always, time (and Google Analytics) will tell how successful this new website is at delivering enquiries, but early signs so far have been very promising.

I’d recommended a PPC guru friend of mine to run the search activity for Anexo. They built out the Google Ads account whilst I was finishing the build and the day I indexed the site, the paid ads were set live too. With a little media spend, the enquiries quickly started coming in and just a week after launch I received a smiley face emoji from the client, who was made up with the amount of enquiries he’d received that day – a small and overused digital image, but one for me which perfectly demonstrated client satisfaction!