How we partnered with a sustainable construction firm to double brand engagement
The opportunity
Achieving net zero in construction requires an unprecedented change in the building industry.
Darren Evans wanted to use the pandemic as a springboard to achieve this change by working with their customers to create a more sustainable built environment.
The sustainable construction consultancy wanted to position itself as an industry leader for supporting the transition to net zero. They also wanted to target larger developers and architect firms where they could make more impact.
Key to this was educating potential clients that early involvement in a construction project enabled them to have more impact on cost, energy efficiency and carbon.
The challenge
When we first met Darren Evans, their ambition and expertise wasn’t apparent from their digital presence.
They wanted to scale-up the business to have more impact with larger players in the construction industry, but their brand identity and website were not supporting these goals.
Their brand assets did not reflect the team’s expertise or ethos, particularly their passion for customer service that goes above and beyond other service providers.
Here’s how we worked with Darren Evans to:
- Double brand engagement
- Open doors to potential customers they wouldn’t have spoken to before
- Achieve six proposal requests in 24 hours
- Increase unique email click-through rates by 78%.
Developing a new business development strategy
Before embarking on a major rebrand and website redesign, we worked with the Darren Evans team to develop their sales and marketing strategy.
Our focus was on using neuroscience and behavioural insights to lay strong foundations for growth.
By using our in-depth understanding of how customers make decisions, we developed a much more sophisticated approach to growing customer numbers and revenue.
To really understand customer motivations and behaviour, we conducted a multi-pronged research process, including:
- Interviews with team members to map their expertise and insight
- Analysis of website, email and sales data
- Interviews with existing customers
- Analysis of competitors and the market context
This revealed numerous untapped opportunities to make a real difference to the climate emergency.
Founder Darren Evans says:
You spent a significant time in understanding; more time than other companies I’ve worked with were willing to spend. For me, this is the real value, which reflects Sustainable Results Lab’s purpose, motivation and integrity.
Building a better future
One vital insight was customers’ desire to create a positive legacy. Whether that was developers, architects or mechanical engineers, all were motivated to create a built environment that enables people to thrive – now and in the future.
Developing a stronger brand
Our discovery process also uncovered that most of Darren Evans’ customers came to them needing help understanding and complying with complex regulations.
It was therefore crucial that the new brand positioned them as established experts.
Creating a compelling user experience
As part of the rebrand, we developed a much more compelling user experience. We simplified the navigation structure to make it easier for people to find what they wanted.
We rewrote website copy on key pages to better reflect customers’ needs and challenges so that potential clients could quickly see how Darren Evans could support them to achieve net zero in construction.
A focus on compassion and wellbeing
A strong thread that runs through the company internally and externally is a focus on compassion and wellbeing.
Darren has built the business around these values and talks passionately about how our built environment can help us be “the best version of ourselves”.
In a storytelling exercise, other team members recounted times they had most enjoyed their jobs, with the common thread being helping customers who were feeling overwhelmed.
Standing out in a sea of buildings
Our research process led us to identify an opportunity to stand out from the others in the sector by breaking the trend of using photographs of buildings. We also noticed that nearly all competitors used either green or blue colours, so we decided to avoid this also.
Darren agreed that a radical transformation that bucked industry trends was the best way to make the impact they wanted.
Striking the right balance
The brand needed to carefully balance appearing established and knowledgeable with the sense of warmth and compassion inherent in the company culture.
We achieved this by pairing playful illustrations with a more serious feeling serif font. We also balanced the softer colours used in the illustrations with blocks of darker, more masculine colours. This enables the brand to flex depending on the tone required for a specific audience or subject.
Creating moments of delight
The team at Darren Evans are a kind and approachable bunch who care passionately about their customers’ success. We, therefore, wanted to reflect the quality of the real-life customer relationships in the interactions on the website by sprinkling playful illustrative touches throughout.
Using behavioural insights to boost impact
Underlying all our work with Darren Evans was an understanding of the science of decision making.
We used neuroscience and behavioural insights to develop a brand strategy that persuades the construction industry that achieving net zero is achievable and cost effective.
Darren says: “When you talked about the behavioural sciences and the limbic brain, it made sense theoretically as I’d seen examples.”
But it also made sense after the branding work because everyone has said the same thing – ‘this is a really good website’. It’s really clear to understand, it feels really warm and it reflects the connections we forge with people.
Results
The Darren Evans team now has a strong brand that reflects their true purpose, enabling them to support their customers to achieve net zero in construction.
All the brand collateral and messaging that we created is reusable across multiple customer touchpoints, supporting the team to achieve sustainable growth.
Some of the early results include:
- Brand engagement doubled with potential customers spending twice as long on the new website
- A six-week email campaign focusing on the new brand messaging led to a 78% increase in unique click-through rates and an 85% increase in click to open rate
- One email lead to six proposal requests in 24 hours
- The Darren Evans team are now in a much stronger position to talk to developers and architects at the start of the construction process, enabling them to make more of an impact on improving the energy performance of buildings.
Reflecting on the brand transformation, Darren says:
What I got was better than imagined, and I wanted something of a high standard. That’s opened my mind to what’s possible and opened doors to potential customers we wouldn’t have spoken to before.
He adds: “Our new brand is also enabling us to attract the brightest minds, people determined to make a difference in the construction industry.
“We’re creating something we’re all proud of and can tell our grandchildren we were part of this.”
Want to transform your brand too? Whether it’s developing your growth strategy, building a low carbon website or developing lead generation tools, we can support you to make more impact.
Email our founder Ruth to arrange a coffee and chat about your growth strategy.
