About 20% of businesses fail within their first year, about 40% fail within 3 years, and about 50% of all new businesses fail within 5 years. The reason is clear-cut, it’s either the product or services offered are trash, or the marketing efforts failed. While I can’t help with the former, I can help with the latter. 

Let me tell you a quick story…

It was a calm Sunday evening. I was out walking my 12-week-old dog, who was still having issues navigating the real world (it was her first walk outside). While I was trying to drag her out of the bush (because she loves it), a call came in. 

It was Mr J. The manager of the Holiday Homes company I met about a year back when I booked an apartment for a few days in Marina (the view was amazing). We had exchanged business cards and did a little introduction. Although I didn’t actually expect him to remember, he did. 

Mr J. explained that he had left the Holiday Homes company he was managing and had started his own Holiday Homes business 5 months prior. But he had since been battling with the woes of getting clients for his business, just like many other business owners. 

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For the conversation to flow, I sat under an oak tree inside my estate with a leash on my tired dog. I asked some questions about the business, operations and what had been done so far in terms of marketing. He mentioned he had already spent $10,000 on ads, at an average of $2,000 per month, but was still struggling to get enough clients to justify the spending. 

I could tell Mr. J was not very optimistic; he was just tired and giving it an attempt while hoping for the best. But I knew once he went with Inscribe, there was no turning back. 

I noted the details, including the website and business name and promised to revert with a free audit the next day. 

The Initial Understanding – The Problem 

I went through the website with the Inscribe team very early on Monday morning. We made it the first order of the day during our weekly stand-up, immediately after the first coffee (I bet you know how ideas flow after the first coffee 😀). After spending some time poking our curious noses into the exterior of Mr. J’s business. We came to the understanding that: 

1. The business of Holiday Homes requires both homeowners and end users as clients. Such that the homeowner agrees to give their properties to the business, and the end users can book and have a nice holiday.

Sidenote: That’s such a booming market in Dubai. 

The end users of holiday homes can be acquired from Airbnb, Booking.com, TripAdvisor, etc. So, getting end users was not the problem Mr. J. was facing. The problem was getting homeowners to give their properties to the business. However, the website content focused more on the end users than homeowners. So, we knew there was a content direction issue right on the landing page.

2. The business had no digital footprints, and the SEO was non-existent.

We did a quick Google search of the business, and there wasn’t much going on. Of course, that is necessary for a business that requires the trust of clients.

3. The copy on the landing page was not very clear or convincing, so the bounce rate was very high even though $$$ was being spent on ads, sadly.

4. The business had no clear content direction, and there was no blog section.

5. The domain authority was too low for the website to have any impact within the niche.

The Follow-up Actions – The Solution

We had a call with Mr J. on Tuesday, as he wasn’t available on Monday. We discussed further about the situation, including our findings, and how we can turn around the situation using our proven content-profit system. 

Again, Mr J was reluctant to commit, but our promise was clear, we’ll work on a month-to-month contract, and payment is made at the end of the month. If you don’t see results after the first month, don’t pay.

So we got started… 

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The plan was simple… “To increase the revenue of this holiday home business by 300% within 180 days“. Which was pinned on the slack channel we created for the project, for every team member to remember, daily. 

1. We started with a deep dive into the business, to understand the offerings, competitive advantage and audience persona.

2. We came up with a comprehensive content audit and strategy, which was meant to guide us for a period of 6 months. 

3. We kicked off with some groundwork by optimising the content of the website, making it more appealing to homeowners and, at the same time, optimised for search engines. We also added some FAQs to ensure every information needed by a prospective client can be gotten from the landing page. 

Like a drawing on the wall, we stepped back and took an envious look at the website, and it was perfect! 

4. We then proceeded to set up some tools like Analytics, clarity (to know how visitors interact with the website), Google search console, Bing search console (because we leave no stone untouched), Majestic (for link building), and of course, a personal dashboard on our client portal.

We also had to set up a blog section on the website, as it had none. However, setting up the blog was more tricky than we anticipated because the website was built on React JS, and the blog was wordpress. Regardless, we figured it out, because we always do, at Inscribe. 

5. As part of our first-stage procedure, we did some backlinks analysis (to confirm that there are no bad links pointing to the website), a mobile usability test, competition analysis, keyword research and many more. 

6. Since the business had no local citation, we did the listing on more than 100 business listing platforms, leaving no stone unturned.  

7. We proceeded to get some digital footprints for the brand. We did some blog outreach, mentions and press releases. 

At this point, we could see a spike in Google Rankings.

44 days after we kickstarted the project, Mr J. informed us that they had signed two new homeowners who came organically through Google. 

In our words, “we’re just getting started”.

We continued our efforts on the business, churning out as many as three articles weekly relating to holiday home management in Dubai, which is necessary for a new business trying to build niche authority. 

We also did a lot of off-page optimisation, including link building, brand mentions, guest posting, and social media. 

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At the start of the 5th month, we needed to synchronise with Mr J to understand their current situation and also get some insights concerning the improvements in terms of figures. Which was different from our monthly report meetings. 

Obviously, he was more busy making money, and we had to wait a few days to meet with the main man. He was nice enough to share some of the results directly from their dashboard.

He mentioned that all their figures were up on all angles. Here are the highlights:

He also stated that they now spend only $150 monthly on social media Ads, just to boost their social media following. And the organic traffic they got required that they double their team from 7 to 15 staff within the 4 months.

This is one of the stories I’m very proud to tell. Because the partnership with Mr J. has been a great one for him and for us as well. Like we always say within the team, the joy comes from helping businesses reduce their ad spend and increase their revenue, and as long as we achieve that, we’re happy. 

If you can in any way relate to this story, feel free to jump on a call with our team, and let’s help you achieve a 300% increase in revenue in just 180 days. If it doesn’t work, don’t pay.