Nick Sturge MBE: book chapter
How we helped chartered director and strategic advisor Nick Sturge MBE articulate his expertise
Industry: B2B services, consultancy
Content type
Book chapter
Goals
To co-create a book chapter that distilled Nick’s experiences and wisdom
Results
Honed ideas into a format that met the book editor’s brief
Generated extra resources for Nick’s consultancy work
“It was catalysing.”
“It was catalysing. The process worked so well for me and I felt really pleased with the output.”
– Nick Sturge, Strategic Advisor
A strategic advisor sharing his wisdom in print
Nick Sturge MBE is a chartered director and strategic advisor for entrepreneurs and growing businesses. Former director of Engine Shed and current Non Executive Chair at TechSPARK, among other things, he has extensive experience creating and fostering innovation ecosystems which enable entrepreneurs to develop their ideas and businesses in a sustainable way.
As a policy advisor for UKSPA, the United Kingdom Science Park Association, Nick was asked to contribute a chapter on the entrepreneur’s journey to their book, The Planning, Development and Operation of Science Parks – UKSPA’s definitive guide to the creation and management of innovation locations in the UK. An expert in his field, Nick wanted to stamp his authority on the 6,500-word chapter, but wasn’t entirely sure how to get his ideas across. Cue RH&Co.
The writing process
Structuring streams of consciousness
Nick initially expected that we were going to rely heavily on his guidance, but he was pleasantly surprised.
“One can get protective of a style and it’s a fine balance,” says Nick. “I certainly need a challenge because sometimes I am wrong. In this case I knew what I couldn’t do was structure a stream of consciousness, but that’s what RH&Co did.”
A trust exercise that paid off
We started by briefing in overview, before going away and working on structure, and then interviewing Nick in more detail, producing copy and then iterating.
“Finding the balance with a professional partner in this context is important,” says Nick. “You can push back and say, no it’s better written like this, or that. We were able to do this because we built up a strong trust relationship, so there was room for constructive challenge and it kept our conversations easy and productive.”
That trust extended beyond working with Rin herself. “It’s often a challenge with an agency that you get 5 minutes of the expert, and 55 minutes of someone else,” says Nick. “But I didn’t feel like I was compromising with RH & Co.”
The outcome
More case studies
Nick Sturge MBE: book chapter
How we helped chartered director and strategic advisor Nick Sturge MBE articulate his expertise
Industry: B2B services, consultancy
Content type
Book chapter
Goals
To co-create a book chapter that distilled Nick’s experiences and wisdom
Results
Honed ideas into a format that met the book editor’s brief
Generated extra resources for Nick’s consultancy work
A disruptive product at the pre-MVP stage
Housecure is a proptech platform designed to make every aspect of home ownership a delightful experience, with an initial focus on removing the need for an offer-to-exchange period. It’s founded by Max Inglis, a serial entrepreneur, and Theo Inglis, a seasoned product developer and co-founder of digital consultancy Thought and Function.
‘Stress free property transactions’ is the strapline that describes the duo’s initial ambitions for the Housecure platform. And while it’s a disruptive proposition, Housecure are not attempting to be a cutting edge brand so much as an accessible one.
“We want to build a company that is actively helping people who are struggling in the market,” says Theo. “We believe they’re struggling unfairly, and the ones profiting from the current system are typically exploiting it.”
The Housecure team has larger goals as well. As Max explains, “The importance of a family home cannot be understated as homeownership boosts the educational performance of children, improves healthcare outcomes, lowers crime rates and lessens welfare dependency.
“It was catalysing.”
“It was catalysing. The process worked so well for me and I felt really pleased with the output.”
– Nick Sturge, Strategic Advisor
The challenge
The face of a product yet to launch
At the time of writing, Housecure’s vision lies behind an MVP still in development.
“Our mission isn’t to use the website as a means of lead generation yet – since we haven’t released the product,” says Theo. “We don’t care about how we’re ranking. The real goal is to be clear as to what we’re offering, so we can get beta users and build partnerships.”
Writing for an audience that might know nothing
“Both Max and myself are used to writing professional documents where you can assume a certain level of understanding,” says Theo. “But the Housecure site would need to be accessible.”
It was important to ensure the Housecure site was simple, clear and directed to the right audience – an audience that might not see their problem clearly enough to instantly recognise the value of the solution.
Fluid messaging for an evolving product
The platform needed a website that clearly articulated its mission, and that would be ready to welcome all users once the product went live, but that product was likely to evolve quickly.
“That’s the challenge of working with startups,” says Theo, “Right now we’re selling one thing, in three months time we should be selling something more or something else. So the key messaging on our website needed to be fluid, focusing on the heart of what we’re doing rather than just the features of the product.
The writing process
Structuring streams of consciousness
Nick initially expected that we were going to rely heavily on his guidance, but he was pleasantly surprised.
“One can get protective of a style and it’s a fine balance,” says Nick. “I certainly need a challenge because sometimes I am wrong. In this case I knew what I couldn’t do was structure a stream of consciousness, but that’s what RH&Co did.”
A trust exercise that paid off
We started by briefing in overview, before going away and working on structure, and then interviewing Nick in more detail, producing copy and then iterating.
“Finding the balance with a professional partner in this context is important,” says Nick. “You can push back and say, no it’s better written like this, or that. We were able to do this because we built up a strong trust relationship, so there was room for constructive challenge and it kept our conversations easy and productive.”
That trust extended beyond working with Rin herself. “It’s often a challenge with an agency that you get 5 minutes of the expert, and 55 minutes of someone else,” says Nick. “But I didn’t feel like I was compromising with RH & Co.”
More case studies
Nick Sturge MBE: book chapter
How we helped chartered director and strategic advisor Nick Sturge MBE articulate his expertise
Industry: B2B services, consultancy
Content type
Book chapter
Goals
To co-create a book chapter that distilled Nick’s experiences and wisdom
Results
Honed ideas into a format that met the book editor’s brief
Generated extra resources for Nick’s consultancy work
A disruptive product at the pre-MVP stage
Housecure is a proptech platform designed to make every aspect of home ownership a delightful experience, with an initial focus on removing the need for an offer-to-exchange period. It’s founded by Max Inglis, a serial entrepreneur, and Theo Inglis, a seasoned product developer and co-founder of digital consultancy Thought and Function.
‘Stress free property transactions’ is the strapline that describes the duo’s initial ambitions for the Housecure platform. And while it’s a disruptive proposition, Housecure are not attempting to be a cutting edge brand so much as an accessible one.
“We want to build a company that is actively helping people who are struggling in the market,” says Theo. “We believe they’re struggling unfairly, and the ones profiting from the current system are typically exploiting it.”
The Housecure team has larger goals as well. As Max explains, “The importance of a family home cannot be understated as homeownership boosts the educational performance of children, improves healthcare outcomes, lowers crime rates and lessens welfare dependency.
“It was catalysing.”
“It was catalysing. The process worked so well for me and I felt really pleased with the output.”
– Nick Sturge, Strategic Advisor
The challenge
The face of a product yet to launch
At the time of writing, Housecure’s vision lies behind an MVP still in development.
“Our mission isn’t to use the website as a means of lead generation yet – since we haven’t released the product,” says Theo. “We don’t care about how we’re ranking. The real goal is to be clear as to what we’re offering, so we can get beta users and build partnerships.”
Writing for an audience that might know nothing
“Both Max and myself are used to writing professional documents where you can assume a certain level of understanding,” says Theo. “But the Housecure site would need to be accessible.”
It was important to ensure the Housecure site was simple, clear and directed to the right audience – an audience that might not see their problem clearly enough to instantly recognise the value of the solution.
Fluid messaging for an evolving product
The platform needed a website that clearly articulated its mission, and that would be ready to welcome all users once the product went live, but that product was likely to evolve quickly.
“That’s the challenge of working with startups,” says Theo, “Right now we’re selling one thing, in three months time we should be selling something more or something else. So the key messaging on our website needed to be fluid, focusing on the heart of what we’re doing rather than just the features of the product.
The writing process
Structuring streams of consciousness
Nick initially expected that we were going to rely heavily on his guidance, but he was pleasantly surprised.
“One can get protective of a style and it’s a fine balance,” says Nick. “I certainly need a challenge because sometimes I am wrong. In this case I knew what I couldn’t do was structure a stream of consciousness, but that’s what RH&Co did.”
A trust exercise that paid off
We started by briefing in overview, before going away and working on structure, and then interviewing Nick in more detail, producing copy and then iterating.
“Finding the balance with a professional partner in this context is important,” says Nick. “You can push back and say, no it’s better written like this, or that. We were able to do this because we built up a strong trust relationship, so there was room for constructive challenge and it kept our conversations easy and productive.”
That trust extended beyond working with Rin herself. “It’s often a challenge with an agency that you get 5 minutes of the expert, and 55 minutes of someone else,” says Nick. “But I didn’t feel like I was compromising with RH & Co.”
More case studies
The Land App: messaging and website copy
How The Land App reimagined their message for a wider audience
Sustainability, tech, land management
Content type
Messaging, website copy
Goals
To create a website that reflects the brand’s evolution
To target an increased number of specialised audiences
Results
A website that positioned Land App for their next steps as a brand
UX copy that guides each user to the information they need
“We now have this fantastic website that elevates everything. To any client you can say, go and have a look at the website, and you can be confident that they’re going to find what they need.”
Tom Pearson, Communications & Marketing Lead
The digital mapping tool that became a movement
The Land App is an online mapping tool designed for land managers and their advisors, uniting data, advice and incentives in a nifty cloud-based platform.
Since their launch in 2015, Land App has grown to be trusted by over 4,000 rural teams and professionals across the UK, including big name land agents like Savills, land managers such as RSPB, and government agencies such as National Parks.
It’s fair to say though, that the purpose of the app had evolved beyond its initial boundaries.
At first it was simply an extremely useful tool to make sustainable land management easier. By the time The Land App team came to us in 2021, however, they were looking to facilitate connection between supply and demand in natural capital markets.
As a result, the website was out of date and no longer fit for purpose. Relaunching it, though, would not be a simple task.
The challenge
Jumping the communication gap between specialist and audience
The Land App team is made of experts who each bring specialist knowledge to the table – from land management to permaculture, conservation and data analysis – and who are passionate advocates of their platform. But because everyone was so deep into their work, it was difficult to think objectively about their communication.
“Up to now, it’s been the founders trying to do everything themselves,” says Tom Pearson, Communications and Marketing Lead at The Land App. “But sometimes you need to step back and ask, are people understanding this? We have this rich, deep insight into what we’re doing, but how does that translate?”
The challenge
Targeting a wide spectrum of audiences
The Land App is an impressive tool designed for many types of specialist users. The trouble is that all of these users each have their own needs, and The Land App team were unsure of how to distil their message down through so many different channels on one website.
“You could have an ecologist that’s using the platform for a habitat assessment, a surveyor doing someone’s building extension, or a land agent who’s completing a cropping plan,” says Tom.
“This makes the messaging really tricky to get your head around, because you want to appeal to all of these people. We could have funnelled people into a hundred different categories, but we also needed to distil the message without excluding anyone.”
The solution
An iterative approach
We began by interviewing The Land App’s team so that we could scratch beneath the surface to unearth the heart of their product. From this we created a document that presented our initial ideas so The Land App could begin to give us feedback about the language and messaging. After this we could run with their thoughts, mock up a couple of website pages, and receive feedback again before creating the entire site’s copy.
“The team are all so invested in the platform and the website,” says Tom. “It’s our baby and we wanted to make sure it was right. So it was really good to have these iterative drafts, to be able to comment along the way or have a call, listen to what you guys were saying, and make sure we were saying the right thing.”
The Land App saw this not only as a process that they were going to get great output from, but also as a learning exercise. It forced them to answer questions, such as who is using the platform? How can we streamline that without leaving anyone out? And how can we keep from overloading users with too much information?
Outcomes:
More case studies
Blueheart: SEO blogging
How we helped Blueheart broadcast their expertise in shame-free sex education
Industry: Sextech, healthtech
Goals
To boost organic traffic and app downloads
To showcase Blueheart’s expertise and establish credibility
Results
Increase in website traffic from 5,000 to 30,000 per month within 6 months
Ranked #01 on Google for a foundational keyword phrase
Blueheart – the app revolutionising the conversation around sex
Blueheart is a sex therapy app offering accessible shame-free sex education and guided Sensate therapy. Informed by the latest scientific research, the app helps couples to re-ignite their sex lives by refreshing the conversation around sex with honest and actionable support.
Launched in 2019, Blueheart caught onto the surge in demand for support over lockdown. The company has since grown to a team of 12 and has been featured by the likes of Vogue, The Guardian, and the BBC.
Since we began blogging for Blueheart in September 2021, the blog has played a key role in boosting organic traffic, leading to a significant increase in app downloads. Here’s how we did it.
“Organic visits are the most stable part of Blueheart’s acquisition funnel…”
“RH&Co helped us generate massive results over a span of a few weeks, and that’s just from the increase in traffic on the blog.”
– Camiel Roex, Head of Growth
The challenge
A mess of a marketplace – and middling results
Before they began working with us, Blueheart commissioned blogs on an online marketplace, but Camiel Roex, the brand’s Head of Growth, says the process wasn’t great. “You would send the brief, and the first version would always come back really bad. Sophie, our head of content, would have to rewrite the whole piece.”
It was an uneven process that led to about 5,000 organic visits a month. Results that weren’t really worth the pain.
Scaling content and standing out
Needless to say, this wasn’t scaleable, particularly considering how much content they wanted to put out. “We’re offering lots of education,” says Camiel, “and if the education isn’t good, then the whole thing doesn’t work.”
Camiel knew that it was crucial for the brand to be seen as an authority in its field. Without this differentiator, people would see no reason to download the Blueheart app. “If we were just another blog with superficial tips, just copying what other websites did without presenting our own view, we’d have no unique offering.”
The solution
An expert-informed, SEO-optimised process
Expert-informed
Before, when using the marketplace to find copywriters, Camiel never knew who he was briefing, and therefore the quality of content would differ greatly. He found that, because they had no prior involvement with the company, they often missed the mark on the topic, or weren’t able to implement Blueheart’s brand story in their work.
RH&Co
With RH&Co, it was a different tale. We were referred to Blueheart by Addland, a platform that had seen great results with our SEO-optimised blogging services.
To replicate a similar kind of success for Blueheart, we combined the skills of our editorial team with SEO-scoring software. This approach was fuelled by Blueheart’s SEO research into keywords that would help them compete on subjects they wanted to be an authority on.
SEO-optimised
To ensure the posts would be distinct – in line with Blueheart’s point of view, goal and target audience – one of their therapists would add in notes to each brief. This was the crucial expert-led angle to the content that would elevate it above the imitative SEO strategies of competitors.
The outcome
Soaring organic results
Since Rin Hamburgh & Co started blogging for Blueheart, organic visits have rocketed from 5,000 to 25-30,000 a month.
“We generated massive results over a span of a few weeks, and that’s just from the increase in traffic on the blog,” says Camiel. “This helped massively from an SEO perspective.
“There’s a blog we have on sexual frustration – we’re now number one on that keyword. We have 10,000 searches a month on it and it’s very relevant to our brand.
“Organic visits are the most stable part of Blueheart’s acquisition funnel. About 30% of people downloading the app after doing the assessment on the website came via the blog, or via Google, by searching for Blueheart or Blueheart reviews.”
Making it quick and easy to stand out
In addition, Camiel is relieved with how much we sped up their blogging process. “We can run a full content marketer’s job in one hour a week instead of 20 hours,” he says. “And we don’t have to hire someone full time, which is important for a startup.”
Lastly, Camiel says: “We highly recommend RH&Co to anyone who struggles to find a good process to push out the quality content themselves. They are very responsive, stick to deadlines and the quality of the writing is very good. They have helped us to stand out and become an authority on certain topics.”
More case studies
Nick Sturge MBE: book chapter
How we helped chartered director and strategic advisor Nick Sturge MBE articulate his expertise
Industry: B2B services, consultancy
Content type
Book chapter
Goals
To co-create a book chapter that distilled Nick’s experiences and wisdom
Results
Honed ideas into a format that met the book editor’s brief
Generated extra resources for Nick’s consultancy work
A disruptive product at the pre-MVP stage
Housecure is a proptech platform designed to make every aspect of home ownership a delightful experience, with an initial focus on removing the need for an offer-to-exchange period. It’s founded by Max Inglis, a serial entrepreneur, and Theo Inglis, a seasoned product developer and co-founder of digital consultancy Thought and Function.
‘Stress free property transactions’ is the strapline that describes the duo’s initial ambitions for the Housecure platform. And while it’s a disruptive proposition, Housecure are not attempting to be a cutting edge brand so much as an accessible one.
“We want to build a company that is actively helping people who are struggling in the market,” says Theo. “We believe they’re struggling unfairly, and the ones profiting from the current system are typically exploiting it.”
The Housecure team has larger goals as well. As Max explains, “The importance of a family home cannot be understated as homeownership boosts the educational performance of children, improves healthcare outcomes, lowers crime rates and lessens welfare dependency.
“It was catalysing.”
“It was catalysing. The process worked so well for me and I felt really pleased with the output.”
– Nick Sturge, Strategic Advisor
The challenge
The face of a product yet to launch
At the time of writing, Housecure’s vision lies behind an MVP still in development.
“Our mission isn’t to use the website as a means of lead generation yet – since we haven’t released the product,” says Theo. “We don’t care about how we’re ranking. The real goal is to be clear as to what we’re offering, so we can get beta users and build partnerships.”
Writing for an audience that might know nothing
“Both Max and myself are used to writing professional documents where you can assume a certain level of understanding,” says Theo. “But the Housecure site would need to be accessible.”
It was important to ensure the Housecure site was simple, clear and directed to the right audience – an audience that might not see their problem clearly enough to instantly recognise the value of the solution.
Fluid messaging for an evolving product
The platform needed a website that clearly articulated its mission, and that would be ready to welcome all users once the product went live, but that product was likely to evolve quickly.
“That’s the challenge of working with startups,” says Theo, “Right now we’re selling one thing, in three months time we should be selling something more or something else. So the key messaging on our website needed to be fluid, focusing on the heart of what we’re doing rather than just the features of the product.
The solution
A slick, SEO content machine
Resource
Addland already had the expertise to devise an effective SEO strategy. Now they needed resources that executed on it.
“There are endless agencies that offer copywriting services but we didn’t need copy for copy’s sake,” says Berian. “For us it’s an acquisition channel, so we needed people who had that digital marketing understanding.”
SEO
To create SEO targeted briefs, we used Frase, an SEO technology that looks after the keywords so writers can get on with the business of writing great copy. By doing so, we were able to create original guides to all kinds of land issues from smallholdings to stamp duty land tax and planting a forest.
Adaptable
“The RH&Co team was really adaptable in the way they worked with us,” says Berian. “After we gave feedback on the first two or three articles they created, everything was hands off. We could just deliver each brief and get an article back without issue. We published 20 resources like this, and the majority of them had no kind of overhead. It was slick.”
The writing process
Structuring streams of consciousness
Nick initially expected that we were going to rely heavily on his guidance, but he was pleasantly surprised.
“One can get protective of a style and it’s a fine balance,” says Nick. “I certainly need a challenge because sometimes I am wrong. In this case I knew what I couldn’t do was structure a stream of consciousness, but that’s what RH&Co did.”
A trust exercise that paid off
We started by briefing in overview, before going away and working on structure, and then interviewing Nick in more detail, producing copy and then iterating.
“Finding the balance with a professional partner in this context is important,” says Nick. “You can push back and say, no it’s better written like this, or that. We were able to do this because we built up a strong trust relationship, so there was room for constructive challenge and it kept our conversations easy and productive.”
That trust extended beyond working with Rin herself. “It’s often a challenge with an agency that you get 5 minutes of the expert, and 55 minutes of someone else,” says Nick. “But I didn’t feel like I was compromising with RH & Co.”
More case studies
Actual Experience: white paper, blogging
How we cut through the complexity to help Actual Experience equip their enterprise partners to sell on their behalf
Actual Experience is a B2B tech business providing human experience management services for service providers and their enterprise clients. Actual Experience’s unique analytics capabilities pinpoint where within the digital ecosystem the causes of variability and poor experience are, enabling prioritised and evidence-based investment for digital leaders.
“We’re in a complex and technical industry.”
“With no prior experience of our expertise, Rin and her team quickly took on board what we do and how it helps our customers add value.”
– Vaq Hussain, Marketing Manager, Actual Experience
The result
After the brief creation and interview stages, we were able to quickly deliver a white paper and associated blog post for Actual Experience, including updating the narrative in response to the COVID19 crisis, which kicked off just as the project was starting.
“The process of developing a white paper with Rin and her team was simple and painless,” says Vaq. “They delivered a really fast turnaround following interviews and research, and the final piece required minimal amends.
“I would say Rin Hamburgh & Co’s strengths are not just in their writing. Rin and her team are excellent listeners. Finding the important details in what we were telling them, understanding the relevance to our audience and converting it to a usable content piece is what impressed me the most.”
More case studies
The Land App: messaging and website copy
How The Land App reimagined their message for a wider audience
Sustainability, tech, land management
Content type
Messaging, website copy
Goals
To create a website that reflects the brand’s evolution
To target an increased number of specialised audiences
Results
A website that positioned Land App for their next steps as a brand
UX copy that guides each user to the information they need
The digital mapping tool that became a movement
The Land App is an online mapping tool designed for land managers and their advisors, uniting data, advice and incentives in a nifty cloud-based platform.
Since their launch in 2015, Land App has grown to be trusted by over 4,000 rural teams and professionals across the UK, including big name land agents like Savills, land managers such as RSPB, and government agencies such as National Parks.
It’s fair to say though, that the purpose of the app had evolved beyond its initial boundaries.
At first it was simply an extremely useful tool to make sustainable land management easier. By the time The Land App team came to us in 2021, however, they were looking to facilitate connection between supply and demand in natural capital markets.
As a result, the website was out of date and no longer fit for purpose. Relaunching it, though, would not be a simple task.
“As experts, we really know our stuff but struggle to communicate that expertise to the outside world.”
“Rin and her team have transformed the way we tell our story.”
– Tom Riglar, CEO & Co-founder
The problem
Technical expertise vs. audience
Before coming to Rin Hamburgh & Co, Morrow had written the occasional blog post but they found it difficult to prioritise this in a busy agency. And they were aware that the blog needed consistency in order to achieve results.
The Morrow team had some idea of what they wanted to write. They also had a vague idea of their client personas. But CEO Tom knew that the messaging connecting these two components was missing.
“As experts, we really know our stuff,” he says, “but we struggle to communicate that expertise to the outside world.”
Outcomes:
The outcomes
Leads
When we began blogging for them in 2021, Morrow was approaching a tipping point in terms of fame. Their LinkedIn page used to get one organic follower a month, but after just six months of blogging and other efforts, they were seeing 6-7 new followers a week.
“Content marketing is a long term strategy,” says Tom, “but we’re already benefiting from an increase in the quantity and quality of leads, better brand awareness and a clearer focus on who our prospects are.”
Recruitment
Morrow found that the blog posts have actually been most effective in their recruitment process as they’ve grown to a team of 15.
“The posts attract candidates, and the right kind, who are attracted to the ideas we are expressing on the blog,” says Tom. “We’ve found that junior developers are asking questions about topics from the blogs in interviews, showing great promise.”
A stamp of authority
Published blog posts have also worked well as valuable sales and comms tools for various stages of the buyer’s journey. “Being able to say ‘I’ve actually written a blog about that recently’ has proved very helpful,” says Tom, “particularly in acquiring new business.
“Rin and her team have transformed the way we tell our story to prospective clients and partners,” says Tom. “Through a series of workshops and briefing sessions, they have created a range of written content for us that stamps our authority in the app development space.”