Your industry. A considered approach.

I work with eight kinds of business: B2B & professional services, Education, Finance, Automobile, FMCG, E-commerce, Real estate, and Fashion & beauty. They differ in how customers decide, how long that takes, and what you are allowed to say. This page explains how I think about those differences and how to read the industry pages.

Why an industry view matters at all

Good marketing methods are mostly the same across sectors. Measurement, clear positioning and honest pages work everywhere. What changes is the buying journey, the evidence people need, and the rules around what you can claim. A school and an online fashion store both need search visibility, but their customers behave very differently.

Knowing the industry saves time in the first month. I do not need to be told why a car buyer visits a dealer site several times, or why a parent compares schools for months. I can spend the early sessions on your specific situation rather than the basics of your market.

I treat industry knowledge as a starting assumption, not a conclusion. Every business inside a sector has its own customers and constraints, and I check my assumptions against your data before acting on them.

Long decisions: Education, Finance, Real estate and Automobile

These four share a slow, high-consideration purchase. People research for weeks, compare several providers, involve family, and often return to the same site many times. Marketing here is less about one click and more about staying visible and trustworthy across a long period.

That shapes the work. Content has to answer real objections in plain language. Follow-up matters as much as acquisition, because a lead that is not contacted well is often lost to the next provider. Tracking should capture the whole path, including calls and offline visits where possible, not only form fills.

Finance and Education also carry rules about claims and promises. I write and plan cautiously in both, and I expect your compliance or admissions team to review anything that makes a commitment.

• Education: enquiry quality, parent and student questions, and seasonal admission cycles.
• Finance: trust signals, clear explanations of products, and careful, compliant wording.
• Real estate: project and location searches, lead follow-up speed, and site visit tracking.
• Automobile: model and variant research, dealer or showroom visits, and local search presence.

Repeat purchase and volume: FMCG, E-commerce, and Fashion & beauty

These sectors sell smaller items more often, so the maths is different. The question is not how to win one big customer but how to acquire customers at a cost you can afford and bring them back. Product pages, reviews, imagery, delivery information and returns policy all carry real weight.

FMCG often sells through retailers and marketplaces as well as directly, which complicates attribution. I focus on what you can measure honestly and say clearly where the picture is incomplete rather than pretend a dashboard tells the whole story.

Fashion & beauty depends heavily on visual brand and social proof. E-commerce depends on the full path from search to checkout. In all three, a small fix to a product page or a checkout step is usually worth more than a new campaign.

B2B & professional services: trust before traffic

Firms that sell expertise, such as consultancies, agencies, legal, accounting and technology providers, win on credibility. Prospects want to see how you think, who you have worked with, and whether you understand their problem. A site full of general claims does not help.

Volume matters less than fit. A handful of the right enquiries is worth more than a large number of poor ones. I usually start by clarifying who the ideal client is and what they search for or ask, then align the pages, content and outreach to that person.

Sales cycles are long and involve several people, so measurement needs to follow leads past the form into the sales pipeline. Without that link, marketing reports can look healthy while the business sees nothing.

What I look at first in any sector

Whatever your industry, the first review covers the same ground: how people currently find you, what they do on the site, what happens to an enquiry after it arrives, and what you can currently measure. Most sectors have one weak link, and finding it is usually quicker than building something new.

I then compare your position with the way your customers actually decide. If your buyers research for a month, a campaign built around instant conversion will disappoint. If they decide in minutes, a content-heavy site may be wasted effort.

This is why I ask for access to analytics, ad accounts and Search Console early. The numbers show where the real journey differs from the assumed one.

The method is shared across sectors. The buying journey and the rules around claims are what change.

Which services tend to pair with which industry

These are starting points, not rules. B2B & professional services often begin with SEO strategy, Content & copywriting and Brand strategy & positioning. Education and Real estate often begin with Performance marketing, Conversion optimisation and Analytics & automation to handle lead quality and follow-up.

E-commerce and Fashion & beauty often involve Technical SEO, E-commerce experiences, Marketing creatives and Social media marketing. FMCG sometimes includes Marketplace management and Packaging & labels alongside Performance marketing. Finance tends to combine Content & copywriting with Analytics & automation under careful review.

Automobile projects often rely on local presence, so On-page SEO and Performance marketing for individual locations come up often. In every case the combination is decided after a first look at your data.

Questions I ask before touching an industry plan

Before I suggest anything, I ask the same handful of questions in every sector. Who actually decides, and who influences them? How long does it normally take from first contact to purchase? What would make a customer trust you enough to act? What do you know about the customers you lost? The answers differ enormously between a school, a showroom and an online store.

I also ask what the business cannot do. Regulation, stock, capacity and seasonality all limit what marketing can sensibly aim for. A real estate developer without ready inventory, or a school near its capacity, should not buy more enquiries until the operation can serve them.

Finally, I ask who handles an enquiry after it arrives, and how fast. In most sectors, slow or inconsistent follow-up is a bigger leak than anything in the advertising.

Mistakes I see repeated across sectors

The first is copying a competitor's tactics without knowing whether they work for that competitor. Visible activity is not proof of results. The second is measuring only the last click, which undervalues the research that happened before it. The third is treating the website as finished, when it is the place where most of the decisions are lost.

A fourth is mixing audiences. A single message aimed at buyers, influencers and partners at once usually persuades none of them. It is better to write for the person who signs off, then adapt for others.

A fifth is expecting a campaign to fix a business problem. If delivery is late, prices are unclear or reviews are poor, marketing will only bring more people to the same disappointment.

If your sector is not on the list

Eight industries have their own pages, but they do not set the limit of who I work with. These eight pages do not set the limit of my work. If yours is missing, the same approach applies: understand the customer's decision, check measurement, and fix the largest leak first.

Describe your business in a short enquiry or bring it to a Strategy session. I will tell you honestly whether I have relevant experience, whether a different specialist would be a better fit, and what a sensible first step looks like.

I would rather say no early than start an engagement where I am learning the basics on your budget.

How to use the industry pages

Each industry page describes the buying journey, the problems I see most often, and the services that tend to matter. Read the one closest to your business, then read one neighbouring page. Sometimes the neighbour fits better than you expect, for example a training provider that behaves like an education business or a fashion brand that sells like FMCG.

Then pick a first move: a session, an audit, or an enquiry with a specific question. The hire-me page explains how to choose between them and what each costs.