In this episode of Grow with Evergreen, we sat down with Gabriele from Berkshire Turf, a small business with big ambitions.
Turning over between £350,000 and £380,000 per year and based in Berkshire, the business sells turf and topsoil, primarily across Berkshire and Greater London.
The goal? To break through the £1 million turnover mark. But with fierce competition and a “race to the bottom” on price, the challenge is clear: how does a local business stand out, attract more leads, and scale sustainably?
Key challenges identified
Berkshire Turf is heavily reliant on SEO, with most sales coming from organic search. Google Ads contribute very little at the moment. Paid media activity overall is extremely limited, with a small ad spend of around £200 per month and no presence at all on social media.
The business is also subject to seasonal peaks, with nearly half of its sales occurring between March and May. While 70% of sales are local, there is capacity to deliver more widely across Greater London.
One of the biggest commercial challenges is pricing pressure. Turf is a commoditised product with many online competitors, making it hard to compete on price alone.
Finally, the brand has no personal presence online: the website is faceless, and there’s no clear personality behind the business to build trust with customers.
Humanise the brand
To create a stronger connection with potential customers, the business should start by putting a face to the name. Gabriele should be visible on the website, ideally shown handling the product or with customers.
The about page should be rewritten to tell the story of the business, how it started, and what makes it different. Swapping out cold language like “company” for something warmer like “our story” makes a big difference. Even changing the main contact email to a personal one adds a more human feel and builds trust.
Optimise for local and relevant searches
The website should clearly communicate what the business does and where it operates. Updating titles and headers to reflect specific locations, for example, “Premium turf delivered across Berkshire and Greater London”, helps both users and search engines. Listing towns, counties, and postcodes served on product and delivery pages is a simple but effective step. This could also be added near the product calculator.
On the technical side, there are some SEO housekeeping tasks that need addressing, such as cleaning up page titles and removing random characters from URLs.
Showcase real product and service
The website currently relies too much on stock imagery, which feels generic. Replacing this with authentic photography of Gabriele with the turf, making deliveries, or showcasing real gardens will have a much stronger impact.
Including before-and-after photos from actual customers adds credibility and inspiration. You could even encourage customers to send in their own photos or videos by offering a small reward or running a light-hearted competition.
Create and share content. Start with social
Berkshire Turf should set up business profiles on platforms like Instagram, Facebook, LinkedIn, and TikTok. The key is to keep content simple and real. Sharing product arrivals, behind-the-scenes footage, day-to-day work, or time-lapse lawn transformations is more than enough to get started.
Using a video banner on the homepage that shows the people, product, and process in action would also help. The priority should be consistency, not perfection, start small and improve over time.
Leverage customer service as a USP
Customer service is a huge differentiator in a market full of price-driven competition. Highlighting personal advice and hands-on support can be a compelling reason to choose Berkshire Turf.
Featuring real testimonials, particularly on video, will help build trust. The business should position itself as the go-to local expert, always available, easy to contact, and committed to delivering great results.
Consider offline marketing
In quieter periods, running leaflet drops in high-value postcodes could stimulate demand. These leaflets should focus on the brand’s personal approach, include real product images, and present a time-limited offer to prompt action.
When combined with consistent online activity, offline marketing can reinforce the message and drive both awareness and sales.
Paid media: don’t rush. Get the foundations right
It’s important not to scale paid ads until the organic content and brand positioning are in place. Once the business is ready, starting with highly localised Google Search ads can be very effective, but it’s best to avoid expanding into London too quickly. Focus first on dominating the core Berkshire territory.
Paid campaigns should reuse the most engaging organic content, which will help boost performance and reduce creative workload.
Key takeaways
People buy from people. If your website is faceless and generic, you’re going to lose out to cheaper competitors. Trust and personality are what really drive conversions. Content is essential for growth. Regular, authentic updates in the form of videos, photos, and stories will help build an audience. Don’t neglect local SEO either. Make it clear what you offer and where you operate, both for Google and your customers.
Offline methods like leaflet drops still work when used alongside a strong digital presence. Finally, before you ramp up your ad spend, focus on getting your brand, website, and content strategy right.
Summary
Standing out in a crowded, price-driven market isn’t about cutting prices or chasing every new platform. It’s about building a brand that feels local, human, and trustworthy.
For Berkshire Turf, that means putting Gabriele front and centre, sharing real stories, and using content to turn one-to-one customer service into one-to-many marketing impact. That’s how you scale, and that’s how you reach £1 million in revenue.
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