How Apex Canopies generated £90k in new direct-to-consumer revenue in first 12 months.

The problem

Apex Canopies was already an established manufacturer of GRP door canopies, with a successful business supplying its products through trade and B2B channels. The opportunity was direct-to-consumer.

Homeowners across the UK were actively searching online for the products Apex manufactured, but the business wasn't effectively reaching or selling to them.

An earlier attempt to launch online sales hadn't delivered the results expected. The products were there, the manufacturing capability was there and the demand was there What was missing was the digital infrastructure needed to connect them.

What I found

Looking at the market, it became clear that the opportunity was much bigger than simply improving the existing website. There was significant search demand from homeowners looking for door canopies, entrance canopies and specific styles of GRP canopy. Apex already manufactured exactly what these customers were searching for.

The problem was the route between the two. The website wasn't structured around how consumers searched for the products, the information they needed before buying or the questions that needed answering before someone was comfortable spending several hundred pounds online.

Rather than trying to generate more traffic to an underperforming setup, the opportunity was to build a proper direct-to-consumer sales channel.

What I changed

I rebuilt the digital side of the business around the consumer buying journey. That started with understanding how homeowners were searching for the products and restructuring the website around those individual commercial opportunities.

Products and categories were made easier to discover. Search visibility was improved around relevant buying terms. Content was developed to answer the questions customers had before purchasing, and the journey from finding Apex through Google to enquiring or buying was made considerably clearer.

Search optimisation, website structure, content and conversion weren't treated as separate marketing activities. They were all parts of the same objective: Make it easier for homeowners who wanted these products to find Apex, trust Apex and buy directly from Apex.

As the channel began generating data, I continued to optimise it around the searches, pages and products showing the strongest commercial potential.

The outcome

The new direct-to-consumer channel began producing results. Relevant website traffic increased by around 40x, while online sales increased by around 100x from the original starting point.

But the number that mattered most was revenue. Within the first 12 months, the direct-to-consumer channel generated £90,000+ in additional revenue. More importantly, this wasn't simply a short-term marketing campaign.

Apex had created an entirely new route to market alongside its established B2B business, giving it direct access to homeowners actively searching for the products it was already manufacturing.

The business hadn't needed to invent a new product. It needed a better way of selling the one it already had.