The Situation
When Gather Social began working with HomeMove, the business already had what it needed to lead its local market. Real expertise. Strong local service. Founders who knew their postcodes inside out.
But the marketing hadn't caught up.
Local competitors were still pouring budget into boards, newspapers and billboards. Channels that are hard to measure and easy to ignore. HomeMove leaned on organic social instead, which meant their posts rarely reached anyone beyond their existing followers.
Managing Director Ben could see that buyers and sellers had moved to their phones. What he didn't want was another internal job to manage.
The expertise was there. The local reputation was there. What was missing was a system.
The Problem Beneath the Problem
On the surface, HomeMove needed more visibility. But the deeper issue was how they were showing up.
Relying on organic social meant:
- Most homeowners in their target postcodes never saw their content
- Reach depended on the algorithm, not on the business
- There was no way to stay in front of someone months before they decided to sell
The traditional sector habits made it worse:
- Offline media couldn't show what was actually driving valuations or listings
- Property stock was being listed, not marketed
- Every new instruction relied on people already knowing the brand
The opportunity wasn't to post more. It was to stop leaving reach to chance.
The Strategic Shift
Rather than treat Facebook and Instagram as places to publish posts, the strategy turned Meta into a targeted paid distribution network. Vanity metrics like follower counts were dropped. Everything was rebuilt around three commercial pillars:
- Awareness - put HomeMove in front of homeowners across target postcodes long before they're ready to sell
- Familiarity - use real video and local market data to position the founders as the local property authorities
- Action - drive local traffic straight into viewing funnels and valuation booking pages
This became the foundation of everything: Think. Make. Market. Measure.
How the System Was Built
The Results
Over 12 months, the numbers tell a clear story.
Business performance:
- A significant increase in property listings and viewings across all primary postcodes
- Direct website traffic up 97%
- Paid social traffic up 120%
- Direct referral traffic up 133%
- Organic search traffic up 29%
Marketing performance:
- 633,093 impressions from brand campaigns alone
- 129,000+ unique local people reached
- 204,737 video plays, including 56,000+ full views
- 9,387 link clicks
- 8,195 landing page views
Why It Worked
The results didn't come from posting more or chasing followers. They came from treating local visibility as a system.
- Reach - paid distribution put the brand in front of the right postcodes, not just existing followers
- Trust - founder-led video made Ben and Kieran familiar faces before anyone picked up the phone
- Stock as content - every listing became an ad, driving viewings and showing sellers what HomeMove could do for them
- Measurement - tracking listings and viewings, not likes, kept every pound pointed at commercial growth
And by treating Gather Social as their outsourced marketing department, HomeMove got director-level strategy, video editing, ad copy, campaign management and performance tracking for a single flat fee. No extra headcount. No extra management time.
The estate agencies that win locally aren't the ones with the most boards. They're the ones people already know when it's time to sell.
