Bourke Hood
R&D Grant Consultancy
Seven figures in the first 12 months
Selling something the market didn't know existed: social media marketing that educated first, sold second, and built a seven-figure consultancy in year one.
7 figures
Revenue in the first 12 months of business
Year 2
Expansion into international markets
The Challenge
Where Bourke Hood started
Bourkhood R&D Consultancy helps businesses claim research and development grant rebates. The service is valuable and the money is real — but a large share of the businesses eligible for those rebates have no idea the scheme applies to them.
That makes this a demand-creation problem, not a demand-capture one. Nobody is searching for a service they don't know exists. There is no queue of in-market buyers comparing providers, which means the usual playbook of intercepting existing intent has almost nothing to intercept.
On top of that, the consultancy was new. Trust matters enormously when you are asking a business owner to let you handle a claim against a government scheme, and a new brand starts with none of it.
The Approach
What we did
Educate before selling
The top of the funnel existed to teach: what R&D grant rebates are, which businesses qualify, and what they are typically leaving on the table. Awareness had to be manufactured before any offer could land.
Warm the market through content sequencing
Prospects were moved deliberately from 'I didn't know this existed' to 'this applies to me' to 'I should speak to someone'. Selling at the first touch, in a category this unfamiliar, simply doesn't convert.
Build authority for a new consultancy
Social content was used to establish the credibility that a founder-led professional services business needs before anyone will hand over a claim — expertise demonstrated rather than asserted.
Convert the educated audience into enquiries
Only once prospects understood the opportunity did the funnel ask for the conversation. The result was enquiries that already understood what they were enquiring about.
The Results
What changed
- Seven figures in the consultancy's first 12 months of business.
- Expansion into international markets in year two.
- A repeatable funnel that creates demand rather than competing for existing demand.
Demand creation versus demand capture
Most marketing budgets are spent on demand capture: someone already wants the thing, and the job is to be the option they choose. Search advertising and SEO are demand capture in their purest form, and when the demand exists they are usually the most efficient place to start.
When the market doesn't know the category exists, that logic inverts. There is no search volume to bid on, because nobody phrases a problem they haven't identified. The audience has to be told there is an opportunity at all, and only then can they be sold a way of accessing it.
Social platforms suit that job because they reach people who weren't looking. The trade-off is patience: an audience that has just learned something exists is not ready to buy from the same ad. Sequencing the message — educate, qualify, then invite the conversation — is the entire mechanism.
Why the first year mattered so much
A new professional services business has a narrow window. Reaching seven figures inside the first 12 months did more than produce revenue — it proved the category could be sold to a cold audience and gave the consultancy the standing to expand.
That expansion followed in year two, into international markets. A funnel built on education travels better than one built on local intent, because the underlying knowledge gap looks much the same in a new market. The service specifics change; the shape of the problem does not.
Trust is the second problem after awareness
Once a business owner understands that R&D grant rebates exist and might apply to them, a second obstacle appears immediately: who do they trust to handle it? A claim against a government scheme is not a low-stakes purchase, and the downside of getting it wrong is not just a wasted fee.
For a brand-new consultancy, that trust cannot be asserted. It has to be demonstrated, repeatedly, in public, by explaining the scheme clearly enough that the audience concludes the expertise is real. Content that teaches does both jobs at once — it creates the awareness and it earns the credibility.
This is also why the funnel could not be compressed. Educating and building trust take more touches than intercepting someone who is already shopping, and the campaigns were structured to allow for that rather than judged against the conversion timelines of a demand-capture channel.
“Finally, a marketing partner I can depend on.”
Jason Bourke
CEO, Bourkhood R&D Consultancy
Watch the video testimonialQuestions about this engagement
Why did this need a demand-creation approach?
Most eligible businesses did not know R&D grant rebates existed, so there was very little existing search demand to capture. The funnel had to educate and warm the market before it could sell.
What was achieved in the first year?
Seven figures in the consultancy's first 12 months of business, followed by expansion into international markets in year two.
Services behind this result
Social Media Marketing
Organic and paid social built to create demand, not just capture it.
Lead Generation
Funnels that turn a cold audience into qualified enquiries.
B2B SEO
Capturing the search demand once a category becomes known.
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