Client Stories
The clients I’ve worked with don’t all look the same from the outside. What they share is a commitment to doing their work well and with care – for their customers, their communities, or the causes they’re working toward. These are a few of their stories.
The Flower Garden
Small businesses run by people who genuinely love what they do are some of my favourite clients. Suzanne had built something special – a flower shop at the heart of her community, run entirely by women from the same family. The challenge wasn’t the quality of the work. It was making sure enough people knew about it.
This is exactly the kind of marketing I love doing. No big budgets. No complicated funnels. Just helping a brilliant small business communicate what makes it special, and connecting it more deeply with the community it was already part of.
The challenge
Building the profile of a family-run flower shop in North Lincolnshire and increasing footfall, without any previous marketing experience.
The goal
Raise the shop’s profile in the local community, attract more customers, and grow turnover in a way that felt realistic to the business.
Working together
“From our first meeting Laura put me completely at ease. She asked the right questions, listened carefully, and took the time to really understand the business and the direction I wanted to take it. She skilfully guided me through decisions I wouldn’t have known how to make on my own”.
What was delivered
A thorough marketing plan covering both immediate actions and longer-term strategy. Leaflet and poster design to promote key times of year. Support with community involvement, including the WI, a local food bank and a local school.
Impact
The promotional materials had a direct impact on orders at Christmas and Valentine’s Day, with customers returning leaflets to the shop and ordering by phone.
Community involvement increased the shop’s profile significantly and built a stronger base of regular customers.
“Laura really got a feel for my business and the direction I wanted it to go. Her marketing plan was thorough and took on board everything we discussed and more.”
Suzanne Lowery
The Flower Garden
A&S Home Furnishings
Not every client I work with leads with an environmental mission, and that’s OK. What matters most to me is the people and the purpose behind the business.
Andy runs A&S Home Furnishings with his wife, Sally who upcycles and hand-paints furniture. They help people through some of life’s more difficult moments; house moves, home clearances after a bereavement, the process of starting again somewhere new. That’s not just commerce. That’s genuine care during genuinely hard times.
Getting their online presence right meant people going through those moments could find them, trust them, and get the help they needed. That was worth doing well.
The challenge
Establishing a professional online presence for a home furnishings and house clearance business – one that reflected the care and personal touch behind the service, and made it easy for customers to find them at the moments they needed them most.
The goal
A fully operational website with online shop functionality, integrated with email marketing and social media, and set up to be found online from day one.
Working together
“Laura took the time to understand the business, the brand, and the people behind it before building anything.
Communication throughout was clear and consistent, questions were answered promptly and the process felt like a genuine partnership”.
What was delivered
A WordPress website with integrated Shopify e-commerce store. Email marketing and social media integration. Google Analytics setup. Domain registration and hosting.
Impact
Online visibility increased noticeably following the launch, with a rise in enquiries and customer conversions.
“Laura didn’t just treat me as a client, she treated me as a business partner. The website was exactly what I’d envisioned, delivered on time, and the support throughout, and since, was exceptional.”
Andy Meakin
A&S Home Furnishings
ParCityPatory / Urbanism Book Club
Some of the most interesting work I’ve done has been for people building something outside the mainstream; projects that don’t fit neatly into a category but matter enormously to the people they reach.
Laura Puttkamer is an urban journalist, lecturer and mentor working at the intersection of sustainability, community and city-making. Through ParCityPatory she explores innovative solutions for inclusive, safe and sustainable urban development, and inspires more people to participate in shaping the places they live.
During the pandemic, she ran an online book club bringing together people from around the world who cared about urbanism, reading one book a month together.
What she needed was simple but important. A visual identity for the book club that felt considered and consistent, something she could use every month without starting from scratch each time.
The challenge
Creating a consistent, professional look for an online book club without the time or resource to design new materials from scratch every month.
The goal
A set of reusable Canva templates that could be updated quickly each month, freeing up time to focus on the ideas and the community rather than the design.
Working together
Simple brief, genuinely understood and brilliantly delivered.
What was delivered
A complete set of branded Instagram templates in Canva, designed around the ParCityPatory visual identity, ready to fill in and publish each month with minimal effort.
Impact
The templates were used consistently for years. Looking back at the feed, they still look considered and cohesive, a testament to design built to last rather than built to impress once.
“Laura delivered a beautiful set of templates that far exceeded my expectations. Looking back at my feed, they still look really good even five years later – it makes me want to start the book club again.”
Laura Puttkamer
ParCityPatory / Urbanism Book Club
Family Farm Diversification Project
Helping a family farm turn a big idea into a clear path forward.
This project started with a family farm set in a beautiful piece of land in the Lincolnshire Wolds, within an Area of Outstanding Natural Beauty, and a family thinking about how they could diversify the business.
The ambition wasn’t simply to find another way to make money from the farm. It was about exploring how the land and its existing spaces could create new income for the family, while sharing the beauty of the area, bringing people together and finding ways to support the biodiversity around them.
There were plenty of ideas, from venue hire and community events to wellbeing experiences and wildflower planting. The challenge was working out which ones might actually work; commercially, practically and for the people who would ultimately have to make them happen.
The challenge
Exploring how a family farm could develop new income streams alongside the existing farming business, while balancing limited time, family commitments, investment and the practical realities of running the farm.
They had a fantastic setting, existing facilities and plenty of ideas, but there were also some big questions to answer.
What could genuinely make money? What would require too much time or investment? How much could the family realistically take on alongside jobs, children and existing commitments? How could any new venture complement the farm and its surroundings rather than compromise them?
There were lots of possibilities on the table, but no clear business model or agreed direction yet.
The goal
To take a big, fairly overwhelming collection of ideas and turn it into something the family could properly discuss, assess and make decisions about.
The family wanted to explore opportunities that could make the best use of what they already had, require relatively low investment and management, and ultimately create a viable additional income stream.
Another important part to the opportunity was to find ways to make the farm a place that could be shared with the wider community, while celebrating and protecting the natural environment around it.
Ideas such as wildflower planting could potentially provide a seasonal attraction while also benefiting pollinators and bird life. Other possibilities centred around bringing people together for events, wellbeing, nature and creative experiences.
Working together
This wasn’t a marketing project, not yet anyway.
Before you can market something, you need to know what you’re actually building, and with so many possibilities on the table, the first job was to create some clarity.
At this stage, the family needed someone to step back from the ideas, ask the right questions and look at the opportunity from a commercial and practical perspective before investing time and money into branding or marketing.
We talked through the farm, its existing assets, the family’s skills and experience, the different ideas they’d already considered and what they realistically had the capacity to take on.
I challenged some of the thinking, asked plenty of questions and helped separate the “that’s a lovely idea” from the “could this actually become a viable business?”
We also looked at the opportunity from different angles, including space hire, experiences and partnerships, rather than assuming the family needed to run every activity themselves.
What was delivered
A Farm Diversification Opportunity & Viability Report bringing everything together in one place.
This included:
* A clear overview of where the project’s existing status
* The farm’s existing strengths, assets and opportunities
* Current challenges and unknowns that needed resolving
* A broad brainstorm of potential diversification ideas
* A framework for assessing those ideas against investment, time, management requirements and commercial potential
* Opportunities to make better use of the farm’s natural environment and create community-focused experiences
* Potential business models, including venue hire, experiences and partnerships
* A suggested phased approach to help prevent the project becoming overwhelming
* Key questions and decisions for the wider family to work through before moving forward
The report wasn’t designed to tell the family what they should do. It was designed to give them a clearer starting point for making that decision together.
Impact
The project gave the family a much clearer picture of where they were, what they could potentially do and, importantly, what they still needed to work out.
Instead of a collection of ideas competing for attention, they had a structured starting point for their next conversation and a way to assess opportunities more objectively.
It also helped bring the wider opportunity into focus: not simply creating another income stream, but exploring how a working farm in such a special landscape could become a place for people, community and nature too.
The next stage is for the family to come together, agree the direction they want to explore and work through the financial, operational and practical questions before developing the business further.
That’s exactly where good marketing should start; with a clear idea of what you’re trying to build, why it matters and who it’s ultimately for.
Laura has really supported me through this very early process of our family farm business plan. She has a very genuine interest when discussing ideas.
Not long after our meeting I received a plan and summary which has helped make our discussion so clear and helped me move on to the next stage.
Overall Laura has gone above and beyond to help. Thank you”
Victoria Smith
Wold Barns (Working Title)
Ready to write your own story?
If you’re doing meaningful work and your marketing doesn’t yet reflect that, let’s have a conversation. No obligation. Just an honest chat about where you are and whether I can help.