We caught up with July’s Website of the Month winner, Breton Coastal Homes, to find out more about their business, their social media strategy, and how they create people’s dreams.

Tell us a little about yourself and your business.

We are an architectural design company, based on the Isle of Skye, specialising in providing designs of style and character to self-builders and small scale developers throughout the UK.

We pride ourselves on providing not only design but a diverse service which can take you from the survey of your site, through design and development project management.This allows our clients to choose between a range of packages extended to include delivery of a kit-home package.

This blend of services has evolved from the experience of our director John MacDonald.He returned home to the Isle of Skye after ten years of service to Shell Chemicals as an Engineering Manager.After joining his father’s building company, he spotted a opening in the market for authentically designed timber-frame homes and started the company SkyeHomes which has now evolved into Breton Coastal Homes.

We are proud of our roots, our designs and of our diverse team; and will continue to provide one of the friendliest and most comprehensive range of services available to the discerning self-builder.

What is the most rewarding aspect of your business?

The most rewarding aspect of our business certainly has to be helping our client turn their dream homes into reality.We take pleasure in being part of such a life changing project for all of our clients, and feel satisfied when our clients can relax and know that the design of their new home is in safe hands.

Also the nature of our work allows for time out of the office, on site and it is fantastic to be able to visit and survey so many beautiful plots.

If you were starting Breton Coastal Homes again from scratch, what – if anything – would you do differently?

It is difficult at this stage to say as our company is still young and growing.We do however think it is important to always allow for change, to research what people want and to keep up to date with latest technologies ensuring that we can continue to advise on all the relevant materials available to our clients.

What advice would you give to someone looking to start selling high-value products/services online?

We feel that it is particularly important for the quality of your website to match that of your products, but also that your personality and enthusiasm shines through.Make your team accessible, because being online is one thing but having a friendly chat or email conversation can mean so much more.

What were you looking for in a web design company and how did you go about choosing one?

It was important for us that our project was treated with care and enthusiasm, so we looked for a company who would invest time into getting to know our company, who had an attention for detail and who were very approachable.We like to support local companies and once we had seen HotScot’s portfolio we were sold.Each of their websites, in particular the bespoke creations, were of such a high standard and incredibly user friendly.We noticed that HotScot had been used by a wide range of companies, from big corporate organisations to smaller firms.This added to their appeal.

We did compare their services to other companies within areas which we could reach, to visit designers; but HotScot’s initial responses, pleasant manner and interest in our company made it an easy choice for us.

What kind of look/impression did you want to create for your website and how did HotScot help to achieve this?

We wanted our website to sell not only our designs but the lifestyle.So although although our objective was to end with a professional, informative site we endeavoured to make sure that it was user-friendly for our clients and that it was inspirational.

Chris, our designer from HotScot, was able to connect with our aesthetic brief using fresh, classy colours and the excellent site navigation was achieved by the interest he took in our range of products and services.

Although we had a clear vision of the timeless, elegant site which we wanted to achieve Chris was always able to expand on our ideas and emphasize what we sought to achieve.

How important is social media for your business, and what strategy have you adopted?

Social media is great and I certainly think it adds another dimension to our company.We think it is excellent for communicating all the things which we are up to, that inspire us and that helps us to connect at a different level with potential customers.It is a nice way to display our enthusiasm for our industry and we all enjoy keeping our Facebook, Twitter and Pinterest pages up to date.

How did you go about asking people to vote for your website in our monthly competition?

Facebook was fantastic for getting people to log into the Heart Internet’s Website of the Month competition.We used the banner, which gave a direct link to the voting page on our home page and we emailed our clients to ask them for our vote.

Why did you choose to host your site with Heart Internet?

As Hotscot arranged our hosting we have asked them to answer this….

Chris Hawkes, design director at Hotscot said: “Feeling less than impressed with our previous hosting providers we asked around for recommendations and Heart Internet’s name came up time and time again. It is always a bit of leap into the unknown when choosing a hosting partner but 2 years down the line we are delighted with the decision to choose Heart Internet. They offer great value for money but also excellent technical support and a short response time to any queries we have. This is fantastic as in the current economic climate customers are very demanding and Heart Internet’s ‘can do’ approach really helps us run an efficient business”.

How do you see Breton Coastal Homes developing in the future?

Our diverse range of skills allows us to offer a broad range of services to the self builder or small scale developers. With a sustained downturn in the market it will be important to acquire maximum revenue from every project so we hope to grow by maintaining this broad spectrum of services which we hope will be matched by a market preference for single sourcing, requiring less coordination.