Bluebird Care is one of the UK’s largest home care providers, operating through a network of over 200 franchise owners across the country. Each franchise serves its local community, but the brand’s digital presence was failing all three of its core audiences: families looking for care, people looking for work, and prospective franchisees looking to invest.
The website tried to serve everyone at once and ended up resonating with nobody. There were no distinct paths for each audience. Service buyers could not easily find their local office. Recruitment pages were buried. And the franchise opportunity - one of the brand’s most commercially important conversion points - was difficult to find and poorly presented.
The result was a site generating strong traffic through brand recognition alone, but converting almost none of it into meaningful enquiries. Franchise owners were frustrated. Marketing was spending more time requesting developer support for basic changes than producing content. And the platform itself - a rigid build that nobody in the team could update independently - had become a bottleneck for a business that was growing faster than its digital presence could keep up with.
"With over 200 franchise owners - all with different demands - it can be difficult to please them all. The site Distinction built does exactly that. We have a much more streamlined pipeline now as a result, and the platform gives our franchise network the digital presence they need to grow locally while we maintain brand consistency nationally."
We started with a structured research phase. Rather than assuming we knew what each audience needed, we ran separate sessions with families arranging care, current carers, and franchise owners. These conversations gave us a clear picture of what each group was actually trying to do when they arrived on the site - and where the existing experience was letting them down.
The findings shaped everything that followed. We designed three distinct paths through the site, each with its own messaging, content structure, and conversion points. A family looking for local care was guided to their nearest office within two clicks using geolocation. A prospective carer could find relevant roles and apply without being lost in corporate content. And a prospective franchisee could access a dedicated section that presented the opportunity clearly, with the commercial information and credibility signals they needed to take the next step.
We rebuilt the platform with a content management setup that gave the central marketing team full control. Franchise owners could have locally relevant content without needing to manage their own sites. The marketing team could publish updates, add case studies, and manage recruitment listings without developer involvement - something that had previously required a support ticket and a two-week wait.
Within the first year of launch, new visitors increased by 69% across all channels. Organic traffic more than doubled, rising from 2.26 million to 4.64 million visits per year. On-site engagement increased by over 500%, driven by the clearer audience paths and more relevant content on landing pages.
The commercial impact was significant. The improved digital platform contributed an additional £12 million to Bluebird Care’s top-line revenue. Franchise enquiries doubled in the first 12 months.
The operational gains were just as important. The marketing team reclaimed 416 hours per year that had previously been spent on admin and developer requests. Franchise owners reported that the local content and geolocation features were driving more relevant enquiries to their offices. The platform won four industry awards, including recognition from Kentico for the best healthcare site of the year.
"Bluebird Care was the true winner for us in the healthcare category. The project got the highest points from the committee. We really like the size of the site, use of geolocation functionality, and the year-on-year site performance."
