The planning doc

Strategy

The why before the what. Audience, voice, channels, pillars, cadence, and what success looks like in year one. Everything else in the demo answers to this.

The shop, in one paragraph

Pioneer Carpentry Co.

A four-person finish-carpentry shop in Hollowbrook, CT (Litchfield County), founded by Tom Reeves in 1998. The work is built-ins, custom cabinetry, mantles, and trim — the finish layer of a house, where most contractors hand off and where homeowners notice every shortcut. Tom's not the cheapest carpenter in the area and never plans to be. He's the one Litchfield County architects call when the trim plans matter.

"The careful, particular finish carpenter your architect already trusts — now writing about it weekly so your friends find them, too."

Audience

Who Tom is talking to

Primary: homeowner, 40–65, dual-income, owns a home in the $500k–$1.5M+ range, often working with an architect or design-build firm on a renovation. Reads Houzz, This Old House, Old House Journal, Remodelista. Cares about craftsmanship and the long view: doesn't want to redo it in five years.

Secondary: architects and design-build firms looking for a finish carpenter they can hand off to without anxiety. They become referrers, then repeat clients.

Decision driver, in their words

"Will this person cut corners I won't see for two years?"

Conversion path

Most prospects find Pioneer through a friend or architect referral, then 2–6 weeks of quiet research — Google, Houzz, the website, the Google Business Profile. They reach out only after they've decided Tom is the one. The marketing job is to be findable and credible during the research weeks.

Audience Pioneer is not for

  • Quick-flip investors — cost-only buyers, wrong fit
  • Lowest-bid renovators — will be unhappy with Pioneer's pricing, and that's fine
  • Big-box-store DIYers — different audience entirely; not adversarial, just not the customer
Pillars

The four content pillars

Every piece of content for Pioneer rolls up to one of these four. They rotate weekly — Built → Materials → Workshop → Season — so the year never feels repetitive and the audience always has variety.

01 · Built

Project showcases — finished work, in-progress photos, design decisions.

02 · Materials

Wood education. Why this species, why not that. Sourcing, finish, longevity.

03 · Workshop

Behind the bench. Tools, jigs, technique, the apprentice, the dust-collection upgrade.

04 · Season

Timely & local. Tax-time, spring projects, holiday hosting, year-end reflections.

Channels

Where the content lives

Pioneer's audience isn't on every platform. We post where the audience already is, with the format the platform rewards.

Channel Cadence Job
Website + blog1 / weekBrand-search anchor; SEO authority via 52 weekly posts.
Facebook4 / weekCommunity & warm referrals. Project photos do the heavy lifting.
LinkedIn2 / weekArchitects, designers, design-build firms. Trade-audience framing.
Instagram3 / weekVisual portfolio. Same project work as Facebook, condensed captions.
Google Business Profile2 / weekLocal-search dominance. Photos, finished projects, weekly updates.
Newsletter1 / monthPast clients. Warm referrals. Short, useful, signed by Tom.
Voice

How Tom sounds

Tom Reeves is a 53-year-old craftsman who has been doing this work since 1998. He's measured, direct, opinionated, dry, and never salesy. The voice in every blog post, social caption, and newsletter should sound like Tom standing in his shop telling you something true.

What we're after

  • Precise — specific tools, specific species, specific tolerances
  • Calm — no exclamation points, no "exciting news"
  • Opinionated — Tom has takes about MDF, kiln-drying, jobs done in a hurry
  • Generous with knowledge — explains the why, not just the what
  • Quietly funny — dry, self-deprecating, never punching

What we're not

  • Salesy or generic-trade ("we deliver quality craftsmanship to discerning clients")
  • Hashtag-stuffed
  • Manufactured-folksy — the voice is real because Tom is, not because we wrote in dialect

"Walnut's slow. Not because it's hard to work. Because the right boards aren't usually sitting at Connecticut Hardwoods when you drive up with a list. You get told to come back Tuesday. So you come back Tuesday."

Year-one KPIs

What success looks like

Tracked in Google Analytics, Search Console, GBP Insights, and the contact-form log. Reviewed quarterly with Tom.

+40%
Brand-name search growth (Pioneer Carpentry direct queries, YoY)
+100%
Total website sessions YoY, driven by indexed blog content
12+
New Google reviews in year one (currently 4)
30+
Non-referral contact-form inquiries (up from ~0)

Want the long version?

The full strategy — with positioning, decision drivers, audience exclusions, voice samples, and the operational details — lives in Tab 01 of the workbook.