Otter Farm

The seeds of success

When award winning food writer Mark Diacono originally came to us, he was best known as part of the original River Cottage garden team.

His obsession with the extraordinary, growing unusual edible plants around the world to long-forgotten British varieties like medlars, along with his humour and distinctive writing style, helped build a loyal and engaged audience.

Otter Farm was the next chapter: part experimental orchard, part food-lovers’ learning retreat, and wholly unlike anything else.

With a loyal audience from books, talks, and TV appearances, Mark launched a hugely successful crowdfunding campaign to bring the vision to life.

What he needed was a digital home that could match the creativity and ethos of the project. It needed to feel rooted in the soil yet ready for serious growth.

We were tasked with building a site that could reflect the story, welcome a community, and support ecommerce and memberships from day one.

When Channel 4’s Grand Designs picked up the project, the stakes rose further. We had to deliver a platform that could gracefully handle a huge traffic surge, with infrastructure that could automatically scale with demand.

Mark brought the vision. We helped make it real.

What We Did

• Collaborative design process based on Otter Farm brand and book visuals
• WordPress website build with ecommerce functionality
• Custom Foundation membership setup for exclusive content and offers
• Email marketing design and integration
• Hosting and support
• Marketing strategy for ongoing community development
• Search Engine Optimisation

From plot to platform

From the outset, Mark’s energy made it a genuinely fun, collaborative build. We worked closely with Mark to colour-match design elements from his books and visual materials, shaping a palette that felt rooted in the farm and true to his story.

With growing, cooking and community at its core, the site structure was built to reflect Otter Farm’s wider purpose.

The e-commerce platform needed to support a rich mix of content, products, writing and courses. A membership model helps reward supporters and deepen the connection with the Otter Farm community.

What began as a website build has evolved into a long-term relationship.

We continue to support Mark with marketing planning sessions to help prioritise how best to use his time, which communities to focus on, and how each platform connects with the customer journey.

We also provided SEO support to help increase visibility and drive organic engagement.

The Solution

A values-led e-commerce site designed to grow a like-minded community around sustainable food, farming and learning.

The new site provided a seamless brand experience across content, commerce and membership.

It allowed Mark to bring together his community under one digital roof, with the flexibility to adapt as time went on.

The site paid for itself within the first year. Since then, it has consistently generated over ten times the initial investment annually.

Alongside the website, Mark has grown a large and loyal audience across social media and Substack, where he recently published a community-led book titled Abundance.

“I’ve had an excellent experience working with Vu. They are highly professional, friendly, and a pleasure to work with.”

The Results

Since launch, the Otter Farm ecommerce site has grossed over £500,000, with annual sales now more than three times higher than when we started.

In the last two years alone, website traffic has increased fivefold, and while the total number of ranked keywords has remained steady, the number of keywords in the top 3 positions has more than doubled.

The site has remained robust and relevant for nearly a decade thanks to ongoing development and optimisation.

We’ve supported the increase in sales with admin helping updates like PDF packing slips, integrated email marketing, SEO, as well as a series of customer-led workshops that brought together Mark’s book sales, online courses, and plant business into one actionable plan.