Nature's Laboratory: Finding Its Voice

Nature's Laboratory is a leading manufacturer of natural medicines, based in Whitby. In 2021 I joined the team as Director of Technology, working in-house for three years to help steer the business through a period of rapid change and difficult market conditions. This case study covers the brand, web and marketing side of that work; the software and IT systems I built are covered in a separate case study.

A brand hiding behind its brands. Nature's Laboratory operates several distinct brands — Herbal Apothecary, BeeVital and Sweet Cecily's — and most customers connected with an individual brand rather than the company behind them. To market Nature's Laboratory effectively, I designed a new visual identity and a dedicated website, referencing plant medicines, bee medicines and community in the new logo. For the first time, the company could clearly communicate its full service offering: research, product development, manufacturing and regulatory support. This attracted several new contract manufacturing customers, some of whom now sell products developed and manufactured by Nature's Laboratory internationally.

Design across print and packaging. The new identity flowed through a wide range of printed materials — stationery, leaflets, brochures, adverts, promotional items — plus packaging and labels for new product ranges, and marketing materials for each of the individual brands. There's something very satisfying about seeing products you've designed on shop shelves around the UK.

Rebuilding Herbal Apothecary online. One web project deserves special mention. When I joined, a new WordPress site for Herbal Apothecary was just being completed — and it quickly proved not fit for purpose. I rebuilt it in Shopify, tailoring the theme's template files to the brand's specific requirements, including restricting access to certain products using tags. The new site immediately outperformed the old one, thanks to a faster and more mobile-friendly experience, stronger SEO, more accurate stock control and a coherent marketing strategy that re-launched Herbal Apothecary as the UK's leading practitioner brand. Online turnover doubled in the year following launch and continues to grow. In all, I designed and built seven websites across the company's brands during my time there.

A new marketing direction. Historically the business had been marketed through its people — CEO James Fearnley is a leading expert on the medicinal properties of propolis. We shifted the focus to products and services, launched the 'Creating our Herbal Future' video, sponsored the National Institute of Medical Herbalists' 'Power of Plants' festival in 2022 and 2023, hosted community open days and used social media to spread the word.

The SEO work paid off in ways money can't buy: Nature's Laboratory became the #1 recommended brand when asking ChatGPT for a 'natural medicine manufacturer UK', with Herbal Apothecary featured in Google's AI Overview for the same search. And in 2023, the company won 'Best Business Transformation' at The Scarborough News Excellence Awards — a team award, but one that validated everything we'd set out to achieve.