COMPANY OVERVIEW
Drab to Fab is a San Diego-based landscape design, build, and maintenance company founded by husband-and-business-partner duo Kurt and Alec. What started as a cross-country move from the East Coast in 2020 quickly grew into one of San Diego’s standout landscaping brands, built on a commitment to sustainability, craftsmanship, and outdoor spaces that actually reflect the people who live in them. With 10x follower growth in just 14 months, their social media presence has become as striking as the landscapes they build.
SHORT-FORM VIDEOS
THE CHALLENGE
Drab to Fab came to us with almost no social media presence to speak of. A handful of static images and a video of a dirt compacting machine wasn’t exactly a content strategy. Beyond that, they were operating in one of the most saturated markets in San Diego County. Residential landscaping is flooded with competitors, and standing out meant doing something most businesses in the space weren’t doing at all.
Short-form video was the answer, but it came with its own challenge. The Drab to Fab team had no experience creating content for social media, which meant before we could execute, we had to educate. Building a process that worked for both teams from the ground up was just as much a part of the job as the content itself.
THE SOLUTION
Drab to Fab was entering a space where the playbook didn’t exist yet. No other landscaping company in the area was showing up consistently on social media with intentional, educational content, which meant we had a real opportunity to own that space before anyone else did.
As a certified B-Corp, Drab to Fab has strong opinions on what the landscaping industry is getting wrong. Most competitors are mow-and-blow operations focused on making things look “pretty” with little regard for sustainability, water usage, or the local ecosystem. Rather than shying away from that conversation, we made it the foundation of the content strategy. By leading with education, teaching audiences which plants thrive in San Diego’s climate, busting common gardening myths, and sharing honest takes on sustainable practices, we positioned Drab to Fab as the thought leader in a space where no one else was saying anything worth listening to.
Over several months, we developed a repeatable system, capturing, editing, and posting videos every month to be cross-posted across Facebook, Instagram, TikTok, and YouTube Shorts. Through consistent testing and iteration, we identified content pillars that resonated most with their audience and continued to refine the strategy around them.
THE RESULTS
CONCLUSION
Drab to Fab is proof that the right content strategy can turn an untapped space into a competitive advantage. In an industry where most businesses aren’t saying anything worth paying attention to, showing up consistently with educational, opinion-led short-form video made all the difference. When you give people a reason to follow you, they do. When you position your brand as the most knowledgeable, trustworthy voice in the room, the growth follows. That’s what we built for Drab to Fab, and it’s a formula that works for any business willing to show up and say something worth hearing.