When Nelly Berova started Art Division in 2001, she had no property industry contacts, no business plan for the sector, and no particular reason to think estate agents would one day make up the vast majority of her clients.
Twenty-five years later, Art Division has emerged as a London-based digital marketing agency that works almost exclusively with estate and letting agents across the UK, offering web design, SEO, content marketing, paid advertising, and social media management.
Berova has led the company as Managing Director since its founding, navigating co-founder departures, ill health, a global pandemic, and multiple waves of technological change along the way.
Starting from scratch in south London
Berova founded Art Division with Natalie Stewart, whom she had met in college. The pair had been working together at a recycling company in Mitcham, producing its marketing materials, when they decided to go it alone.
The company started in Carshalton, Surrey, offering graphic design, branding, and basic website design to local businesses. A third member, Natalie Piper, joined as a graphic designer in 2002.
When Stewart departed in 2004, Piper became Berova’s business partner and co-owner.
“It makes me laugh to think about the types of websites we used to create back then – everything was much more basic,” Berova says. “Networking was different too.
We joined our first BNI group in Croydon in 2002 and made contacts with so many local businesses. But doing the rounds of face-to-face meetings took time. You would meet tens of people just to get one lead.”
The company grew steadily through those local networks. In 2005, Berova won an entrepreneur of the year award, and Art Division expanded into a larger office in Sutton.
A difficult turning point
But 2008 proved to be a critical year. Piper resigned from the business, and Berova was forced to deal with a period of ill health that took her out of action for several months. The company was, by her own account, vulnerable.
Berova used the period that followed to rethink the business. In 2009, Art Division made the strategic decision to pivot towards the property sector, a market Berova had first encountered in 2003, when an estate agent called Peter Thurston commissioned the company to build a website.
That one-off project had planted a seed, and by 2010, estate agency clients had become the company’s primary focus.
“At first, few agents saw the point of having a website, which just shows how times have changed,” she says.
“But once the technology improved and portals like Rightmove appeared on the scene, agents became far more interested in having a good website.”
Building a niche in estate agent marketing
The specialisation paid off. As Art Division built a reputation within the property sector, London-based agencies began to take notice.
In 2012, the Fitzrovia agency LDG became one of the first London estate agents to commission the company for both its website and ongoing marketing, which was a notable turning point that shifted Art Division’s focus to the capital.
In 2013, the company won a Silver award for Supplier of the Year (Technology) at The Negotiator Awards, which recognises company achievements across the property industry.
Berova later became a contributor to The Negotiator Magazine in 2020, and was invited to join the judging panel for The Negotiator Awards in 2021.
“It was really significant,” Berova says. “When you’re asked to judge an awards ceremony that you once won at, it tells you that the industry recognises your contribution.”
Adapting through the pandemic, and beyond
When the Covid-19 pandemic hit in 2020, Art Division transitioned to remote working, which, it turns out, was an enduring change. With days at the office in the past, they spent even more time refining their website product for estate agents.
Previously, they had built fully bespoke websites for each client, but during the pandemic and the years that followed, they built what Berova calls a “reusable web infrastructure.”
This underlying structure could be replicated for multiple clients, and then be visually personalised for each individual agency, allowing Art Division to offer bespoke-looking websites that took far less time to create.
“This change really set us apart in terms of cost and quality – and it’s stood the test of time. All the hard work and effort we made back in 2020 is still paying off as we refine our website platform further.”
Today, most of Art Division’s clients are estate and letting agents, and the company offers services spanning web development, SEO, AI optimisation, content production, paid advertising, and social media management, all tailored to UK property professionals.
What 25 years in business has taught her
Berova is candid about the challenges of running a business for nearly a quarter-century.
“There were points where I wasn’t sure the business would survive,” she says, “and that’s something I think most SME founders would understand – given various financial shocks over the years and changes brought about by the pandemic.
But our approach was to keep innovating and push on.”
Her advice to other business owners considering a particular niche is direct: “Don’t be afraid to specialise. Our shift into the property sector built valuable expertise, skills and knowledge, helping us gain recognition across the industry.
We couldn’t have got the same results if we aimed at every sector.”
As the UK property sector continues to evolve, notably with new AI search tools, Berova sees this as yet another opportunity. “Lots of change is happening, but that’s what makes it exciting.
We’re finding whole new ways to make estate agents visible through AI search optimisation, digital PR and a few tweaks to our website model.”
At the same time, she sees Art Division’s long-standing presence in the industry as an advantage: “We’ve overcome so many disruptions to the industry in the last 10 years, but we always innovate in response, and today is no different.”
By Lawanda Gonasales
Advertising feature with Art Division
