About Coulter Hinks

Coulter Hinks is a Manchester growth agency that combines commercial thinking, finance and marketing to help owner-led businesses understand where their next stage of growth is most likely to come from, and build a plan around it.

Most growing businesses reach a point where the decisions become harder. Do you invest in ads, hire another member of staff, or improve the customer journey first? Is growth going to come from finding new customers, or from increasing the value of the ones you already have? These questions are usually answered through isolated reports — marketing agencies focus on marketing, accountants focus on finance — leaving the business owner to connect the dots on their own.

We were built to bring those conversations together, so that every recommendation is grounded in both commercial performance and customer behaviour, and so that marketing always supports a clearly defined commercial objective rather than simply generating activity.

What We Offer

We give businesses clarity, structure and a way of thinking that ties marketing to the commercial reality of the business. Before we recommend anything, we take the time to understand how the business actually works — where profit comes from, which products carry the greatest contribution margin, where customers are dropping away, and what success genuinely looks like over the next twelve months.

From there, marketing becomes far easier to prioritise. We deliver strategy, execution and a commercial layer that keeps the two aligned, so you are never surprised by what is happening beneath the surface. No confusing jargon, no generic AI-driven recommendations — only advice built around your business and the decisions in front of you.

About Lydia

I'm Lydia Coulter, founder of Coulter Hinks. A marketer by background and a founder by experience. Yorkshire-born, with professional chapters in London, Manchester and Edinburgh, I'm now back home and yapping on (again) about marketing.

My early career was spent in London agencies, running campaigns for national brands — work that gave me a deep grounding in strategic and commercial thinking. But it was my own journey as a business founder that shaped how I work now. When you have sat in the owner's chair, you understand that every pound has to earn its place, and that marketing only matters if it strengthens the business behind it.

At Coulter Hinks, that thinking runs through everything. I lead on strategy alongside Grace Bailey-Hinks, our finance strategist, whose commercial rigour means our advice goes well beyond channel metrics — into contribution margin, customer value, retention and forecasting. Together we help business owners make decisions with far greater confidence.

Our sessions are designed to give owner-led businesses the clarity and confidence to grow on their own terms — knowing where to focus, where to invest, and where the greatest return really lies.