We’re delighted to announce that Nick Hewer, former right-hand man to Alan Sugar and highly successful businessman is set to join Bark.com on Tuesday, October 6th, for a day of expert advice and insight into SME success.
Nick and Bark.com’s founders
After 10 years on The Apprentice, Nick retired from the showat the end of the last season, and is now working as a consultant for a number of small businesses as he continues to make his mark on the UK’s entrepreneurial scene (as well as, of course, presenting Countdown!).
He’s been working with Bark.com since our inception (here’s him explaining how Bark works back in March) and as part of our partnership, next Tuesday, Nick will be taking part in a live Q&A session on via the @barkteam twitter page, giving budding entrepreneurs and small business owners the chance to have their business queries answered by the man himself.
The start of a great partnership!
Have a burning question? Let us know using the #AskNick hashtag and we’ll do our best to go through as many as we can. Or, if you just happy to sit back and absorb the insights, tune in from 1-2pm.
If you can’t make it though, not to worry – we’ll also be sharing Nick’s top tips for SMEs on our YouTube channel and via our blog, so watch this space.
We are surrounded by media. From when we sit at the bus stop in the morning to when we chill out in front of the TV in the evening, we are constantly targeted by large companies and brands who are desperate to gain our attention. This has become increasingly prevalent in the age of social media, which has provided another avenue from which brands can target us, even drilling down into our demographics and interests. With that in mind, small business owners now need to make sure that they are developing an online presence, to make them stand out in industries that are already heavily saturated.
It’s common knowledge that online presence means brand awareness. Nowadays, how you present your brand online is similar to meeting a customer for the first time. Your online brand is essentially what people think of you when you are not available. Online presence is often a test of credibility for many technologically savvy consumers, who would rather connect with businesses online first before making a purchasing decision. This poses an opportunity to impress and capture the attention of potential customers. These days the first port of call when looking for information about a product or a service is to ‘Google’ it, meaning online presence is crucial if you want to make your business a successful one.
So how can you become a major player in this competitive age? Here are 5 ways to effectively maximise your online presence:
Branding
No matter how big or small your company is – branding matters. From word go a clear and consistent branding strategy should be developed, which can be pumped across all online channels to create brand recognition. According to the founder of The NY Brand Lb, Mary Van de Wiel, “without a brand you ultimately lack an identity, a presence – and a purpose.” You should think about your tone of voice and your values, as well as your visual aesthetic. Not particularly creative? Don’t know where to start? Then maybe you should find a graphic designer who can help you pinpoint what your business is about in a visually appealing way.
Shout loud about your brand
Website Design and Development
You never know who will be knocking on your virtual door at any time of the day or night – so make sure your home on the Internet is kitted out for new visitors! Creating and more importantly maintaining a website is a useful tool for every business. Here, you can shout loud about your portfolio of work and maybe even offer your tuppence-worth via a company blog. Your website needs to be functional and user friendly, and this is where a professional with experience in website design and development may come in handy! Once you find the right web developer, start thinking about optimising your website. This will make sure that your website performs well on search engines – just like the aforementioned Google! Be front and centre of the online world, and drive traffic to your website with the help of an SEO professional.
Build a user-friendly website!
Social Media
You’ve developed your brand, and mastered your website. But how can you enhance the visibility of your brand even further? The key is to make sure you are on social media – which is both effective and cost effective. Social media not only helps you to grow your customer base by reaching a wider audience, it also helps you to promote brand recognition and loyalty. Find a social media marketer who can help you maximise channels such as Facebook, Twitter and Instagram. Although not the most widely used social network, G+ should also be maximised. Effective use of G+ can determine your inclusion and ranking in the carousel of businesses that appear at the top of the Google search results. As well as aiding your SEO, there are also advanced features available to businesses using G+. Check out G+ for yourself and add Bark.com to your circles!
If you’re feeling particularly competitive, you might want to also get set up on new and emerging social networks like Snapchat and Periscope. The opportunities are endless!
Engage with your customers via social media
Email Marketing
In this day and age, almost everyone has an online presence in some form, even if it is just an email address. Email marketing is a sure way to stay on the radar of potential customers, and it can definitely allow you to establish profitable relationships in the long term. This is to be used wisely, and should not be spam abuse. Instead your emails should offer something to the consumer – be it special offers, industry news or company updates. Feeling a little confused? Then find an email marketer to help you get the job done.
Build a targeted email marketing campaign
Online Directories
Regardless of how strong your online presence is, you won’t be able to sit back, relax and let the cash flow in. You need to get ahead of your competitors, who are battling against you with extensive advertising budgets. If a customer can’t find you when they are searching for a product or a service, then you simply won’t get the business. Joining an online directory like our very own Bark.com ensures that you are placed directly in front of the right people, often for a very minimal spend. No matter what service you provide, learn more about joining Bark by visiting our Pro-Centre.
Incorporating a targeted email marketing campaign with your slick new branding, user-friendly website and engaging social media strategy will set your small business on a path to success, all with the added help from an online directory like Bark.com!
Do you have any other tips for small business owners? Let us know!
For more Bark.com tips and insights, why not check out our otherblogs?
iMend.com is a nationwide call-out mobile phone repair service. They send out a technician to the customer’s home or workplace who will fix the phone onsite, all from only £29.99. Customers love them and they often carry out repairs same day.
Bark has sent iMend 107 leads in just 3 weeks and they have converted around 20% of them into sales.
Sarah McConomy, Director at iMend, commented:
‘Bark is a great service, easy to use and we are very happy to be working with them’
Asked for advice to other businesses using Bark she commented:
‘We advise acting quickly and being prompt when you get an update or a new lead. Keep customer service in mind and you will be able to make the most of Bark and the leads you are sent’
Andy Irvine from Plumb It! runs a successful plumbing company in Cheltenham, UK and gets most of his business from word of mouth. However, when Bark emailed him with a customer requirement from someone just down the road he decided to give it a try and has since got 12 jobs using Bark. Kai gave him a call to see if he had any tips for other Pros on Bark.
So, how did you get started on Bark?
I randomly got an e-mail from Bark.com saying that someone in Cheltenham was looking to have a bath tub removed and replaced with a shower. To be honest as I hadn’t heard of Bark before I thought it might be dodgy but I decided to give it a go anyway and wrote a reply to them asking for some more detail about exactly what they wanted. They actually replied straight away and it turns out they lived 5 doors down from me and we’ve got friends in common! I went round and did a quotation for them and installed their new shower the following week.
That’s a great start! So did you subscribe to Bark at that point?
Haha I probably should have but no I thought I’d see what else would come in first! I got a about 5 more leads over the next month and was successful with one of them and that point I decided to subscribe to get more leads.
And what happened next?
After subscribing I started getting leads every day and I also found buyers responded more quickly. Having the Verified Pro badge next to my name seems to make buyers a lot more trusting and I guess it makes you stand out amongst the crowd. I’ve been getting about one in 3 jobs I reply to which the Bark customer service team told me is pretty good going!
Why do you think you get a good response?
I’ve always put a fair bit of time into writing proper emails and detailed quotations. I’ve found with Bark that you have to spend the time to write a good pitch – or at least ask intelligent questions so that the buyer realizes I know what I’m doing and I’m worth talking to further. I know a lot of people just type one-liners and don’t even check their spelling and grammar!
Any other tips?
What’s good about Bark is that I get out what I put in. Sometimes I’m just too busy to reply quickly if I’m on a job and in those cases either I’ll just leave it or I’ll reply that evening if the job looks good enough. I think it’s important to either give the client a good experience or not at all – so I don’t reply to everything just to see what happens, I only reply to jobs I know I can deliver on.
I’m really pleased to say we’ve hit 10,000 suppliers today registered on Bark!
That’s a great achievement for us and we are proud to be helping some many small companies get more business – without charging them a penny! Bark is working and working well – we are starting to make a real difference to how people find local service providers and are looking forward to continuing on our mission to take the pain out of getting quotes and finding skilled professionals online. list of domains .
