Woof!

[Nakatomi]

Seems there's been a new boy in town for a while sending DJs 'leads' from potential clients. Or rather, letting businesses know about leads & charging them £5 a pop to respond. You read that right. A potential customer fills in a quick form outlining what they're looking for, and bark.com send out emails to all & sundry who might match the desired profile. To respond, you don't deal directly with the potential customer, and it costs you a given number of 'credits' depending on what line you're in. In the case of DJs, that's a fiver's worth.

Anybody here heard of them or had any positive experience of them? I don't like the idea of paying that much just to respond to a potential client. What's the world coming to?

[rth_discos]

I'm always interested in new things. I've been particularly keen to keep up with new concepts since I dismissed Facebook advertising in its early days - and look how powerful that is now!

I have no issue with paying for a lead. At £1 a click on Google AdWords for example, with an enquiry from every clicks, that's £10 a lead.

And if you pay £150 to exhibit at a wedding fair, and get 10 leads, then that's £15 a lead.

So every piece of marketing we do has a cost of acquisition. And it's vital you know what your cost of acquisition is from each method of marketing to understand what your real cost of advertising is.

If I spent £250 on a piece of marketing that got me 50 leads I'd be over the moon.

And the real crux is how many of those leads then covert in to bookings.

Anyway, Bark...

I've been giving it a go, to see what it's about.

Here's what I've found:

It seems to attract clients looking for the low end of the market. Their budgets are often sub £200. It looks like the people looking for DJs on it are mainly interested in price - ie, who can provide the lowest quote. So not for me in that respect.

However, on the flip side, there's been a couple of Barks where a week later an email has come through from Bark saying that there have been no responses to a lead, so it seems many DJs have dismissed Bark and aren't using it.

That's not surprising though - the lower end of the market tend not to spend much on marketing, and are the first to turn their nose up at paying £5 for a lead, as their margins are already very slim.

So that's my overview of it. I can't see it revolutionising the industry. It's nearest competitor is NeedADisco.com which I think does a far better job all round (both for clients and for DJs), and I can't see it losing much ground to Bark.

[yourdj]

I don't like the idea of paying that much just to respond to a potential client. What's the world coming to?

I would pay £25 for a lead if I knew that it would be a decent client with a more than reasonable chance they will book. Lets say a 70% percent success rate in getting them to initial meeting level. this is especially true if I could somehow target specific venues and locations. Given that I am a higher priced DJ these services don't usually pay dividends as you have to compete with everyone else exploiting the concept. Price comparison sites tend to be the cheaper end of the market most of the time, but you never know? I had my first ever lead from this directory yesterday mind you for the Elvetham. Anyone else get that? Not responded yet.

[musicology]

I've had several leads in the last 3 weeks or so and it works quite well. 2 bookings so far. They do well in google searches and are paying for ads to put themselves 1st in some searches. I'm happy with them!

[Shakermaker Promotions]

I've had well over 50 leads from them and have paid for one with no success.
The idea is ok but I think the £5.00 is a bit steep just to be able to get in touch with them. I'd even question if any of the leads are actually real and not made up.
As Toby said, if the jobs were decent ones I'd pay a decent bit to make sure I got them...............but they don't seem to be.

[Nakatomi]

As I suspected there seem to be people getting work from it & people having no luck with it at all. I've been tempted to chip in a few quid & see where it goes. Maybe I will next time. Back when I still advertised in print media I spent way more than a fiver a convertible lead.

[musicology]

Yep, and you only pay for it if you want to contact the lead. I prefer that to the NAD model but I agree the cost per lead is pretty steep.

[Solitaire Events Ltd]

I've been in contact with them a lot making suggestions to how I think things would be better and at first they took them on board, but they seemed to not be bothered now.

Budgets are low generally and they are asking the wrong questions and missing fundamental things off their forms.

Waste of time IMO.

[Shakermaker Promotions]

I had my first ever lead from this directory yesterday mind you for the Elvetham. Anyone else get that? Not responded yet.

Yep!