Written by Are you BARK’ing up the wrong tree!
BARK.com is a consumer to business “middleman” that puts potential clients in touch with business of all types, photographers included. It’s business model requires businesses to buy credits upfront and then to use these to progress inquiries. While on paper this seems to be a good idea for businesses to sign-up for, this can be expensive if the customer is difficult to nail down or the inquiry is vague. Although I receive emails regularly from BARK with requests for a variety of photography services I don’t see that many where I feel that the customer is ready to buy.
The vast majority of the inquiries are TBH very vague and for this reason I suspect that the BARK model is somewhat more successful for them than for the businesses they support. This is because getting the professional to pay for leads upfront of a successful outcome places all of the risk squarely on their shoulders with BARK not having to worry too much if the outcome is successful or not.
I find this approach, especially for customers / consumers to be somewhat surprising given that we live in a world where social media abounds and everyone knows everyone else’s business. My own photographic studio her in Torquay, inPixtures, has a facebook page, I have a facebook profile and I also have a studio / art based website alongside this one. I can be contacted through any and all of these channels 24/7 and as such I totally accessible. Do I see much footfall through these mechanisms, in fairness no despite the opportunity for contact that these mechanisms deliver.
Contact me directly – I’d love to work with you!
So for those of you reading this article and who are local to Torquay here in the UK, I’d love to work with you. I am a professional photographer with a working studio offering portraiture through to commercial work, both location and studio based. You could reach me through BARK but why bother when you can do it here, saving me additional overheads which I can convert into savings for you.
