Barno recently celebrated its 70th year and for a company in the bespoke promotional products space, this is quite significant. COVID-19 negatively impacted businesses and companies like Barno that employs a large workforce, were hit especially hard. Though the company went on to lose a large chunk of its employees, it was able to recover and hire back some of these same staff members. Barno is evidence of what a resilient business mindset and dedicated website strategy can achieve.
John Fanner, a Director actively involved in Barno’s sales division, recently took some time out of his busy schedule to have a chat with us. Every interaction with John has proven that Barno stands by its motto of being “Your brand’s best friend!” by displaying the empathy of management to take care of its staff (who they lovingly call, “Barno Bees”). This dedication to staff goes so far as having employees in the business own shares in the business, that gives everyone a vested interest in its success. With the world quickly going digital, a traditional print and manufacturing company was struggling to make ends meet only a few short years ago.
Big Beard Web Solutions was approached and a few tweaks to the website saw an annual average of 1-2 leads increase to 2-5 per month. John was happy to confirm that up in Gauteng they enjoyed an 80% sales conversion rate, which makes sense since Johannesburg is still South Africa’s business hub. The introduction of a Google Ads strategy which worked well with the optimised website also noted that sales were particularly strong in the hospitality sector. This data is especially important for a business like Barno that has been serving blue chip clients for decades.
Despite the increasing rise of AI (Artificial Intelligence), business is still a people-focused process. It’s people like John and the Barno Bees who get up early in the morning and put in hundreds of hours each month to make sure a company like Barno can celebrate another 70 years. Big Beard Web Solutions has recently dedicated itself to getting 1000 business online in the next 10 years. This means offering the best digital solutions for companies like Barno, but also helping the next big South African company realise its ultimate potential online!
