How (p)awesome social media drives sales for this canine brand
BullyBillows founders Ben Billows and Anthony Koumi’s tips for growing a business
You can’t fake it
Your passion for the business has to be genuine, or those long hours are going to feel even longer. By the time Koumi gave up his previous career in the grocery business to commit to BullyBillows full-time, “I was sometimes getting two hours’ sleep a night,” he says. “If you didn’t truly believe in and love what you are doing, you would have to be crazy to put in the amount of hours we are,” agrees Billows.
Social media ‘fun’ is a serious business
“So much work goes on behind the scenes” of the brand’s fun social-media presence, says Billows, who stresses that BullyBillows’ online popularity is no accident but “the result of hard work, sacrifice, dedication and persistence for years which still continues each and every day”.
Don’t wait for perfect moments
“You can’t always wait for the perfect moment. Sometimes you have to make the perfect moment,” says Koumi, citing the decision to move to a bigger premises. “If we had faltered a couple of years ago at what turned out to be just prior to a crucial time for the business, we wouldn’t be where we are now.”
Dog owners are famously proud of their pets - and no one knows this better than the founders of canine accessories brand, BullyBillows, Anthony Koumi and Benjamin Billows.
Every year, BullyBillows launches a competition to find their next canine brand ambassadors. The furry winners (and their owners) are showcased across the website and all BullyBillows social media platforms and are also offered exclusive VIP access to latest and unreleased products.
It’s an annual event that BullyBillows’ customers love. “This year we had 5,281 entries,” says co-founder Koumi.
The competition is also a way to extend the brand’s reach - and shine the spotlight onto proud BullyBillows customers, who are encouraged to post photos of their pets and use the hashtag “#IAMBULLYBILLOWS”.
For Koumi and co-founder Billows, the competition has many benefits; most importantly, it allows BullyBillows to engage directly with customers, which is something Billows and Koumi are both passionate about.
The success of BullyBillows’ ambassador program - and the brand’s savvy approach to social media, in general - is just one of the factors behind the Nottingham-based business’s extraordinary success.
Since launching in late 2017, Billows and Koumi have taken the company from a side hobby operating out of Billows’ spare room to a thriving business that employs nine full-time employees, as well as part-time staff and freelancers. In the past four years, the brand has sold close to a million products worldwide.
Thinking social from the start
BullyBillows was borne from Billows frustration at the poor quality and blandness of most dog collars and harnesses.
Koumi, a long-term friend, had observed the same issue, and the pair spent years developing their signature canine accessory collections, which are now used daily by thousands of customers worldwide.
(They named the company, in part, after Ben’s first dog, an exuberant bull terrier known as 'Bam the bully’.)
While the success of BullyBillows ultimately comes down to the quality of the products, Billows and Koumi have taken a savvy approach to social media from the start by ensuring that the products are unique and vibrant, to capture attention on social media feeds. “We quickly realised that if you can provide exciting styles and vibrant colours, people will favour that,” says Billows.
A two-way conversation
BullyBillows has successfully created a community of pet owners and dog lovers, and Billows says a critical part of this success involves taking the time to interact and engage with customers when they get in touch.
“No matter how busy we get, we pride ourselves on replying to every social media message,” says Billows. “Even if it’s just a ‘Hi’, you’ll receive a ‘Hi’ back. We have built fantastic relationships and partner with like-minded pages,” Billows says, referring to the BullyBillows ambassador roster. “When people share passion and love, social media can be a great place.”
“When people share passion and love, social media can be a great place.”
In turn, BullyBillows will reshare pictures of canine customers sporting BullyBillows gear in its Stories and the main feed every day. The brand’s Instagram gallery grid has a consistent, recognisable style, even when it comes from user-generated content. Followers can expect to see plenty of engaging, close-cropped photos of dogs in distinctive “BB”-branded accessories.
Using the power of endorsement
However, it’s the ambassador competition that is BullyBillows’ most successful initiative. There are now 15 dogs who are official ambassadors for the brand and several already had an impressive social-media presence, which increases BullyBillows’ reach. The longest-serving ambassador, @bluestaffy, has 278k dog-loving followers on Instagram alone, for example. One of the functions of the ambassador scheme, says Koumi, is that it is “a huge thank you from BullyBillows to all of the pages that have been loyal and have followed us for years”.
It is clear that BullyBillows take great pride in their website, especially the product reviews. “Hearing other dog-owners recommend the product makes all the difference,” says Koumi.
How Clearpay helps consumers
Clearpay enables BullyBillows customers to move beyond entry-point products, such as one item, to entire sets, including collars, leads and harnesses.
“Harnesses and other products require more complex manufacturing and the prices reflect this,” says Billows. “Someone might be spending £100 with us rather than £20.” This is where ClearPay has helped to grow the business, he adds, “having ClearPay has enabled customers to afford larger orders, with payment terms that suits them”.
Koumi added, “And because ClearPay is available in other countries as well as the UK, it often saves customers money on the exchange rate, and it’s interest-free.”
Staying ahead of the pack
Having been ahead of the “dogs on social” trend, BullyBillows will soon take things one step further. “We’re launching a social media platform for dogs, called UpDog, (@updogclub) to give back to the canine community, says Koumi.
The pair say they have noticed a clear trend in the volume of canine dedicated pages, and say that launching UpDog is a way to give back to BullyBillows community and encourage connections between like-minded individuals.
Users of UpDog will be able to create accounts, upload photos to your profile/feed, enter fun competitions and win rewards which customers can use to make real-world purchases. Owning the social media platform will be a significant but logical next step for the brand that has excelled at social media marketing.
BullyBillows founders Ben Billows and Anthony Koumi’s tips for growing a business
You can’t fake it
Your passion for the business has to be genuine, or those long hours are going to feel even longer. By the time Koumi gave up his previous career in the grocery business to commit to BullyBillows full-time, “I was sometimes getting two hours’ sleep a night,” he says. “If you didn’t truly believe in and love what you are doing, you would have to be crazy to put in the amount of hours we are,” agrees Billows.
Social media ‘fun’ is a serious business
“So much work goes on behind the scenes” of the brand’s fun social-media presence, says Billows, who stresses that BullyBillows’ online popularity is no accident but “the result of hard work, sacrifice, dedication and persistence for years which still continues each and every day”.
Don’t wait for perfect moments
“You can’t always wait for the perfect moment. Sometimes you have to make the perfect moment,” says Koumi, citing the decision to move to a bigger premises. “If we had faltered a couple of years ago at what turned out to be just prior to a crucial time for the business, we wouldn’t be where we are now.”
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