Latest / Online Reputation Management Podcast / Branding Advice From Jason Barnard Made Me Millions | Brand SERP
Transcript
- James Dooley: Hi, James here, and I’m joined by Jason Barnard from Kalicube. Today’s video is about some branding advice I received from Jason a few years ago that ended up generating millions in extra revenue for one of our businesses. I didn’t realise the power of the Brand SERP until these outcomes started happening—multiple times. I’ll walk through one case study where this advice made us half a million pounds on a single job. Jason, can you briefly explain who you are, what a Brand SERP is, and the power of brand SEO and online branding? Jason Barnard: Great question. I’m Jason Barnard, the Brand SERP guy. I focus on the search engine results pages for brand names, people’s names, and corporate names. I understood years ago that people searching for your name are bottom of funnel—they’re the most important. They Google you right before making the final decision when comparing their last few choices. I’ve believed this for 12 years and seen it work for Kalicube, but James is one of the first people who came back with actual numbers showing that intentionally improving what people see when they Google his name and company has driven millions in revenue. Tell me about that. James Dooley: The branding advice you gave me that made millions was connected to a company called Soft Surfaces Ltd. We grew the business from £1M to £10M a year. We build playgrounds and sports pitches in the UK. Before I met you, nearly all of our testimonials were offline—emails from colleges, head teachers, and universities. We sometimes asked them to put it on letterhead so we could send it to customers as proof. But I’d never heard the idea of taking everything offline and putting it online until you told me. So that’s exactly what we did. We gathered everything—reviews, job results, before-and-after photos, case studies—everything offline became online. We wanted to shout that we’re the best in the UK at what we do. This specific job was for Bradford Council, a sports pitch for a private school. The project was £540,000: groundworks, surfacing, fencing, floodlighting. We were up against five companies. All were good companies, all priced similarly. We reached the final two. The other company was actually bigger than us—£15M–£20M a year. But they hadn’t spoken to Jason, and they hadn’t put offline online. After we won the job, I asked the head teacher why they chose us. He said he spent 30 minutes online checking both companies—not what we said about ourselves, because we’d both naturally say we’re the best. He wanted to see what others were saying: other schools, other colleges, other clients. After 30 minutes, he said the difference was night and day. They had to go with us. It all came down to our branding and online reviews. Everything we put online created a positive Brand SERP that delivered the message we wanted: we might not be the cheapest, but we are the best value. Look at our other jobs. Look at what clients say about working with us. The competing company is great offline—they do amazing work. Side-by-side, it was a coin toss in terms of quality and price. But we won because of branding. And we’ve won many other large jobs the same way. Your advice has literally made us millions in additional revenue. And some of these are high-ticket jobs. People need to understand: it’s not just about E-E-A-T signals for Google. This impacts conversion rate. If you're an SEO agency charging £5,000 a month and your competitor is charging the same—who does the client choose? They Google you, your company, you as a person. If your Brand SERP is positive, it can be the deciding factor. You always said this is about bottom-of-funnel. If you win at the 11th hour, you can double your revenue. If your Brand SERP is poor, you lose all the 50/50 battles. That’s why branding, brand SEO, and the Brand SERP are so important. Jason Barnard: That’s brilliantly said. I don’t think I can add anything to that. James Dooley: If you don’t have a positive Brand SERP, or you want a Knowledge Panel, I strongly recommend contacting Jason Barnard at Kalicube. Leave a comment with your objections to improving your branding. You won’t get ROI next week—this is long-term. But if you're selling assets, recruiting, or competing side-by-side, the benefits are huge. There’s a link in the description with the full list of Brand SERP benefits. If you haven’t got a positive Brand SERP, contact Jason—he’s changed our business for the better. Hopefully he can change yours.