North Yorkshire’s premier bike retailer
2021
Client
Big Bear Bikes
The Challenge
Big Bear Bikes are North Yorkshire’s premier independent bike shop – a true destination store based in Pickering. The town’s population is just 5,000 and the journey to the shop from any major town or city is at least 30 minutes. The mission for Big Bear Bikes is to “own the local patch” meaning we need to position the business as the best place to buy a new bike if you live on the Yorkshire Coast, Hull and East Yorkshire, or York and North Yorkshire. We must give people great reasons to visit!
The Solution
While the products sold by Big Bear Bikes are available in other places, the unique and high-quality shopping experience is not.
Big Bear Bikes have a display of more than 100 bikes, all of which are available to test ride ensuring the customers buy the right bike!
The team are extremely knowledgeable and deliver a high-quality shopping experience – the right advice and guidance, plus a welcoming inclusive environment. Not to mention, the product is competitively priced with the flexible payment options.
Rather than just say we give great service, we show it – demo events, test rides, happy customers, product reviews and a reassuring price promise are all campaigned throughout the year.
High quality local photography captures the spirit of the business and its customers living the bike riding lifestyle. Video content reviewing the latest bike showcase the personality and knowledge of the team you will meet if you visit. And consistent advertising across radio, social media, search engines and more ensure local people see the brand on a regular basis ensuring Big Bear Bikes stay front of mind.
The Outcome
Despite a challenging retail environment, Big Bear Bikes commitment to being a destination store with a high-quality offering and promoting their business (while many have scaled back their marketing efforts) has resulted in increased visibility and market share.
The brand has been experienced by almost 800,000 people in a population estimated to be just 1 million. A record 67,000 people visited the website in the last year, many of whom do this as research before an in-store visit. Plus, year on year we have achieved growth in sales volume in a contracting market.
Key Lesson
Authenticity, consistency and a quality proposition to your target customer are three essential ingredients to any campaign.
“We have been working with the Word Agency since Jan 2021. From the beginning, they took the time to understand our business, the team know who we are and what we’re about.
The Word Agency are focussed on business priorities and recently helped achieve record sales figures on a key range in a really short space of time.
The Word Agency has helped us take our marketing to a new level, and I cannot recommend them enough to any company that wants to improve its marketing efforts.”
David Beeley, Director, Big Bear Bikes
