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If you ask any entrepreneur what they would deem to be a good opening couple of years for their start-up, they’d probably have their aims solely on breaking even. If you ask that question to Lee Whitbread, however, the answer would be a whole lot more ambitious and with good reason.
Whitbread isn’t your standard young businessman with a pipedream of making it big one day. At the age of 32, he already boasts a portfolio of successful multi-million-pound businesses and the social media marketing know-how to rival any seasoned veteran. In just the short amount of time that Money Pug, a price comparison website, has been around (founded in 2018), the business has a not-too-shabby weekly reach of 10 million users, more than 100,000 unique monthly visitors to the website and more Twitter followers than household market-leaders.
While 99% of entrepreneurs would settle for that, Whitbread and Money Pug have no intention of stopping there with the ultimate goal to be firmly in and amongst the top five price comparison sites in the UK in the next five to 10 years. Assuming Money Pug can maintain the upward trajectory, the business is well on track to achieve just that and maybe even ahead of time.
Creating a Fun Brand Voice
While comparing the rates of insurance and loans may not be the sexiest thing in the world when it comes to engaging with an audience, the fun tone that Money Pug projects through its social media channels certainly is. Facebook has been a juggernaut for over a decade, although it is only in the last few years that businesses have really begun to open their eyes as to the potential of a solid marketing campaign through social media.
Whitbread and his team have created their own online community through sharing fun and engaging posts, most of which do not directly link to the website’s service at all. Why? Because in order to gain followers online you have to give them a reason to engage with your brand and when users are scrolling through their timelines they aren’t expressly searching for loan rates. Shareable easy to digest content is the key to building an audience via social media and gaining as many users as possible. You will find few brands that have executed a better social campaign than Whitbread’s Money Pug.
What is the Next Phase in the Money Pug Plan?
As the brand name continues to grow and more and more customers seek out Money Pug for their price comparison needs, Whitbread and the team continue to brainstorm new and exciting ideas. Television advertisements certainly feature in future planned campaigns, firmly placing the business in the minds of the consumer along with the likes of other household names in the industry such as GoCompare, Comparethemarket and Moneysupermarket.com. While focusing almost exclusively on social media has brought Money Pug this far, other channels and strands to their marketing efforts will continue the business’ outstanding exponential growth.
Whitbread certainly is not one to rest on his laurels and knows that better than anyone.
It is an ascendancy that anyone would be proud of, but it is just another day at the office for the founder and CEO whose venture, ultimately, serves the will of the consumer by giving the power back to them. Big things are in store for Money Pug.
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