The most recent series of The Apprentice saw Lord Alan Sugar crown Mark Wright the winner of the show and the £250,000 investment, beating runner-up Bianca Miller’s hosiery business. Mark’s winning business idea was a digital marketing company called ClimbOnline. While digital marketing may not be the most original idea and is already a crowded market, Mark chose it due to his previous experience and knowledge in the industry. However, despite this, he has already made some digital marketing blunders. Here are a couple of errors the Aussie sales whizz made before he had even really begun:
Problems with the Domain Name
Unfortunately, both domain names: climbonline.com and climbonline.co.uk were already taken by rock climbing websites, so Mark’s digital marketing ClimbOnline had to take climb-online.com. Hyphenated web addresses are commonly seen as harder to make work for companies and this is illustrated by the fact that they are generally sold for 10% of the price of non-hyphenated domain names. While having a hyphenated name isn’t ideal, it is not really a huge issue. Although The Apprentice contestants weren’t allowed to check domain name availability during the filming of the episode, it seems logical that Mark should have had a few business names in mind and have checked a few domain’s availability beforehand.
Missing Marketing Opportunities
Throughout the entire final episode, neither Mark or Lord Sugar mentioned the climb-online.com domain address once. While if anyone did manage to guess the website name correctly, there was no website to be viewed. Despite registering the domain name climb-online.com and climb-online.co.uk months before, by the end of the final episode, there was still no hint of a website to be found and only a line saying that the domain had been purchased. Mark and ClimbOnline missed a huge opportunity to communicate with potential clients and SME owners watching the final who may have searched online for the business after the show.
Uncertainty with Company Name
While on the show and social media, Mark’s company name is undoubtedly “ClimbOnline,” he appears to be still registered and trading under the business name “Wrighton Digital Ltd,” creating confusion.
Twitter Errors
Similar to the error with not registering the domain name, there was an issue with Twitter account names. twitter.com/climbonline was already registered before the show and twitter.com/climb_online was registered by someone else shortly after the final aired.
Despite these minor blunders, all in all, we think Mark did a fantastic job on The Apprentice we wish him the best of luck. If you’re interested in learning what digital marketing can do for your business, get in touch with The Click Hub today for a free audit. Let us help your business reach its full online marketing potential.