{"id":20397,"date":"2017-04-10T07:00:05","date_gmt":"2017-04-10T11:00:05","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/blumenthals.com\/blog\/?p=20397"},"modified":"2017-04-10T08:40:49","modified_gmt":"2017-04-10T12:40:49","slug":"the-state-of-internet-marketing-for-the-smb-frustrated","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/blumenthals.com\/blog\/2017\/04\/10\/the-state-of-internet-marketing-for-the-smb-frustrated\/","title":{"rendered":"The State of Internet Marketing for The SMB: Frustrated"},"content":{"rendered":"
\"\"
Credits: Peter Alfred, under Creative Commons 2<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

I recently received<\/a> this comment from poster Frustrated.<\/em> \u00a0And it rang so true that I decided to track the writer\u00a0down.<\/p>\n

Frustrated<\/em> is Marc Reisner of Reisner Construction in northern Michigan.\u00a0He has moved around a bit; Colorado, Seattle and finally landed in Port Sanilac, MI. Turns out he had relatives from the Olean area so we had a long talk. He\u00a0wants nothing more than to move out of home construction and into making custom furniture full time.<\/p>\n

He thought he could do that with internet marketing. But the\u00a0lack of knowledge opens up small businesses to this sort of problem that he writes about. They are vulnerable \u00a0while thinking that they are missing something that the cold caller is promising to deliver.<\/p>\n

It is interesting that Google, by association, was tarnished with the same brush. It is not\u00a0surprising that the over promising and under performing digital marketing hype plus the hard sell\u00a0scammers, ended up hurting\u00a0Google as well as everyone else in the space.<\/p>\n

Here is Marc’s story:<\/p>\n

*****<\/p>\n

\"\"
Marc Reisner’s (Reisner Construction) custom furniture<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

I was contacted by Yodle, then Townsquare Interactive, then Yelp. All 3 within a year.<\/p>\n

Wanting to sell custom made furniture via the Internet, I fell for Yodle with anticipation of what they promised. After an initial discounted 6 months, no results\u2026.account closed and listing was pulled off the internet.<\/p>\n

A week later TS calls. Their sales pitch was similar to Yodel, but they do not hold you to a predetermined period of time. 3 months, one call. I closed that account & lost a website.<\/p>\n

Then, Yelp called. I explained to them my results with the first two and was lead to believe they were more established with a BBB rating and would create more business. I fell for it. They assured me they were the best. (I took notes on every conversation.) An initial monthly fee + $6 per click\u2026\u2026meaning anyone calling my number listed on the internet I got charged $6\/call. The number of calls that supposedly were dropped my me was unbelievable and I complained about it.<\/p>\n

In looking at the actual phone numbers, I\u2019d call the numbers Yelp listed and got the other side to answer with a recording, \u201cThe number you have called is not a working number.\u201d The $425\/month hit\u2026..one contact via by one person, which looks like one real client.<\/p>\n

It was a pain to actually close the account with Yelp with a closing fee of $450. They said they\u2019d leave the account active for 2 months thinking I\u2019d reconsider. One thing to do is set up your account with a credit card that is front loaded\u2026.put money into the card so you know how much will get spent, it\u2019s like a debit card, but more protected from hackers. I closed the account.<\/p>\n

Today, Google called to list my company for $600, but offered a one time discount dropping the fee to $399 for life\u2026.One time offer. I\u2019d heard that before from them. I told them up front I\u2019m not agreeing to sending any money today, I got this \u2018that\u2019s okay, I\u2019ll just finish your company information’.<\/p>\n

When done he went for the money via Cc #. I refused, so he said \u201cI\u2019ll get our finance manager on the line, he can help you. As soon as he said that, Bryce pipes in saying he had been listening to the call and could offer a better deal, $299 for life. I told him I didn\u2019t have the money today\u2026they hung up.<\/p>\n

Word of mouth is the best advertising I\u2019ve experienced over 35 years. Using the internet sounded appealing, so I figured I\u2019d give it try hoping to find a good company to work with. I\u2019ve not found one yet. I\u2019ve learned a lesson that hopefully no one else will have to learn.<\/p>\n

****<\/p>\n

In a subsequent conversation where I asked if I could publish his name he noted:<\/p>\n

As\u00a0to the use of my name in your blog, I don’t see it as much of a problem.<\/p>\n

It’s one of those “buyer beware” reality checks I think a lot of potential customers need when considering using an online advertising company that sells anyone the idea that “within 90 days you’re business will increase beyond expectation.”<\/p>\n

Selling positive hype, rather than reality, should come with something only Townsquare Interactive gave, no contract.\u00a0 I’ll give them credit for that.<\/p>\n

I am very disappointed with the promises Yelp gave.\u00a0 Deception at it’s best.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

I recently received this comment from poster Frustrated. \u00a0And it rang so true that I decided to track the writer\u00a0down. Frustrated is Marc Reisner of Reisner Construction in northern Michigan.\u00a0He has moved around a bit; Colorado, Seattle and finally landed in Port Sanilac, MI. Turns out he had relatives from the Olean area so we …<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":262,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-20397","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-uncategorized"],"aioseo_notices":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/blumenthals.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/20397","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/blumenthals.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/blumenthals.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blumenthals.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/262"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blumenthals.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=20397"}],"version-history":[{"count":15,"href":"https:\/\/blumenthals.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/20397\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":20462,"href":"https:\/\/blumenthals.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/20397\/revisions\/20462"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/blumenthals.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=20397"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blumenthals.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=20397"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blumenthals.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=20397"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}