Don’t Confuse AD Book Sellers as SEO or Social Media Experts

Staying relevant doesn’t only happen to businesses like yours and ours. It happens to be a big issue for larger companies that are not as agile as smaller ones. One area where this is “flavour of the month” at the moment is with SEO and Social Media Marketing. Providing local SEO services or Social Media marketing campaigns requires more effort than many realise. In the past few months we have seen a couple of larger companies trying to do this. We have been asked by clients how good are they and are they worth it. In this occassion we will talk about the companies who sell advertising in the books that are coloured.

Whats the sales pitch?

Firstly you are going to get approached with the question, “Are you doing any online marketing?” or “Can we help you with SEO? We know that you are not doing SEO because your website traffic is really low.” The first is a very simple question. The second is a very clever marketing technique, without a doubt. They are playing a game where they claim to know more about your SEO than you do. The fact is that they are actually running off the fact that most small businesses are not doing SEO or Social Media marketing. Particularly here on the Sunshine Coast this sort of thing will work well. You are probably wondering “How can they know this for sure though?”. In short, they can’t. They can cetainly use tools which provide inaccurate “guestimates” or the good old “fake it until you make it” routine.

They are likely to tell you is that they can do is “double or triple your traffic with any keyword you like”. That is complete BS, they have no way of being able to guarantee that. What they could possibly do is double your traffic with little to no effort with random keywords. This is very likely when you haven’t been marketing your website online anyway.

How they leverage brand age and experience

Experience is something they will claim they have a lot of. They are right, they have a lot of experience. It is in the business of selling ads to everyone in the same industry as your business in the same book, on the same page. They even have it nailed as far as being able to having most of the businesses you compete against in your local area buying it. Their book was good, it was one of the most effective marketing methods up. That is of course until people started searching on the internet for solutions. They have almost zero experience in the scheme of things when it comes to SEO and Social Media. While they will have an extensive list of clients, their churn rate through those clients will be really high.

Their closing sales process rocks

If there is one thing we have learnt from these sorts of organisations, it is their ability to close business owners at scale. The pricing usually sounds great, they answer almost every question on the spot and they even have a great system that they will get you to follow. Hell, even writing this article, it is sounding awesome.

How good are they at SEO and Social Media?

Well, from a basic standpoint, they are not terrible. They are however not good either. We often get clients who try SEO or Social Media with them saying “SEO and Social Media didn’t/doesn’t work for our business”. It is not because SEO or Social Media let them down, it is because the game is a lot more complicated than people realise. The processes of which these sorts of companies use for SEO is so far behind the 8 ball that they cannot keep up. It isn’t their fault, they are big and they have to get everyone trained to the same point but they cannot keep up with the changes.

How can my website designer, graphic designer or advertising agency help?

In some cases, they simply cannot help either. There will be ones that can, like us who have dedicated SEO and Social Media experts working with them. They will also have local content writers working for them. The prices will be comparative or even more expensive than these larger companies. This is ok though as the results are generally better. More times than not they have built your site, seen your site stats or are hosting your website. This means that before you start SEO with them, they already know what your site stats are.

How can I trust my website designer, graphic designer or advertising agency more than a large company?

You already do trust them, more than you realise. You trusted them to help build your website. This is the online face to your business, it is what people see in most cases before they see you face to face. The question is, why don’t you feel comfortable enough with paying them the same amount or a little more than you do the large company? It is likely to be because they are not as big as the larger company. This means that they will more than likely do more to help you and keep you happy than the larger company. Talk with them and see if they have got a track record for success. If they do then use them.

What if I cannot trust my website designer, graphic designer or advertising agency?

It is really easy, you will need to give Suncoast Web Solutions a call! We are one of the longest running digital media agencies in Queensland. We have helped many businesses grow from idea’s to success stories over the past 19 years or so. Our solutions have enabled clients to go from not being seen in search results to ranking organically in top 10 spots within 4 months. More importantly, we have achieved this by having people in our team with very specific skillsets who specialise in online marketing that can help you.