New Local UK Blog Directory
by Matt on Oct 13, 2009 in Promotion
Paul Bradshaw and Matt Wardman recently launched Nutshell, a directory for hyperlocal blogs and web sites based in the UK.
Read the about page to get an idea of the kind of blogs/sites they’re looking to include. If yours fits, this could be a nice way to get some extra exposure and promotion for your efforts.
October 13, 2009 | Filed Under Promotion
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Thanks for the link to Nutshell – much appreciated.
I have been moved to post by the call from Touch Local about advertising with them. (You know how it is as a small businessman – you rush to the phone to answer it, only to find that it is someone looking for advertising!) However, it is worth following the call through just to see the tactics that they are using to promote their services.
OK, so this guy phones me from Touch Local (note to self – if someone phones you with a London telephone number they probably aren’t looking for your Man and Van services in Plymouth, the wilderness that is the Westcountry!)
When I answer the phone I hear this slick dude introduce himself very sociably, but senses are already tuned into “salesman alert”. Why? Well first he asks for the owner of the business (who else does that unless they’ve got something to sale?) and secondly, the background noise is one of a busy office full of people making exactly the same sort of call to myriad other small businesses. (Think how many man hours these automatons are eating up in the valuable world of SME?).
OK so hackles are up, defences are primed, we are ready for confrontation. He’s quite pleasant, if a bit “London” but starts by telling me that he is the account manager for man and van and removals businesses. (Certainly looks like he may be at the top of a very slippery slope). His opening gambit is “Could you do with some more business?” Christ how many times have I heard this one? But to be fair, he’s confident with it, so I give him marks and credit for not being totally embarrassed by such a poor opening. Does he actually believe that I am going to believe him on this one? I think about it for a while and decide that I’ll try and cut him off at the Pass. So I reply that yes I could do with some other business, but my policy is not to pay for advertising in online directories. If he is fairly new to the job a gasp of air, a moments silence usually follows and he should fall away. However, this guy is a bit more savvy and a bit more resilient (perhaps he is the account manager for UK man van types after all).
He then asks me how I currently promote my business, which is a bit of a crap question, given that he knows that I am called Man & Van Plymouth, (http://www.manvanplymouth.co.uk) that I am free listed with Touch Local and that if he puts man and van Plymouth into Google, he’ll find me organically listed 1 or 2, local maps listed 1 or 2 and ppc listed. (Note to Touch Local, get to know your potential customer). He then adds to his bad start by asking what search terms I have optimised the business for????? He tells me that he can’t really find me listed under “Removals” and as the guru of manandvandom that’s where he’d expect to find me. I explained why removals wasn’t really my bag and why man and van was or even man with van was, but I’m not sure he totally agreed.
“OK” says he, backtracking slightly, “It doesn’t really matter whether your optimised organically, on local search and on paid search because Touch Local has a huge volume of calls coming into the call centre looking for just your type of business.” It’s a reasonable call and might be true, but I doubt it. Statistical information may have helped his cause, but he pretty much blew it when he told me that Touch Local have 100 companies like mine listed locally who could pick up this work, but that he wanted to focus on a few quality organisations to help. Firstly I don’t believe they are getting this traffic (and if they were, surely the free-listed 100 would pick it up and secondly an elite 3 just smacked of money!!!!
He then went on to explain how Touch Local worked closely with Google, had business to feel my boots and (classic salesman ploy no 1) “Had already got one company signed up” and (classic salesman ploy no 2) “Had untill 1pm today to sign up another 2 companies” This hard sale really put paid to any further conversation and I reminded him that I didn’t pay local directories and that perhaps I wasn’t really the man for him. Fair play to him though, he re-iterated that he had business to burn and perhaps we should negotiate (Sad to say, I never entered into the financial bartering process, because it would have been very interesting to see what it would actually cost!). I gave him credit for persistence and reckon that he’ll proabably do OK if he were to get a better product.
He sensed I wasn’t going to buy and ended the call somewhat abrubtly, which always seems to justify that you made the right decision in not deciding to buy. Unfortunately, too many small businesses adopting lemming / ostrich marketing will buy and be left with an expensive folly that fails to deliver quality business.