What should I do?... Am I about to be Screwed?

[melvin]

i dont rily they pose threat to search marketers.. but if i were i would pass to their offer...but then it really depends

 

[rileypool]

i dont rily they pose threat to search marketers.. but if i were i would pass to their offer...but then it really depends

What the fuck did you just say?

 

[Traska]

Hi Traska, id sabotage them

Seriously though, id look at strategy's at anchoring your existing customer base and go on a massive business development exercise now, even if it is to create warm leads, you will still have an advantage.

In the meantime act as if you are interested and learn as much as you can about their intended strategy, and exploit its weaknesses and leverage your own strengths.

Barman is right in saying build relationships. Also leverage your 'local' advantage.


Hope this helps a little! If you are stuck for retention ideas shoot me an email and ill give you some examples of things ive done in the past that worked well.


Cheers,
Aaron

Exactly, I just need to keep showing new customers and my existing customer base that I am more personable and more available than they are.
This company couldn't possibly take away that much business from independents, their sales people barely know squat about the internet.

you don't have to do both... you can be better or you can be cheaper and still succeed. if you're better and cheaper - you're near guaranteed but you might be selling yourself too cheap.

I am more expensive & I am not going to drop my prices. If I did go cheaper I'd look desperate, which I'm not. I know what I bring to the table.

 

[radio]

I am more expensive & I am not going to drop my prices. If I did go cheaper I'd look desperate, which I'm not. I know what I bring to the table.

well, you sound desperate in your original post. fyi.

and lowering your price doesn't make you look desperate, but rather adaptive to the market as it changes around you. nothing wrong with that. the market decides your worth - not you.

but like i said above - you don't need to lower your prices, you just need to offer better service than your competitors. from the sounds of it, that's what you can do. so good for you. case closed.

 

[Spliffic]

As long as you rank higher in the search engine for your local business, you should always be better off.

This was going to be my suggestion but Jardini beat me to it. As long as you are providing a superior product (higher up in the SERPs etc) and better service (personalized i.e. they pickup the phone to call you and they get YOU, not some "press 1 for this and press 2 for that") then people will pay for your service.

Them trying to hire you as their saleswhore is a fuckin joke. Even if you only make $20K per year doing what you do (on your own terms), it's better than making $30K with them and having the 8-5 following their crappy rules.

 

[AdHustler]

lower your prices
grow your site
build relationships
start long contracts
auto-bill

all valid points. WHats with you and being helpful lately?

 

[DorianWar]

It's all about results.

If you are sending them decent traffic and providing them with quality leads, I would not worry that much about the new competition.

If you have some crappy local directory/portal with shitty traffic, then I would worry.

 

[jdomaha]

Sell the hell out of yourself and the fact that you provide the best, most local support out there. Don't be afraid to turn away business from people you don't want to work with, either. Forge personal relationships out of your current customers, get referrals and use them.

Take clients out to lunch every now and then.

If you clicked on this post out of curiosity please give me your input anyways, I'd appreciate it a lot.


After reading CorrectAd's post last year about selling online advertising to offline businesses I took it seriously and made a business out of it. I have been selling portal advertising to local businesses, doing seo, managing geo adword campaigns for them and am currently testing a pay per lead model.

Well today I got a call out of the blue from a regional manager from a company called http://www.localadlink.com that also sells online advertising. They are apparently planning to take over the local advertising market in my area, as well as everywhere else, literally in the next five years and then sell out. To speed the process of their "take over" they are hiring regional managers who then hire sales people on comission to scope out their city and sell every business they can.

I got a call from their regional manager for my city who heard about me through the grape vine and wanted me to come work for them. We talked for over an hour and I got as much info about their company as I could.
The thing is, I don't want to work for them, I want them to stay out of my town!

Now I know they are not better than me, but they are much cheaper, they have a broad appeal and their sales force is growing fast. I feel like an online marketing Wal-Mart type of beast is about to come into my town and eat up a good deal of my clients.

What do you guys think of this company?
Do they pose a significant threat to local search marketers?


I am feeling really nervous.


Thanks for reading

 

[HarveyJ]

Thought about sabotaging them?

You know, finding the shittiest link farms you can, and paying for links to them from it?
I'm sure some people here would know where to go for that kind of tanking.
Better yet, ask a few people to give them the Gary Thiem treatment and watch their business tank