7 Ways This Flyer Tries To Deceive You

Like you, we are out in the world, networking and meeting other business owners, sharing our message. Also like you do, we come across people who claim to do the same things we do.

Is it fun for you to meet competitors? For us, it is a LOT of fun, because when it comes to marketing your business, the first step is to know who your ideal target market is, and THEN craft your message and determine the tactics to use. 95 out of a 100 times we meet a competitor, they are selling a tactic and shoehorning your target market into their product.

This happened again this past week.

We received a flyer from someone who claims to be a new social media marketer. Since we would rather not handle the social media postings for most clients, we were hopeful that we could become referral partners with this “consultant.”

Unfortunately, once we saw what this flyer is advertising, we became less interested. Let me show you why:

One of their services is SEO.

1.  Under this service, the flyer claims to offer backlinks: “Automatically get backlinks to your website from other relevant sites around the web to drive more traffic to you and increase your Google rankings. Backlinks are the #1 factor that affect your rankings.” This is inaccurate since they must be relevant backlinks. If they are irrelevant, they can actually hurt your rankings. How are they “automatically getting backlinks”? Are they relevant backlinks?

Let me explain this a little deeper: “In search engine optimization (SEO) terminology, a quality backlink is a backlink that links to your Web site using your keywords or keyword phrase, and also appears on a Web site that has the same theme or similar content topic as your own Web site. A bad backlink comes from unrelated and untrusted sources. Sites that have been penalized and those that are violating Google’s Webmaster Guidelines can have a negative impact on your SEO. To avoid having bad backlinks, you have to perform a quick website audit to all the sites you plan to build links on.” How do you do that if they are automatically created???

2. Also under their SEO services: “Your own platform microsite page, Google optimized to drive traffic to your website.” Do you really want yet another site? Wouldn’t you rather have your own site optimized? If your page is not built in WordPress, this will hurt you even more, making you even harder to find.

Another service the flyer claims to provide is reviewing your online reputation.

3.  “View all ratings and reviews from all review sites, all in one place and respond to them in your dashboard.” Unfortunately, they don’t advise you on how to respond to the reviews. There is a best way to respond to reviews, especially the less favorable ones. (If you would like some coaching on this, schedule time with us at www.FreeMarketingConsultation.com)

4. Also under their online reputation services: “Generate emails to your customers requesting reviews to your preferred sites. Negative reviews are emailed to you privately to resolve.” Who drafts those emails? Are they written by a marketing professional trained to inspire others to open and act on the emailed request? Do you get to preview those emails before they are sent so that you can ensure that they properly represent your brand? What about those negative reviews: do they coach you on best practices in responding to them (see #3 above)?

A third service they offer, according to the flyer, is social media marketing.

5. “We make it easy to have revenue generating social marketing, that really works.” While it may be helpful to post to all of your social media accounts with one click, do you even know what to post? That’s where most entrepreneurs get stuck and these people don’t seem to have the expertise to advise you on that piece. This person’s background was fixing computers and basic programming. That would be like us saying we were able to give you legal advice because we have three lawyers as clients.

Word of Mouth

6. Their 4th service, according to the flyer, is to monitor your online word of mouth: you don’t need to spend over $300 per month to do this. Set up a Google Alert and receive notices directly in your email for free. Check out our previous blog post about this at http://www.sedonamarketingretreats.com/2017/03/keep-alert-google-alerts-2

7. The final claim, listed at the bottom of the flyer, is “Potentially and substantially increase your bottom-line.” Really? Potentially and Substantially? While there certainly is potential to substantially increase your bottom line when you properly implement the tactics they claim to service, the key is proper implementation which we don’t see in this flyer.

At least they didn’t make claims to put you on the first page of Google.

One of the services we provide for small business owners is to review solicitations like this before they spend a bunch of money on bright shiny objects that may not suit their business. If you have such a solicitation you would like us to review, please email it to us at Info@YuloffCreative.com and we’ll review it in an upcoming blog post.

BTW, if you need to create a flyer, and are not one of our private clients, you might want to try one of the templates in Word, Google Drive or Canva (sample video below):