Apr 02 2009

Beware of Wolves in Sheep’s Clothing

Published by David at 11:35 am under Marketing

Don’t you just wish a placard with the title of this story could have been erected at the office doors of AIG, Lehman Bros and Merrill Lynch? It would make it so much easier to navigate life if the wolves would let us know they are wolves upfront. But then of course they wouldn’t be wolves would they? Plus there would be no such thing as a classic scam!

On the internet we see wolves constantly. It’s an open marketplace for all that is good and bad in the world. We encourage our clients to let us be their “filter” on all the offers that come their way via the web. Many of our clients do just that. Before they make a new buying decision they tell the seller they just want to run it by their internet marketing department before they make a final decision. Then they send us the information they have about the offer being presented to them and we go to work. Many of the offers turn out to be bona fide and potentially worthwhile. But much more than half are not worth it and some are outright scams.

Some of these scams appear to be very clean. I mean who would have thought that the venerable AIG had turned their business into a casino letting only a few other “players” know? Just last week, a client sent us an offer they had received. It prompted me to write this missive because it was the second time in a short while that the same offer had crossed my desk. In fact it is so slick I missed it the first time. No harm, no foul. It was too expensive for the first one to consider.

Heres the scenario: A highly articulate and friendly person makes it through the gatekeeper to a marketing staff of a company via the telephone. They introduce themselves and show the client (a travel related company) around their web site (a travel directory). It is very professionally designed and offers a vast array of products just like theirs and includes quite a few of their direct competitors. From all outward appearances it seems like a good potential source of business and the credibility seems high. The client becomes hesitant though when the telemarketer requires a huge fee with a guarantee of potential business that’s laced in jargon that confuses them. The first research I do is to find out how this seller is going to bring them the guaranteed business because even the high price they command would be worth it if the business they guarantee showed up. I search for products (destinations) found on their site. The seller needs to be very visible in the search results to be able to drive traffic for the advertiser. I strike out when looking for the the destination the client is located in which gets me scratching my head as they dont show in the pay-per-click either. But it is late in the day and maybe the sellers budget for PPC has run out for the day. So, I search for other destinations they are touting on their home page. East of the Mississippi the seller can be found readily for popular terms in a high natural position on the first page of search results. But out West, they are invisible. I also find that back East, the volume of “advertisers” is quite large and the page count for content on those destinations is massive compared to out West.

Bingo! This wolf has figured a way to get people to pay them (a large amount of comparative advertising $) and have those same advertisers build out the sellers content about the destination. Now, if you were a small business not found anywhere near the first page of Google for the important terms that bring you business this might be a worthwhile opportunity. But our clients enjoy the rankings that this seller would like to have for the client’s destination, because, well, they are our clients and that is what we do for them! These clients could potentially unwittingly unseat themselves from a good ranking by paying another company to let them advertise. Pretty darn tricky. With only ten positions for results on the first page, this is highly coveted territory and very hard to break into for just about any type of popular search. If your business enjoys a first page result it has now become necessary to actively protect that. Because once lost, an individual business has a nearly impossible time climbing back up. We are here to help you protect your online presence.

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