Anyone advertised with seek.net?

[Luddite]

Just had a call from the above - anyone had any dealings?

Nick

[kathynewman]

Yes - we did an advert is their Central London 05 Guide and got zilch orders! (Have to say our advert was rubbish - but we never got a draft so we didn't know it was going to be that bad) We also have an advert in their online directory and maybe get an order once a month.

We won't be advertising with them again.

Sorry so negative - may well depend on the type of business you have.

Kathy

[Neilo]

This one's got me started, so here goes my first ever post!

Like Kathy, and also being in the same line of business, we too went for the London guide and advert in their online directory at a cost of around £600. It all looked good with online and 'paper' advertsing in one package with many other businesses in our line of work already on board with them.

Once the 'guide book' was out and copies sent to us we started receiving calls from them along the lines of - 'Due to the success of the London directory we are now rolling this out to other major cities' - this of course would be at the same cost to us again for each city! We politely told them no as we had seen nothing back from the ads and then started getting the pushy phone calls every 2 - 3 weeks, which incidently have just started again as our years contract is now up.

I don't beleive them to be any better or worse than the countless other directories that badger us for advertising but we will definately not be using them again.

Neil.

[kathynewman]

Have to say the exact same thing happened to us as happened to Neil - but didn't want to put that stuff in my first post - thought no - just keep it to the advert bit - I've lost count of the number of phone calls and emails I've had from them - and each time we've said no - they give you the feeling that you are missing out on "the opportunity" of the year Then come the - well if you advertise in this city guide for just £600 or so then we'll do another for free - more recently it's been the Christmas Guide for around £1500 that will be in the prime position of WH Smiths - sorry but I can find much more effective ways of spending £1500 thank you - thing is they don't seem to understand No!

Kathy

[Luddite]

Thanks Kathy & Neilo - you've confirmed many of my suspicions about them. They were really hounding me earlier in the year and in the end I had to have a 'f**k off and leave me alone conversation' - which seemed to work, until yesterday when the calls started again.
I'm used to dealing with salespeople, but seek.net take 'pushy' to new limits!
They are bound to phone me again today, but I just thought i'd see if anyone had got anything positive to say about them. It seems not (so far).

Nick

[Luddite]

This one's got me started, so here goes my first ever post!

Welcome to the forum Neil!
Nick

[jont]

Ooo .. pushy advertisers - my favourite prey.

If they don't take the hint "We will not be advertising with you" and they keep on badgering I then let them call me back the next day... tell them I am meeting with the team the next morning can they call back. When they call back ask for extra info to be sent through. When they call to follow up tell them it never arrived and can they send again. When they call say you have received and can they call tomorrow when spoken to the team again. By now they are smelling the commission ... when they call again tell them "my decision has not changed since last month .. we will not advertise with you"

That usually works - if they are daft enough to continue calling once they declare who they are calling from and who they are wanting to speak to I simply say he is busy on the phone but I can take your order

[kathynewman]

LOL Jont - that's a bit like me and the calls you get selling keywords. I let them give me all the spiel and when they get to the bit about guaranteing that you will get more sales and click throughs I ask them how they do this - they try all sorts to explain about how they do it but then I just say I don't believe them - they are always so stunned by this and ask why - I tell them there is no way they can guarantee more sales unless they actually sit with someone at their computers and force them to click on my sponsored link and then force them to put something in the basket and pay for it

Haven't had one of those calls for a while - shame

Kathy

[pinbrook]

another ply is to say to will put the call through to whoever, and just leave the phone off the hook from 5 mins.

As for keywords - I had Touch on the phone last year or so, wanting me to pay to be in their directory - type the keyword "web design exeter" into Google they said and see that we (Touch- Exeter) are on the first page. So i did this whilst they were on the phone, and asked them if they would do it too so i could see and understand what they meant.

They did, and guess what Pinbrook Designs (as we were then ) had postions 1 and 2.

What a lovely moment!