LookSmart is not Small Business Friendly
by Lee Traupel
There is a firestorm of negative press regarding LookSmart's
recent
marketing stumbles via numerous discussion groups, including
two of
the oldest and most influential, I-Search and I-Advertising
Digests.
Most of the critiques center on LookSmart's inability to develop
programs that are well matched for SMB/SME ("small to
medium business
or enterprise" with revenue in the $5-50M range), their
lack of
customer responsiveness and the difficulty in managing their
new "pay
per click" traffic generating program.
Many of us in the agency/marketing services world relied upon
LookSmart's directory in the early days; especially as an
offset to
Yahoo's "my way or the highway" attitude when they
became the 200
pound gorilla in the marketplace So, it's sad to say, but
LookSmart
appears to be morphing to just another portal with little
marketing
awareness of how to work effectively with the tens of millions
of SMB
companies that have rapidly embraced a web-centric business
model.
One of the core issues that frustrates many small businesses
is the
difficulty in getting a listing that actually describes their
company, products, services accurately Ð to add insult to
injury, you
have to pay in some cases twice to have your listing upgraded.
Apparently, LookSmart's editorial staff can't keep up with
the
demand, or is so pressured to maintain some internal quote
their
descriptions suffer accordingly.
LookSmart's new "pay per click" "Small Business
Listings" program is
simply not "small business friendly". It is a complex
program with
lots of important details buried in an FAQ that has to be
read
carefully as there are some "gotchas" in the small
print - including
being forced to wait up to 90 days for the return of the upfront
deposit of $150. and paying a setup fee for a listing; but
having it
deactivated when you exceed the dollar amount of your "monthly
click
limit." I can understand their dropping the listing once
you exceed
your budget, but it does not seem equitable to charge $49.
to setup
the listing in the first place Ð your in essence subsidizing
LookSmart's cost of doing business.
We've found inconsistencies in LookSmart's stated Privacy
program
versus inbound e-mail traffic we've received from them over
the past
3-6 months. We've unsubscribed 3-4 times and still keep getting
self-
promotional marketing materials which are not of any value,
other
than promoting LookSmart's business. They are clearly not
adhering to
their stated privacy policy and to compound matters, our complaints
have not been addressed via their customer service department.
So, if you're an SMB company what are your alternatives to
working
with LookSmart? We would recommend your assessing Google's
new "AdWords
Select" program which is geared more for business
of all
sizes; but, I must warn you there is some complexity in setting
up
this type of program as well. But, you certainly get much
more
coverage with Google Ð they're rapidly becoming the dominant
search
engine du jour with approximately 40% market share of all
combined
searches.
Inktomi's "Search Submit" program should also be
assessed as an
alternative to working with LookSmart and as an adjunct to
an
existing Search Engine or Marketing program. They have partnered
with
some of the same companies that LookSmart is working with,
including
MSN, AOL, iWon, and many others. They offer very good value
for the
cost, charging a nominal fee $39. for the first URL and $25.
for
additional URLs to have your web site "crawled"
(assessed or indexed)
on a regular basis for one year and sharing this information
with the
most heavily used search engines on the web.
Finally, you may want to consider utilizing standard pay per
click
("PPC") search engines to drive qualified traffic
to your web site
and/or looking at competitive PPC programs offered by LookSmart's
competitors including Yahoo, AOL, Alta Vista and others. Overture
(formerly GoTo) is the dominant market leader in the pure
PPC market
that can deliver a great deal of traffic. But, there are
approximately 150 second tier pay per click search engines
operating
at present and you should be able to leverage your marketing
costs by
carefully analyzing your "keyword costs" via some
of these PPC search
engines including Kanoodle, FindWhat, Sprinks and many others.
Lee Traupel has 20 plus years of business development and
marketing
experience - he is the founder of Intelective Communications,
Inc.
http://www.intelective.com,
a marketing services and software company
which provides strategic and tactical marketing services exclusively
to small to medium sized companies. He can be reached at Lee@intelective.com
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