As some sort of start-up consultant My partner and i often find myself personally putting in a very little extra effort with regards to getting the soccer ball rolling. Why, a person ask? It's quick, start-ups only be successful when everyone gives 110% and sometimes even that will isn't enough.
Anyway, let me tell you of a new rather enlightening experience Not long ago i had whenever helping a brand-new company with the grass-roots marketing campaign. Very first we sat the team down and explained how we were doing some cold-calling; phone, person-to-person group meetings. Really getting out there and heading for it, departing no stone unturned.
The startup company I am supporting with is the B2B company, thus we started accumulating lists of companies of certain sorts. We went to the local sections of commerce plus grabbed their branded directories, we used the old phone publications, and googled the crap out regarding all possible categories inside our target marketplace. We visited online directory websites 3 hundred Google pages heavy, and since we were after easy low-hanging fruit, we even went to Search engines maps to get home-based businesses within our specific target business types.
What we located was quite worrying, although not most too surprising in hindsight.
When it came to typically the websites listed on Google which were considerably more or less index type websites, it became obvious that the information was subsequent to worthless instructions even those on the first few pages of a new search. Most mobile phone numbers were shut off, out of services, or now belonged to another person which had no concept what on Earth we were speaking about and never heard of the business all of us asked for instructions I am discussing nearly 75%.
Whenever we traveled to typically the actual addresses of businesses listed on Search engines Maps in various cities we found apartment buildings using new tenants, we all found unoccupied properties for sale, in addition to we found many addresses to never even exist. Once we did find someone, they frequently said they didn't do that anymore, or possibly a renter they will had did, although moved. Sometimes it was the former spouse, nowadays divorced who had relocated out.
How have been the local Chamber of Commerce branded directories? Well, a bit better actually, but not anything close to reliable, at minimum a quarter of the companies no more existed and remember this is within just one-year, as the directories are typically printed annually from Chambers of Marketing. How was the mobile phone book? Well, the phone books were about the same, only a small worse than the particular Chambers' publications -- and i also guess of which makes sense? Exactly what a waste of cash for the people companies that advertised?
Moral of the Story?
An individual cannot trust the information online, you are not able to trust the published data, and a person sure as heck can't trust on the web directory websites which often are produced for the best SEO results, but never monitored, pruned or updated.
Consequently what's my advice? Don't waste your time and energy running around, mailing out brochures, or paying a staff of sales people to knock in doors until you understand for an idea that the information is current and accurate. I advise to get lists; contact titles, emails, phone numbers from competent files vendors that are continuously updating their databases. My advice in order to Google is easy, 'get your shet together Google' and prevent advertising bogus websites to be able to first few pages. To all of you startups undertaking business around - think within this.