There is a firestorm of negative press concerning LookSmart’s recent advertising and marketing stumbles via various discussion groups, including 2 of the oldest and most prominent, I-Search and I-Advertising Digests. Most of the reviews center on LookSmart’s failure to create practical programs for SMB/SME (” small to tool organization or venture”), the difficulty in managing their brand-new PPC “Local business Listings” marketing program, and their total absence of customer service responsiveness.
A number of us in the agency/marketing services world trusted LookSmart’s directory in the very early days, especially as an offset to Yahoo’s “my means or the freeway” mindset when they ended up being the 200-pound gorilla in the marketplace So, it’s sad to state. Still, LookSmart seems to be changing to just a different website with little advertising and marketing awareness of working properly with the tens of numerous SMB companies that have quickly accepted a web-centric service design. Their general regards to solutions are tailored for large firms, and also, their SMB programs appear to be an afterthought at ideal!
Among the core problems that annoy many small companies is the problem in obtaining a listing that defines their business, products, and services accurately – to add fuel to the fire, you need to pay in some cases two times to have your listing upgraded. LookSmart’s content staff can not stay on top of the demand or are pressured to preserve some inner quota. Their descriptions suffer accordingly.
LookSmart’s new Small company Listings program is just not “local business pleasant.” It is a complex program with lots of important information hidden in a FAQ. Also, Business friendly there are some “gotchas” in the small print – consisting of being forced to wait approximately 90 days for the return of the in advance down payment of $150. as well as paying an arrangement charge for a listing, but having it shut down when you surpass the dollar amount of your “month-to-month click limit.” I can recognize they’re going down the listing once you surpass your budget. Yet, it does not seem fair to charge $49. to configuration the listing to begin with – you are subsidizing LookSmart’s price of operating.
We’ve located incongruities in LookSmart’s stated Privacy program versus inbound e-mail web traffic we have received from them over the past 3-6 months. We’ve unsubscribed 3-4 times and still maintain obtaining self-promotional marketing materials that are not of any worth, apart from advertising LookSmart’s service. They are not adhering to their stated privacy plan, and also, to worsen issues, our issues have not been addressed via their customer service division.
