Online Marketing Manager from Talk Talk (SEO Service)

[SamStones]

Hello,

Has anyone heard of this service from talktalk? We're talk talk customers for the phone line and broadband, and had a cold call sales call a couple of weeks ago from talk talk about this service. My general rule of thumb is not to buy anything that's sold with a cold call - I don't normally even given them the time of day, but as it's a company we are already dealing with I thought it would be worth listening to what they have to say.

Details from their literature state:

Online Marketing Manager is a seriesof practical monthly one hour sessions based on 15 minutes of preparation time and a 45 minute telephone based hands-on consultancy clinic.

and

Each session deals with a specific online marketing technique and is fully supported by documentation guides, an activity blog, performance analytics and reported through an online dashboard. The emphasis is educating the customer, providing practical insight and importantly, carrying out the work for the customer during the call. The service is flexible and activity can be directed according to customer requirements & activity i.e. with prior agreement the customer can opt for our Consultant to deliver 1hr of delivery work on a previously agreed and reportable task rather than attend a session e.g. directory submissions; content updates; Google places set-up etc.

Further details:

Session Topics:
• Keyword Research
• On-Page Optimisation
• Link Building - Directories
• Google Analytics
• Image Optimisation
• Video Optimisation
• Google Profile
• Google Shopping
• Content Development and Optimisation
• Link Building - Article Marketing
• Social Media - Facebook
• Social Media - Twitter
• Social Media - LinkedIn
• Local Search & Google Places
• Google Webmaster Tools
• Pay Per Click
• Competitive Review
• Reviews and Forums
• Email Marketing
• Online Press Releases
• Display Advertising
• Website Review

They're billing this at £75 / month + VAT . More information is available here:
http://websites.talktalkbusiness.co.uk/online-marketing-manager

We don't currently do any SEO or PPC although I understand the basics, have read articles on SEOmoz etc and read quite a few topics here. We have however recently launched a new web site, and know we need to work on the SEO / PPC areas as it's a sales channel we're missing out on currently.

What does anyone think? £75 sounds pretty cheap, but it's expensive if it's a waste of money.

If anyone is already using this service, I'd love to hear your comments, positive or negative.

TIA

 

[Mystro]

Would you go to a plumber to fix your car engine ?

Talk Talk sell phones what the hell they doing getting in on SEO and web design ....

With all the reputable Seo and webdesign company's why on earth would any one buy from them ?

 

[Ali-v-8]

@ TIA - not a scam - they will do what they say they will - Does it work - depends on what you are looking for?
If its understanding or educating 3 months down the line you will still have no idea and no work will be carried out as they will only tell you what needs to be done (which chances are you will already know) you will be the one to do it and if you make a mistake its on your head.

 

[webgeek]

If they're as bad at SEO as BT (who offers a similar service), then you might as well set fire to your cash. You'll get more joy seeing it burn than being flushed.

That said, if all they're doing is giving you training at 75 quid + vat (per hour), I'm sure you can find some real marketing professionals on here that could take great care of you. In fact, you could likely get one for each area of specialty, rather than some canned scripts being read to you...

Also, 15 minutes of prep? I hate to disillusion you, but spending 15 minutes on keyword research preparation (or about any of the other topics that are tailored to your business/domain/targets/objectives in light of the competition) is not doing you any great service.

This is the classic example of a company with a big customer base looking to sell into other areas. I'm sure they'll be able to help you with your life insurance, mobile phone cover, accident protection, travel insurance, baby names, best deals on tires, and everything else soon.

With arguably some of the worst customer service in the industry (yes I am biased after having a long relationship with BT wholesale and working with several network providers on a day to day installation basis), I'd be hard pressed to give them money for telephone services - and wouldn't possibly consider having them advise me on how to run my online business.

 

[frida_adams]

I dint hear about it.

 

[Ali-v-8]

@webgeek - your right - its the exact same service.

Some guy waffles on about stuff even he has no idea about. throw in a question off script and the will ring you back with the answer to some other question.

 

[SamStones]

Hello all,

I thought I should give you an update on the correspondence I've had with talktalk about this service, the decision I have come to and why...

Having spoken to the "sales guy" as it were I was passed onto one of the account managers to have a more indepth talk about what they did. He had to contact me, and I was caught a little off guard so I had forgotten some of the more probing questions that I had lined up, however, on the face of it he appeared to at least know something about SEO. The alarming part came when I enquired how they tracked results. ie if I'm on page 4,000 currently for my chosen keyword / phrase, how do they track and record this, and then show down the line that my position has changed to page 2,000 etc. His answer: They don't really have anything, they just use a firefox plugin.

Anyway, back to the sales guy and I highlighted this to him, and said along with the fact there's no "proof" been provided as such that their service works I decided not to go with it. He got very defensive, and said they did have proof and would send me some "case studies" - I pointed out that these should probably be provided as part of the original sales pitch. Anyway, these "case studies" were just a few lines typed into an email which listed some of their "chosen" key phrases and their positions in google. All very good, but the key phrases were very long tail phrases with very few searches / month. On top of this, 3 out of the 4 sites were all "local" style businesses, rather than operating on a national scale.

Anyway, I pointed the above problems out to them, and asked for some better "case studies". Unfortunately their reply didn't provide any further samples.

As such, I have decided to give this service a miss. If you're a local business who doesn't know anything about SEO and you have the money to spare then I'd say go for it, it might just work. However, if you would prefer to keep your cash there's plenty enough advice on forums etc to get you going.

I hope this helps someone.

Again, I'd love to hear any positive reviews of this service to balance out my negativity.

 

[I, Brian]

The question to really ask is how qualified is the person leading the training, in terms of industry experience.

It does sound like a weak attempt at upsell of unrelated services.

However, the good news is that my SEO company can now sell you a mobile phone contract and repair your satellite dish as well.

 

[OldWelshGuy]

Brian, have you considered adding broadband to your list

 

[zigojacko]

I find it ridiculous that in an already saturated market full of idiots claiming to know SEO that even telephone, TV and broadband providers are adding to this list just because they have seen an opportunity to rinse more money from the thousand of existing customers they already have.

Avoid avoid avoid... For all reasons that have been discussed on here many times before.

And this goes for BT, Yell and any of the others doing it.

 

[Boydie]

It sounds fishy, £75 won;t get you the time of day with a decent SEO consultant, so how are they hiring to offer the advice, probably people with no experiacnce.

It sounds like the Yell seo service, which was really bad