11 lies that PR and marketing agencies put forth

Selling to a skeptical buyer is hard, but selling to a skeptical buyer who has been burned by deceptive marketing and PR companies is even harder.

The internet has made it easier to deceive buyers about expected results from marketing and PR campaigns.

No matter what a salesperson tells you, there is no guarantee of overnight success. Effective marketing and PR merely help you achieve business and sales goals. Credible marketing and PR pros will set the right client expectations from the outset and will follow through with hard work and a clear strategy over time.

[RELATED: Find out how to make meaningful connections with your customers and thenews media at the Practical PR Summit.]

Here are 11 common lies and half-truths that circulate in the marketing and PR realm:

1. We’ll guarantee to get you on the first page of Google. This is a ridiculous claim we hear routinely from marketers. Nobody can guarantee top placement on Google, because that’s in the hands of the search engine itself. Google has dealt with this claim in no uncertain terms: Beware of SEOs that claim to guarantee rankings, allege a “special relationship” with Google or advertise a “priority submit” to Google. “There are no priority submits for Google,” it states.

2. We will send you only high-quality leads. As with pledges of getting you on the first page of Google, this assertion is almost impossible to quantify. There is no independent definition of what constitutes a high-quality lead. Clients should outline those parameters. Once they do, most marketing companies will back down on the promises. When they tell you to describe the desired quality of the lead, ask good questions and point to examples of past clients and the method used, so everyone is on the same page.

3. We will offer you a free trial of our SEO or PR services. SEO and PR are involved processes that require long hours of work. Very few companies will be serious about offering you this at no cost. Typically, they will want your website’s username and password to do any work and will ask for access to your hosting account, and, after some pushy sales tactics, you will end up paying for their services.

4. You don’t have to do anything; we’ll do it all. This is meant to appeal to busy small-business owners who wish to ignore their online efforts. Never cede control of your business to someone else. You’ll lose track of what you’re being charged for and, worse, forfeit direction of your web presence, which is the equivalent of your shop window a generation ago. Retain control; do not let a marketing or PR firm hijack your operation.

5. You will be privy to secret and undisclosed strategies. Internet marketers like to tout a mystery ingredient or proprietary tool, as though they have a team of SEO whiz kids at a virtual Hogwarts just over the mountain. More likely they have a high school dropout leafing through the Idiot’s Guide to SEO in his mother’s basement. Any legitimate SEO company should be able to explain exactly what they will do with and for your site, as well as detailing their link-building strategy. A firm that talks of “secrets” might be planning to use black hat SEO techniques that could damage your site’s performance.

6. This is an amazing deal for you, and I don’t mind that it puts me in a tough place. Call it the martyr strategy. Ask yourself, though, why any marketer would put him- or herself in a tough place for you, and you will see that it’s just a ploy to make you think they are bending over backward. You need a win/win solution, so you don’t become the despised client.

7. This is a limited time offer; you have to act now. The limited-time offer is intended to pressure you to make a decision before you can give it much thought. Marketing deals aren’t like the last bottles of water before a hurricane. If you approached the same firm later, a “deal” would almost certainly still be available.

8. We work with someone at Google; we partner with Google. With Google accounting for about 68 percent of search engine marketshare, it’s easy to see why marketers would want to claim affiliation. However, Google has no partnerships in the SEO world, and Google employee would not jeopardize their jobs by illegally associating with any such firms. If a firm tells you it is partnered with Google, what else will it try to sell you? Drop it.

9. We have a successful track record. Many marketing companies make this claim, but what does it mean? Ask for the names of businesses that the marketer has helped; then contact those businesses to get their feedback. “Success” means different things for different business owners. Your job is to find out what that would mean for you.

10. We’ll get you off the ground with minimal investment. Beware of companies that offer freebies up front but take your credit card details. Always read the fine print; there’s probably a catch down the line.

11. You don’t have to worry; we’ll take ownership of your content. Don’t sign any agreement that would give ownership to the SEO agency you work with. If things go badly, the company can hold you hostage or the content could even be sold to a competitor. Read over your contract before you sign anything, to ensure you’ll own all content created by your marketing company.

Victor Clarke is the owner of Clarke Inc. A version of this article previously appeared on the Media Moguls PR blog.

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