Could a salon marketing disaster be any worse than this?
by Greg Milner on Friday, May 14th, 2010 at 11:23 am
Marketing disasters come in all shapes and sizes. But they don’t get much bigger than this.
Prize-winning salon owner Tracey Maryska's worst nightmare - her expensive Yellow Pages ad rendered useless.
Inner Circle Premium member Tracey Maryska (two years membership) of Passion Hair & Beauty in Woy Woy, New South Wales, has become a very successful salon owner, thanks in large part to the tools and coaching from WSM. Now, we’re better than anybody at helping salon & spa owners get customers and make more money, but even we can’t second-guess fools.
Tracey knows the value of good marketing, uses lots of different media to deliver her message, among them a regular, annual ad in the Yellow Pages. Imagine then her horror when she discovered this week that her $6,000 Yellow Pages ad has gone to print (for the next 12 months) with the wrong phone number. But it gets worse.
It’s the phone number for a rival salon five minutes down the road!
To rub salt into Tracey’s wound, the rival salon hasn’t spent a dime on Yellow Pages advertising..and
The Yellow Pages ad that's generated as much as $200,000 a year for Tracey Maryska of Passion Hair & Beauty...thanks to idiots, it'll now benefit a rival salon
will now be getting the benefit customers driven to them by an ad they didn’t pay for. Tracey reckons her YP ad was generating as much as $200,000 worth of business a year.
It’s enough to make you cry with rage.
You can hear the distress in Tracey’s email to me – and her voice in the interview below it:
“My worst nightmare has happened…
I have placed the same ad in the yellow pages for the past 5 years.. This year I added an additional salon number and new website…. So only minimal changes were made.
I received an email on Monday only to find they had changed the number of my salon??? Why?? I have no idea.. I rang them and said its wrong, their reply was ‘we have had trouble with our new computer system and the Yellow Pages has already gone to PRINT! I suddenly feel sick… but not as sick as when I rang the number in my ad to find out it is our opposition salon down the road! Yes they have put another hairdresser’s number in my ad… WORST NIGHTMARE EVER!
My rep for yellow pages said she couldn’t believe it and said I would need to make a claim… Obviously…
What am I going to do???? This is my biggest salon which turns over $600,000.00 a year… Any advice???”
I phoned Tracey immediately. Here’s what she said:
If anybody can help, leave a comment at the bottom of this post.
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A post by Greg Milner The odd idea, a bit of prodding, a nudge here and there, a little fun, and the occasional dose of brutal reality. Greg is co-founder and CEO of Worldwide Salon Marketing, a writer, direct response marketing consultant, specialist marketing systems adviser and coach. |
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Carol
May 14th, 2010
Try to determine the annual sales from the YP ad and sue them for that amount and more.
Rick
May 14th, 2010
What a catastrophe! I would make a formal complaint to the Telecommunications Ombudsman immediately. This won’t fix the issue (and I can’t see how it can be fixed), but it will at least get the attention of someone higher up within Sensis, and also gives you a better standing for when you make your claim for lost business. I had a major problem with Optus, and as soon as I made a complaint to the ombudsman, it was sorted out in days (after months of being given the runaround).
Also ensure that Sensis have updated to the correct number, so anyone using the white pages online will get the correct number.
I would hazard a guess that a lot people don’t use the books much these days, a large percentage use either the online version or call the directory service. This is certainly the case with business to business users, and is the reason why my business group reduced our display ads to just line ads as of last year. I can’t remember the last time I used a hardcopy phonebook…
Good luck with your dilemma!
Boshena
May 14th, 2010
My husband was in the similar situation as he did a huge promotion one year with Yellow pages, but next year he did not want to do it and made it known to the rep. Still, they went ahead and published his ads, not only that but with the WRONG NUMBER (not opposition thankfully), and to this day (3 years later) they are still chasing him for the “money owing” which they “very generously” discounted for making the mistake. (He refuses to pay)
It actually ended up to be a blessing because my husband has decided to build a website instead. He did it himself, because he realized that people who build websites are not necessarily good at marketing online and he wanted to have a complete control of it.
Now he gets more customers from his website than he ever got from Yellow Pages ad and it costs him about $300 a year, not $20,000. Whats more, he is able to give away freebies and gather e-mails as well as automating many of his processes. It made his life a lot easier and he is now grateful to Yellow Pages for being so incompetent.
john harris
May 14th, 2010
Hi Greg, Tracey.
Guerilla marketing is a good old book from the USA..very old, but has some awesome marketing tips and tricks..none as good as the info from WSM However as it is a general guide.
One item has an element that may benefit you. A pizza parlor left their ad out. Then they printed 20000 flyers that were slightly bigger than the YPages and mailed them to everyone in the area. with a note saying ooooops we goofed, please insert this into page 437 or wherever their store ad was supposed to be. Their offer was to rip out all the other Pizza parlours ads and bring them to the store or give to the driver and you would get your pizza 1/2 price ..or buy three get the 4th free…along those lines. Naturally the next time you wanted pizza theirs was the only add left unless u could remember the number of your regular store. Fridge magnets mailed to all customers would be a good second step. Me personally…I would cost the mail out to ALL homes in the area and address a letter with words on the front…Yellow pages goofed…or even more hard hitting..yellow pages puts people on the dole. include the page number insert where u should have your ad and again slightly larger than the page with 4 clever offers of course each called the YPages disaster offer. Y Pages should pay for the mail out and prtinting.
Let’s be frank…all good WSM marketers have their clients details and it is only orphaned or disatisfied people who use YP..and most of them google salons not use the book…unless u still have 56Kb dial up of course.
so hug your existing customers asap and this gives u an excuse to contact them all. ask them to take the YPages flyer to three friends each perhaps??
good luck…I can tell your not happy Jan.
cheers
John
Jo
May 14th, 2010
This is shocking, and I really feel for Tracey. I hope that the other salon believes in karma – if they don’t do the right thing by her, it should bite them somewhere along the line. Tracey, make sure you have a nice big board outside your salon so that your services and promos can still be seen. You could also employ another service which the other salon doesn’t currently offer, and do a great promo on that one, incorporating hair services – to entice their clients in?
I also have to say – I am so curious as to why Tracey has gone with spending a fortune on this style of ad, after being with WSM for so long and being drilled by Greg about using ads that create urgency and a reason to call, rather than the large business logo and pretty images. It obviously works for some! Or perhaps it’s just a massive ad in comparison to others on the page? If that is the case, surely she could have spent less using Greg’s methods and gotten the same results?
Kellie
May 14th, 2010
Now this may seem strange but I think it’s time we put ethics into this business. Would it be possible to arrange a meeting with the salon’s owner & ask if he/she would be kind enough to refer people back to you when they called her by mistake ???? Ok, Ok – I know it’s crazy but worth a try.
On the other hand, you have such a great deal on offer & I don’t think it is unreasonable for he/she to at least give you their work that they will not offer that deal…
Just a thought.
Marnie
May 14th, 2010
Hi Tracey – you need to demand a major online presence in YP, free of charge to you, for 24 months. They should pay for annual adwords campaign so you dominate the searches people make, hopefully getting well ahead of the competitor with your ad, you can at least rest assured that the salon isn’t doing and doesn’t “get” WSM marketing- so they hopefully won’t be able to really deliver on that promo you put in.
If they think you are going to take this further then they should be happy to give you at least 2 years of Major online free ads, presence, and definitely the adwords campaign at their costs. This may even work out better for you in the long run than you could of imagined! Just keep looking at how you can turn it into your benefit!
Good luck,
Marnie. Perth.
Tracey
May 17th, 2010
Thank you all for your advice… I received an email from one WWSM salon who gave me detail of a contact person… I have now made contact with that person and a claim has now started, I will keep you posted when I find out more, and will also let you all know of my outcome…. I hope this never happens to anyone else… This has been my worst nightmare… the only thing I have on my side at the moment is my mass marketing that i do and will continue to do and my new website that went online 4weeks ago…..