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Report: #1047816

Complaint Review: Linear Agency/Linear Local - flower mound Texas

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  • Reported By: L Watson — Houston Texas
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  • Linear Agency/Linear Local 1001 Long Prairie Rd, Flower Mound, TX 75022 flower mound, Texas USA

Linear Agency/Linear Local TOTAL SCAM ARTISTS AND CRIMINALS THEY HAVE NO MEDIA EXPERIENCE AND LIE ABOUT WHO THEIR CLIENTS ARE AND OVERBILL LIKE CRAZY flower mound Texas

*Consumer Comment: Advice about digital marketing

Show customers why they should trust your business over your competitors...

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First off let me tell you about this so called on line and media agency

I have a nice business based in Dallas in the television infomercial space- so this means that when you watch tv late at night and look at all the cheesy commercials that you think no one is paying attention to, that is exactly what I do and I make a pretty ok living at it

So I call and correspond with the principal, Mark Shriver and his son, Brad Deering ( I do not have the heart to submit all these emails but I will if need be) because I am interested in their all around marketing services and they are just an industry joke. I call the media outlets, no one has heard of them, I call various vendors and no one has heard of them

Also, none of their clients are for real. Everyone listed on their website has no idea who they are, has never paid them for services and next thing I find out is that they also place on their website that they do marketing for televangilists that they never ever even did business with.  Seriously, you brag about televangelists?? So sad!

Oh it gets better, they tell me that they are working on this huge international wine distribution deal with some guy that owns something called Hello Kitty wines. Hello Kitty makes wine? Dont they make chatchkis for little girls in Asia and rap stars?But this Mark Shriver starts to give me all the details about how he is making so so much money off this Irish dude somewhere in CA that owns the whole brand and it is just crazy all the while lying about his clients it is just really weird.

Anyway, stay far far away from this place- it is soooooo creepy it is insane.

This report was posted on Ripoff Report on 05/01/2013 07:04 PM and is a permanent record located here: https://www.ripoffreport.com/reports/linear-agencylinear-local/flower-mound-texas-75002/linear-agencylinear-local-total-scam-artists-and-criminals-they-have-no-media-experienc-1047816. The posting time indicated is Arizona local time. Arizona does not observe daylight savings so the post time may be Mountain or Pacific depending on the time of year. Ripoff Report has an exclusive license to this report. It may not be copied without the written permission of Ripoff Report. READ: Foreign websites steal our content

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#1 Consumer Comment

Advice about digital marketing

AUTHOR: anon - (USA)

POSTED: Tuesday, January 19, 2016

 

I'm sorry that you had through what you did, but that could've been avoidable. It'll be easy to make sure this never happens again if you follow this advice.

"I’ve had talent agency startups with great ideas about how to execute their VERY creative agency; however this individual was clueless about how to market and generate “buzz” for this startup.

Marketing is at the core of every business or organization. In light of this fact, it is important that the marketing department or personnel be experts in what they are doing. Failure of this department will result into failure of the organization. In order to avoid all this, it is up to you as a business executive or owner in talent casting, to ensure that your organization’s marketing department is competitive and delivers results. Here are tips for marketing a talent casting company.

Understand the Industry Well

This is an industry that is highly volatile and therefore becoming outdated is easy. Regular surveys of the industry or detailed studies of the industry will help the marketing department to come up with up to date marketing campaigns that will place you at a position where potential clients can easily find you. Since research and surveys are expensive to fund, you can use the internet for desk research or for disseminating the surveys to prospective clients.

Maximum use of websites

A talent and casting company should have a fully functional website. This website should be of very high quality and it should also be optimized for search engine purposes. The website is an important touch point for potential clients and as such, it needs to portray the organization in a positive light. It also needs to bring out the best aspects of the company. You may include things such as testimonials from previous clients who were satisfied with the quality of work done. In addition, you should have a tab where the clients can contact you. Information on your website needs to be correct and accurate, it also needs to be up to date with regards to the things that are going on in the industry and state of operation. A website can take your company to global heights if utilized well.

Use of social media

In the era we live in, businesses are all gravitating towards social media as a way to reach more people. Therefore, Facebook, Twitter, Instagram, You Tube, Snap chat and any other social media site should be used effectively. The good thing with these avenues is that you are not limited to text. You can use pictorials, videos and audio messages to pass on the message to the correct audience. As much as these sites are social sites, do not compromise on the quality and the importance of the message you send out. A single mistake may go viral and therefore destroy your hard earned reputation.

Balancing your advertisements on these sites with other useful information about life, the industry or the future is a great idea. You cannot bombard your clients with too many adverts about what you do or how good you are and expect good results. Give them advice on a few life issues once in a while to create a good rapport. Post on things that you are authoritative about or carry out some research before you post anything.  Credibility is your highest goal here and it should never be compromised. Post a number of items on each of the social sites on a daily basis.

LinkedIn on the other hand can help you in bringing to life your company profile. This professional site is a good place to find and attract the right clientele as well as potential employees of your talent casting company. A purely professional profile complete with images of your company can help you win over clients. You can also post adverts here from time to time as well as give feedback on previous assignments. You may showcase your work here as long as it is done in moderation

Blog articles

One major way to pull clients to your websites is through having a credible blog where you share information on different things. One major rule that should apply here is the consistency and authoritativeness in what you post.  Create a formidable blog that will attract a huge following then with time, direct the traffic to your website. The blog may also be used for advertisement purposes by posting promotional information of your services. Another rule that should always apply is that this is not a platform to tarnish your competitor’s services. This will give a bad image of the organization and therefore discredit it to your clients.

Email marketing

This is a very effective form of marketing that your company can adopt. Identifying potential clients is usually the hardest part but once this is done, you will have the chance to sell your services to a specific clientele which increases your chances of success. Most of the time, a conversion rate of 10% of the total emails sent, is used to benchmark. Therefore if you want to get around 300 leads, you have to send out around 3000 emails. The message in the email should be specific and conversational when need be. It should also be personalized to give the client a feeling of special treatment. Use of data and graphics makes your work more credible and acceptable. The images should not be stock images but high quality real life images.

Networking

There is no greater opportunity to generate future business than an event organized for personnel or clients in talent casting. Attend as many events as you can and interact with as many experts and potential clients as you can. If you do not gain clients, you will gain valuable information that will help you in taking your business to the next level. When attending the event, ensure that you have an information pack of some sort to distribute when need arises. Also carry plenty of business cards to give to those you interact with. You never know who will be your next client and therefore, it is good to be armed with all the right tools.

When attending a talent casting event, ensure that your image portrays professionalism. If it is possible, have a trusted employee-one who understands the business very well- to accompany you. This will give you the chance to network with a greater number of people and therefore a greater chance of arousing interests in some individuals. Know how to start conversation and please prepare well for the event. It would be a shame to lose a chance to make a pitch to a very important potential client in future.

Dedicated marketing team

Marketing is not everyone’s cup of tea. As such, you should have an experienced and highly skilled team working on your marketing all through. This will involve carrying out market research and analysis as well as drafting all the messages that go out to clients. The marketing team should focus all their time and energy on marketing your services. If need be, have an expert on email marketing, digital marketing, print marketing and any other form of marketing. Specialization has its own advantages. However, if you cannot afford it, have a small team of experts who are conversant with multiple forms of marketing and advertising.

Have a marketing strategy

The first step to failure is usually failure to plan. If you want to have the greatest marketing campaigns for a talent casting company, you need to have a detailed strategy on how you will do this. Identify when it is appropriate to carry out a specific kind of marketing, how you will do it, who will be in charge and for how long it will be in effect to reap maximum benefits. Having an individual responsible for each task makes it easier to hold people accountable and therefore share duties according to level of experience and the skill set possessed. You may have a short term marketing strategy for each quarter but also have a long term strategy that will be revised, say, every five years. The long term strategy should be revised to fit the conditions prevailing in the talent casting industry to prevent obsolescence.

The marketing strategy should be developed with great expertise and it should be aligned with the overall short and long term strategies of the company. This will avoid situations where conflict of interest delays execution and therefore leads to huge opportunity costs for the organization. It will also ensure that the marketing team has a more detailed guide for all their endeavors to avoid misunderstanding their priorities. Every individual in the marketing team should have his or her own quarterly priorities outlined and learnt to act as a guide to their actions. It should be noted that the priorities can be outlined with respective to the fiscal period of the company.

Do a great job

Word of mouth is the oldest form of marketing. It is also very effective. If you have one person who has the negative image of your company, this translates to around 10 lost clients on average. Therefore, once you get a talent casting job, ensure that you do your level best. The whole organization should work in sync to ensure that the job is done seamlessly. Most organizations build up a large network of clients through word of mouth. As such, always ensure that you are on the good side when it comes to your clients. Due diligence should always be practiced when dealing with clients.

Aim at beating the competition

You may ask, is this not obvious? Well, some businesses are just lifestyle organizations. But for a talent casting company that is in pursuit of profitability and growth, beating the competition is a daily endeavor. Always aim to be ta your best but if your best is second to that of your competitors, the returns may be minimal. In such a case, you should always aim at being the best in your sector. This can be done through knowing the strengths of your companies and building on them, understanding your weaknesses and working to improve on them and learning the strengths and weaknesses of your competitors and seeking to be better. However, the kind of competition we advocate for is healthy competition. Unhealthy practices such as price wars will only be detrimental to the success of your company. It should also be noted that this does not imply that your company should focus on beating the competition as a top priority, you are in the industry to serve your clients and so this should be your most important task.

If you apply the tips aforementioned, you will have built a successful and formidable talent and casting company. However, keep in mind that marketing is a continuous practice that goes on even without your knowledge. How you talk about your company, how you treat your employees, how you maintain your office premises all say something to your client. Therefore, never let your guard down since you never know who is watching."

 

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