A couple of months ago I was doing research on different advertising opportunities online that were Nashville based. Partly for me and partly because I was compiling a list of over 100 places to market your Nashville area business.
My Experience Working With Nashville Guru
I came across a site called NashvilleGuru.com and was super impressed. Loved the graphics and the concept. They actually run about 15 different sites from FranklinGuru.com to GulchGuru.com. When I decided to host my first Nashville Business Expo, I wanted to reach out to Nashville Guru and see about advertising. The site is ran by Abby Flittner and Josh Gilmore.
I spoke with Abby and had a great conversation. She shared with me several options that they offer. I asked her about running a test and she offered to run my ad free for two weeks which I thought was extremely nice of her to do. I wasn’t looking for a handout but I did want to test the response rate. Branding is great but doesn’t pay the bills. You need a good direct response marketing medium. More on that topic in later posts.
We spoke through email about two weeks later to discuss the results or lack thereof. I was testing giving away some free tickets to Nashpreneurville and in two weeks, I only had two takers. Disappointing to say the least.
Now, to be fair, I can’t put 100% blame on Nashville Guru because it wasn’t successful. There are a TON of variables that go into crafting an offer including message to market match and branding to name a couple of things.However, I was shocked at the low response.
Although the campaign wasn’t successful, I still wanted to find a way to make it work because I liked what they were doing and also Abby seemed nice to work with at the time. We scheduled coffee about a week or so later to see what we can do since I had an event I wanted to promote and money to spend. Also, Abby said they were needing help with content so we were exploring ideas to work together.
A day before our meeting Abby sends me an email that says “I’m so sorry, but we’ve had something come up tomorrow and we aren’t going to be able to meet.“.
Ok then I thought, life happens. I responded immediately to see about rescheduling. We had already lost a week just booking the meeting. Well, a week passes and no response from Abby or Josh but Facebook tells me that they are alive and well with their fan page updates.
I followed up with a second email to see if they received the first one over a week ago at this point. Still nothing. I don’t believe the “so sorry” part of Abby’s email. Sad really. I was a fan.
My Recommendation
Don’t waste your money. Professional graphics doesn’t make up for unprofessional business practices.
Keeping commitments, good and timely communication as well as integrity, are all basic business skills that Nashville Guru should consider if they don’t want to turn more potential clients away. Sometimes we all forget (myself included) the lifetime value of just one customer when it comes to future purchases as well as referrals.
I wish I could have a more positive review but this is my experience of working with Abby and Josh.
