Should I Consider Using Aero Tech News’ Flyer Distribution program?
Frankly, I would rather get a root canal without anesthesia than work with Aero Tech News again! Why? Like all businesses, I’m constantly looking for new reliable lead generation sources. Especially as Google’s A.I. results push out the natural organic rankings from the top of their pages. I decided to try Aero Tech News‘ Flyer Distribution program and it was a huge mistake for my business. Here is my review of their program and story of my negative experience. I wrote this to help others not make the same mistake that I did.
What I learned though is, when using a flyer stuffing distribution program, do very good due diligence. Aero Tech News of Lancaster, California represents themselves as a professional lead generation service but how the flyer distribution program is run leaves a lot to be desired (IMO). It did not meet my expectations as a professional marketer with 40 years of experience and a Degree in Marketing,
My complaints were numerous. I asked them to address my concerns below after their program failed to provide me with a single website visitor after 5,000 high quality flyers were distributed. Keep in mind, my customers are their Air Force customers, so it isn’t like I picked the wrong demographic. I sell my products to Air Force customers every month and they are my largest customer segment. See my great flyer below!
Here is my list of things that went wrong (complaints) Aero Tech News never acknowledged or addressed.
- I had to ask twice if my flyers had been received by their publisher. They have no system in place to notify you without asking.
- On May 15h the day the PSC Special Edition Newspaper was supposed to be released, it didn’t go out! That is what I was payng for! I wasn’t notified? I emailed the Acccount Manager and he said, “it would be delayed a week”. Why wasn’t I notificed in advance?
- They posted a digital version of the PSC Special Edition Newspaper online on the 15th. It was available a whole week before the print version. This gave people at Nellis AFB no reason to read the print version (where my flyers were).
- On the 22nd, I was not notified the printed version was released? I had to email the Accout Manager and I received no reply. He was on vacation and didn’t have a basic G-mail outresponder set up saying he was on vacation. I called him while on vacation and he stated, “our publisher said it was going out”.
- They never provided any physical proof my flyers had been diseminated. They have no process in place to for this. Statisically it is improbable 5,000 flyers would not have a single person take action (visit my website).
- They have no process in place or incentives for readers to view the flyers, like a contest. One also doesn’t know how many flyers are sent out for different companies or what order their flyers are in the stack? I asked for this information and was never provided it.
- To add injury to insult, when I asked them to post my flyer for free on one of the AFB websites until I recovered the $625 I spend to my flyers, they said, “NO WE WILL NOT MAKE YOU WHOLE,” but we will give you a deal on a full page website ad! It costs them NOTHING to put my flyer online until I recoup my investment. It’s apparent they only care about “the deal”, and could care less about builing long term relationships with customers. In the industry we call that, “turn and burn”.
The only thing they did right was the quick a refund for the flyer distribution charge. This is probably because I proved they didn’t produce any results. Not only did I not get one sale, I did not get one visitor to my website.
I did find it comical they tied to cross sell me to advertise on their website. Why would anyone do business with a company a second time, who failed to provide any results the first time? Knowingly selling someone a service that possibly will not produce their desired results for them is UNETHICAL, Paul Kinison. Then trying to sell them another service, after your first service produced no results is UNCONSCIENABLE, Paul Kinison.
Ultimately, I picked the wrong company to help my meet my goals. My anwer was and is “NO“, I won’t be using Aero Tech News ever for lead generation again. I can’t in good faith recommend them either. Their service may work for you but it didn’t for me. I suspect a number of companies have probably had the same experience as me and did not know how to voice their concerns. I’m glad to be speaking for anyone else who has experienced a similiar situation with Aero Tech News’ Flyer Distribution program.