Massive fail: MediaSignage marketing
May 27, 2011 by Dave Haynes
Few things are more delightful in the morning, pre-coffee, than tone-deaf emails from hopeless companies.
I have never met anyone from MediaSignage and have nothing against anyone there, but they routinely get my head shaking with their marketing efforts.
They relentlessly promote their FREE software, which is not actually free.
At DSE, I was actually chased down on the floor by some guy with a MediaSignage booth tag who was passing out brochures, miles from his, booth telling me I desperately needed to go back and see their pots and pans. The encounter had all the sophistication of a guy selling counterfeit sunglasses on the street.
And this morning:
Hi, my name is Eric and I work for http://MediaSignage.com
We offer FREE Digital Signage. You get unlimited licenses (screens) for FREE.
You can open a free account here http://mediasignage.com/html/digital_signage_software.html
Let me know if I can help and we do have a Webinar this Thursday ….
Knuckleheads.
I constantly preach the need for software companies to differentiate themselves in a crowded market, but clearly establishing MediaSignage as the biggest set of clowns is not really the right approach.
Either hire a marketing person, or bingo the one you have now fellas. And take me off your spam list.
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Now that made me laugh! Thanks for the morning chuckle.
Ha! Bet you can’t guess the name of the company I didn’t mention in my “Legally DOOH” post: http://theweboutside.com/digital-out-of-home/legally-dooh/
Makes me happy to know that it’s not just my buttons that get pushed by the daily dose of idiots.
I agree! Don’t tout “FREE” unless it is truly free….no strings attached. Good one 16:9.
Hi, this is Sean from MediaSignage.com
Yes, our system is completely FREE (no catch).
And I do apologize for Eric coming in, actually we asked him to contact you and find out the rates to place Ads in your blog… so can you please provide us with these Rates?
Regards,
Sean – MediaSignage.com
Sean,
You’re full of shit. You sell players and servers with the software built into the cost.
Publicly trying to deflect with promises of giving Dave ad revenue just increases yo
Sincerely,
Raffi
Thank you for replying Sean. I see since the last time I tried to make my way through the maze that is your website the pitch has changed, and the bait and switch thing is now more obscured. Now I just flat cannot figure out what the offer really is.
As for advertising, I’m not sure why you are asking about rates, because it is FREE, absolutely FREE!!! … after the 31st day of each month.
LOL
We have just received this enquiry below (for FREE) from Mr Blunderbus !!!!
Maybe Eric (who doesn’t even appear to warrant his own email address) should understand who their competitors are!!!
Mind if we are going to resell their service I want at least 50% discount of Nada + 5% Marketing Co-op. So cut me an advance check for $0 and I’m in 😉
…
First Name Eric
Last Name Cohen
Email (we will keep your email completely private) REDACTED
Phone 18773447446
Organisation MediaSignage
I’m interested in Forming a partnership
Enter any relevant information here
Hi, my name is Eric and I work for http://MediaSignage.com We offer FREE Digital Signage. You get unlimited licenses (screens) for FREE. You can open a free account here http://mediasignage.com/html/digital_signage_software.html Let me know if I can help and we do have a Webinar this Thursday: http://script.mediasignage.com/cgi-bin/webinar.cgi Regards, Eric- MediaSignage.com
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You guys are being pretty tough on MediaSignage for all the wrong reasons. Sadly you are blasting them without seeming to have any of the facts straight. The service is free. There is no need to buy a server as stated here. You can load the software onto your own dedicated machine. I didn’t find any bait and switch or anything of the sort. It is a little disconcerting to me that someone would blast another company for a few chuckles without knowing what they are talking about. HOWEVER…after recently testing their product, I can say that the platform was built as professionally as the sales staff was trained. NOTHING works like it should and live chat agents know almost less about their product than I do. I get a lot of annoying responses akin to…”Is the machine on.” While this was never an answer I received the answers I get are just as juvenile. In short…it appears as though you get what you pay for.
Bait and switch would be more like a company selling a platform then once you have populated that platform with several paying customers, telling you they were creating a new platform and that as people migrate to the new platform you would be charged more because there were fewer customers to cover the cost of that platform EVEN THOUGH…the new platform lacked some features of the old platform which was part of the reason which contributed to the overall buying decision of that customer. Choice?…Lose the customer or pay more. Now THAT…is much more legally defined as bait and switch, maybe even coercion.
Good thing nobody does that…or do they?
Now I’m the one who needs to remove his foot from his mouth.
I was not handling the learning curve well from one software to another. The platform works better than I thought. What I perceived to “not work” was just the fact that a few things were not intuitive to me. They work…just not how I thought they should.
I should not complain. For “free” it’s pretty good. It is free and I’m using machines converted over from another platform.
MediaSignage….my apologies.
Don’t know what things were like in 2011 but MediaSignage in 2014 is great, reliable, intuitive, and truly FREE. I have been using it for months and have become quite proficient in the use of their software. Chats to their tech support folks (chat-only for free users) have been met with timely, informative answers. On occasion, catching the west-coasters at 5AM hasn’t netted the best answers but I think I can cut them some slack on that issue.
I will be moving to their Enterprise (paid) version once I get my beta-site operational but for now, the FREE version is quite adequate.