The Clipping Wars: Part Deux

By on December 1st, 2008 In Best Practices

clippingA couple of week’s ago I blogged about my frustration with clipping services. Well, I did something about it. Shortly after writing that post I looked at a bunch of services and signed up for trials with three services – iMonitor, CustomScoop and Meltwater. I watched carefully for a couple of weeks as the results rolled in and also messed around with each site to see which interface was easiest to use and most flexible. Drum roll please…I signed up for Meltwater and cancelled my BurellesLuce subscription.

Why Meltwater? Well, it searches the most sources, but more importantly the interface is easy to use and gives me a lot of flexibility in terms of reporting to my clients. Also, on a cost basis it is more affordable, especially given that there are no “per clip” charges. Last, but not least, Meltwater comes with the tireless Ben Harknett.

Usually I hate aggressive sales reps, but somehow Ben sounded nice even while he was hammering away trying to convert the sale. Perhaps it was his British accent that did it — why do we Yanks think British accents are charming? Seriously, Ben was relentless but in a way that proved to me that going forward he was going to be there for me as my customer service rep. And frankly this whole online search thing is complicated and it’ll help to have someone to guide me through the world of proper searching and things such as “boolean.” Plus Ben is an Arsenal fan, which didn’t hurt (unless of course he was just working me to close the sale, in which case he gets points for that too)!

In all seriousness, this switch takes a certain paradigm shift on my part. I’ll no longer be able to provide PDFs of hardcopy clips to my clients, but frankly I was getting less and less of these anyway and at nearly $3 per clip it’s a good financial move for a small firm like mine. Online clips are fine for most uses nowadays, and in the rare case that I need a hard copy clip I can dig one up and bill my client a surcharge as long as I’m up front about it. There are very few news outlets that don’t have online versions anyway.

I’ll keep you posted on how it goes. Meanwhile, if you are interested in Meltwater I highly recommend you give Ben a call at (858) 926-5074 or email him at ben.harknett@meltwater.com.

Comments

George Couch Says:
December 1st, 2008 at 10:17 pm

Interesting. Keep us posted! I have imonitor and I am a fan. It’s picking up news from a lot of bloggers that Google Alerts don’t get. I am actually finding imonitor a good tool to learn about bloggers that I want to get to know.

And somehow, I think I am getting a better price for imonitor than you got. Not sure why. Keep it a secret. :)

vito Says:
December 3rd, 2008 at 4:38 am

Well thanx for this Article about Meltwater Len!

From now on Meltwater would be delivering News from http://www.valleyprblog.com also ;)

thanx one more time :)

Aly Saxe Says:
December 3rd, 2008 at 5:19 pm

Oh God Len I hate to do this to you but I am about ready to sue Meltwater. I wish I had checked Valley PR Blog a few weeks ago to stop you from doing this. Here’s my story:

Shortly after I signed up last summer the amount of clips that came in dropped significantly from the trial period. Even worse, within two weeks of using it one of my account managers presented me with a spreadsheet showing the clips that Meltwater found vs. the clips that came in on Google Alerts. Google found nearly twice as many clips! I brought this to the attention of Meltwater (who refused to cancel my subscription at that point) and their response was to MANUALLY add each of the clips they didn’t originally find to their search. I was floored. I offered to pay for the two weeks of use but they declined. We’re negotiating right now. they want to offer me a free year of service as a consolation prize but honestly I have no use for this pile of crap and just want them to go away.

PRs Says:
December 22nd, 2008 at 12:58 pm

Len,
Congrats on picking Meltwater News. They are a good service. I have used Cision, Vocus, Burelles, and Meltwater News in my many years in the PR Game. That being said, I am switching back to Vocus. It’s not that Vocus provides the best product; it’s that I am fed up with Meltwater. Plus, I want one place to go for media contacts and distribution. Meltwater doesn’t have this. Also, I have some issues with Meltwater:
I not about to sue them like Aly above, but I have heard similar stories from others. And speaking of blogs, have you checked out some of the blog posts about this company: http://antimeltwater.blogspot.com/ (there is a lot of hate for them and it sounds like a miserable place to work).
Meltwater boasts many things. They claim the largest source selection, but I found that most of these are duplicates and/or bad sources so this cuts down that number greatly. Also, while people such as your “Ben Harknett” are great during the sales process, they will ignore your calls and provide almost no customer support come crunch time. They will hound you and hound you until you buy the product but will not even get back to you if any error occurs. I have used all of these services before, and they all have errors, but Meltwater is the worst. They always miss articles and then tell you they are working on it or it was a “server problem in Norway”. It’s just sickening. I had a trial of their analyze and graphs tool and it’s worthless. The numbers never match up. And even with tweaking the searches correctly, the data includes all those repeat articles and sources. Their readership ratings data leaves a lot to be desired. I am too skeptical of their clipping service to fully commit to paying more for the graphs. Of course their sales reps will not stop hounding me about buying it. Ha!
My finals words will warn anyone about dealing with this company. Even though they might look good at first, do your due diligence. The other services may not have the claimed number of sources that Meltwater has, but at least those are real sources. Also, and this is key, watch the contracts with these guys. As Aly knows above, there is no opt-out or cancellation policy. You have to pay upfront for a service that is shoddy and weak at best. Make sure you get a 30-day opt-out before you do anything with these guys. I would also recommend asking for a cancellation guarantee in your agreement. One of my colleagues came from another PR firm where they got automatically renewed by these guys without notice. BE SURE TO REMOVE THIS FROM YOUR CONTRACT.
All in all, it’s a decent service if it was free. I really hope Google just buys these guys and gives it away free with ads. I sure will not pay for this again.
Regards,
Disgruntled PR Lady
PS- If you are going to buy Meltwater (even after all this!), wait until the end of the month. The sales reps will even tell you they are on monthly quotas (a silly quota system if you ask me) and they can give the best deals at the end of the month. Don’t pay more than $2,000 for it either. Just keep holding out and waiting…they will discount it heavily. I paid full price, stupidly, but I did get a free trial of the graphs. 3 months! So at least get that and try it out before you waste your money on it. But I know people have paid as little as $2,000 for it so your best bet is to just keep stringing them along until they give you that price or lower.

Kayleigh Ford Says:
January 8th, 2009 at 10:27 am

Ahh it’s such an ongoing frustration to find a really decent clip agency..thanks for your insight (I might see what they’ve got over here in Australia). Would love a part ‘trois’ to this blog to see how you are going with this further down the line!

mark denn Says:
January 12th, 2009 at 7:34 am

Moreover has the largest source pack and are excellent, if you want to see them they power the news on the BBC News Tracker and some of Ask News is Moreover, i can recommend them,

John Roberts Says:
February 16th, 2009 at 5:28 pm

I find Meltwater to be quite efficient. I have been with the company for 3 years, and I have no complaints but very minor ones. I guess it all depends on your sales rep. My rep was a pit bull with his sales tactics, but has also proven to be a great client rep! In my years with Meltwater, I have had the opportunity to compare it various other media monitoring company’s. While Vocus offers a good solution, Meltwater has proven over and over to retrieve more information than Vocus, and for nearly half the price. The interface is also significantly more user friendly. In addition, Vocus will charge ADDITIONAL for training and support, while Meltwater provides their consultancy work with the subscription fee, at an already more affordable price. It also has captured more information than Imonitor (Burrelles) and Cision. This privately held has proven to me, countless times, to be a superior solution than its competitors. I highly recommend Meltwater to those who are in the fence.

In the Mix Says:
March 23rd, 2009 at 7:42 am

I’ve been working for Meltwater for 2 years. From an insider’s perspective, I have to admit that you should stay clear of this company. Some of the main reasons are already written above, but just for fair warning, please remember this posting before signing a contract.

fan101 Says:
April 20th, 2009 at 2:12 am

I used to work for Meltwater and really would steer clear. The original rep will only be with you for 3 months in which they have to achieve “upsell” by trying to get you to sign on with everything they can. Then you are transferred to a Client Relations rep who has an average of 1,000 clients and this, no time to help you if anything, or should I say when anything goes wrong.
The service can be great, but it can be terrible- if you are considering it, really use the free trial well- have 10 users and 10 “agents” (searches) and make sure you can log in and adjust them yourself so you really know what you’ll get should you chose them.
Also, if they say that they can only give you a free trial for a few days- they’re fibbing… when I worked there some people had companies on trial for months and months.

John Says:
April 25th, 2009 at 5:10 pm

It’s hard to believe anyone who’s used Meltwater’s slow and unreliable software would actually recommend them. The statistics were useless, the newsletter function an extra £3.5k a year, and the limits on agents intensely frustrating.

Also, the Big Red Help Button was almost always no help whatsoever.

K Says:
June 29th, 2009 at 1:56 pm

PRs – was that $2000 price for just the search or also the analytics?

James Says:
July 29th, 2009 at 1:10 pm

Hi Len,
We’re a relative newcomer to this market, set up primarily because we found the existing services too expensive and too clunky.

Would you like a trial account? Same goes for anyone else looking for online media monitoring. Drop us a line and we can talk you through it.

James
Cutbot

James Says:
July 29th, 2009 at 1:47 pm

Sorry, I should have included some contact details with that:
james@cutbot.net or
http://twitter.com/cutbot

Bout Face Says:
July 29th, 2009 at 2:51 pm

Don’t do it. Not only do Meltwater cheat clients, but it is a completely Do It Yourself project. Manual is the only way to get things into any sense.

You are better off going to CyberAlert or even Google if you want a DIY solution.

If you want a great dashboard and more features IN ADDITION TO CLIPS, you should contact KD Paine (PR only) or MediaHound (PR + Ads + Shows).

Jonas Grumby Says:
July 30th, 2009 at 4:02 am

A hahahahahahahahahahaha

You’ve got to love the power of the blogosphere.

PRs Says:
August 14th, 2009 at 5:35 pm

For $2,000 you should be able to get whatever you want. But typically just hold for $2,000 per service. Don’t fall for any end of the month crap. They will always hold a deal. The walk away works everytime with these guys. They are so cash strapped they need every penny!

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