Marketing Mine – The Largest Advertising Agency Database

9 thoughts on “Marketing Mine – The Largest Advertising Agency Database”

1. Please visit http://www.marketingmine.com – what do you think the site is about?

   The site provides a directory of marketing communications agencies in North America.

   Sign up as a Corporate Marketer member here https://www.marketingmine.com/profile.php?type=c (you may need to wait a few moments to be verified).

   I signed up and it would not accept my e-mail address. It asked for my business e-mail.  First I put in my e-mail address which I use AOL and it stated “You cannot use a aol.com domain.  You must use a corporate email address”.  Then I tried my yahoo e-mail address and it would not accept that either.

   Then I decided to select the a different profile type.  I selected “other” in hopes that it will let me create a a profile.  It stated under “other” that it was for journalists, freelancers, students, etc.  When I submitted the required fields, it took me to me page that said “The resource cannot be found”.  So needless to say I was unable to sign up or create any kind of profile.

   Once verified, sign-in and comment on various elements of the site. Be sure to conduct a search, view creative work and rate it.

   Due to not being able to sign in, I am unable to rate it or answer the following questions.  

   I am going to comment on your homepage and other areas of the site that I was able to see.

   Your homepage looks very plain.  There is nothing exciting about it at all.  You can improve it but adding more color. 

   You have links at the bottom of the homepage such as “About Us”, “Contact”, “Feedback”, etc.  The links are in a small font which makes it hard to see and read.  The links are also in white against a very light background which also makes it hard to see and read.  I think you can improve it by making the font larger and either have a darker background or have the links in dark color such as black.

   I notice that there is no “FaQ” link.  I think that “FaQ” is very impaortant to have.  With a “FaQ”, people are able to get answers to the most common questions asked and not have to contact your service concerning most questions.  It is easier to get an answer to a question from a click away than to wait for someone to get back to you.

   I am confused by the “Sign up” process.  It would not accept my e-mail address as I stated above.  It asked for my “business e-mail”.  I run a small business from home and I did put in my business address, so I am not exactly sure to why it wouldn’t accept my e-mail address.  Again, as I stated above, I put in the required information after selecting “other” and the page that came up stated that the resource cannot be found.  I do not understand why the page would state that or what exactly it means.

   For marketing purposes I think your company should open accounts with social sites such as “Facebook” and “twitter” and have those links on the homepage.  Those social sites are the most used sites and I think it will help bring in more business for you. 

   I really like the layout of your site.  I like that it is easy to understand and navigate.  I really like the “contact” and “feedback” links.  Overall, I think this is a good site and the concept is great.  There are some things that I think you can do to improve it in which I mentioned above. 

2. what do you think the site is about?
   It’s a directory of advertising and marketing firms.
    
   Sign up as a Corporate Marketer member
   I had the same problem as the reviewer above.  I don’t have a “corporate address,” so none of the emails I tried were accepted.  I would be happy to review this site if you would make it possible to register without a so-called corporate account.
    
   Without registering, I was only able to access the homepage, the six main pages linked at the bottom, and the Example Specialties directory.  So it’s impossible for me to answer most of the questions you asked.  Here are my thoughts on what I was able to see:
    
   The homepage looks like it’s not quite finished.  It needs a mission statement or some other brief copy at the top to explain what it is, such as “The Number 1 Web Directory for Advertising and Marketing Professionals” or something similar.  The links to the six main pages at the bottom should also be repeated as tabs at the top for easier navigation.  A minor question: Why two separate “about” pages?  Why not just combine them?  If you insist on separating them, you might want to change the name of “About Us” to “About Marketing Mine” to help prevent confusion with the “About Agency Compile” page.  My last thought is that the homepage could really use a little sparkle–some color, a logo, a graphic, or something else to catch attention and help brand your site.  (Note: Looking back a second time, now I see that you DO have some explanatory copy in the lower left corner of the homepage.  This is way too easy to overlook.  I would rewrite this as bulleted points and move them front and center so users can immediately tell what the site is about.)
    
   Next, I checked your Example Specialties directory and was very impressed by how many agencies you listed.  I clicked on a number of these and was also impressed by how detailed your profiles appear to be.  However, I wasn’t able to view most parts of the profile because I couldn’t register, so I can’t give you feedback on any of that.
    
   Since I can’t see the most important parts of each profile, I can’t comment on the value of the service, whether I would pay for it, and so on.  As I said, I’d be happy to give more detailed feedback if you provided a way for me to sign up.  I WILL say that a quick Google search for “advertising agencies” turned up what appear to be several competitors, and they don’t require membership to view their listings.  However, nothing similar to your site turned up when I searched on “marketing firms” and “marketing agencies.”

3. * Please visit http://www.marketingmine.com  – what do you think the site is about?

   The very first impression is that it is a directory for marketing agencies.

   * Sign up as a Corporate Marketer member here https://www.marketingmine.com/profile.php?type=c (you may need to wait a few moments to be verified).

   I have been waiting for a bit. I filled the form twice. Once with testing information (althoug the e-mail address was real )and I never had any messages saying that the information was wrong. After trying again, it did say that it would not accept e-mails with yahoo, hotmail or similar. The second time I did fill it in with real info and I did have a message to say that my password would be sent by e-mail but I waited for a few minutes and received nothing.

   I think that it would be an improvement if there was some kind of information in advance to know that the password will be set by the system. It is hard to know what is going on.
   After one and a half hours waiting for confirmation, my account is not verified. and I haven’t received my password and therefore I can’t answer the rest of the questions.
   It would be great to have futher support, such a faq, a forum, or a live chat, some kind of assistance so you can sort out your problem when you have it.

4. Please visit http://www.marketingmine.com – what do you think the site is about?

   The site is made to get companies that need advertising/marketing/creative service connected with organizations that can provide these services. It looks like agencies can register and showcase their capabilities. Potential clients then log in, can search the database for services they need, and then send proposals or jobs to those agencies.
   In marketing this service, however, I would really suggest separating these two things on the front page. Just from looking at the page, it’s hard to tell if you’re trying to sell to marketing firms or selling to potential clients. I’d suggest a couple things to make this clearer:
   1. Create a headline/byline on the top page, above the search bar that can sum up, in a few words, what you do on both sides of the table. I like the byline you use in the HTML title tag – ideally, that should be repeated somewhere in the body of your page, and in this headline would be a great place. It looks like you already have it in your source (and it’s just commented out). I disagree with whoever said you shouldn’t have a headline/byline.
   2. Split your 3-step process into 2 sets of processes, with one titled “For Companies” and one entitled “For Marketing Professionals”. That way, it’s clear that you not only service companies that need marketing services, but you also service the companies that provide those services.
   3. The companies you’ll really be selling to probably won’t have a lot of in-house marketing; because of this, in the “infobox” on the bottom left hand side of the page (next to the example specialties), you may want to shorten up the description of the services you offer for client companies, and then add a brief description of what you offer for marketing companies. Mention that you get these companies exposure, a larger client base, and that you bring customers right to their “door” without extensive outside marketing efforts.

   Sign up as a Corporate Marketer member here https://www.marketingmine.com/profile.php?type=c (you may need to wait a few moments to be verified).

   Registering is a SNAFU. I tried using my legitimate work email, and put my profile through multiple times. There was no confirmation, but there also wasn’t any error message, so I assumed it was okay. I waited almost 10 minutes, then tried registering again. When I tried to open the profile.php?type=c page, I got this sql error:
   Could not retrieve records: You have an error in your SQL syntax; check the manual that corresponds to your MySQL server version for the right syntax to use near ‘) ORDER BY company_name’ at line 1
   SQL Query: SELECT * FROM agency a WHERE a.basic_level_live = 1 AND a.agency_id in (SELECT agency_id FROM agency_specialties asp INNER JOIN sys_specialties s ON asp.specialty_id = s.specialty_id WHERE s.parent = ) ORDER BY company_name
   I waited a minute, tried it again with my school email address, and got a confirmation. Why this didn’t work with my legitimate business address I don’t know, but I strongly suggest you take another look at how you’re validating emails and creating accounts. I’d maybe suggest allowing people to create an account and start looking at the service, but require verification before they can post RFP’s? I’m not sure what the solution is here, but there’s definitely something broken in the process.

   Once verified, sign-in and comment on various elements of the site. Be sure to conduct a search, view creative work and rate it.

   Well, I waited about 10-15 minutes again (after getting an on-page confirmation that my submission went through), but still nothing. I’m not sure what you’re trying to verify before you allow access to the site, but again, as a potential user of your service (I am an independent contractor for a SMB who manages all aspects of my “company’s” ad copy/marketing), I’m already turned off, and if I wasn’t browsing this site for the purposes of a review, I already would have gone elsewhere.
   When searching, I don’t like that you only have the ability (from the front page) to search by name. Since most client companies coming in won’t already know the marketing company they want to work with (after all, why would they come to you if they know that?), why not allow them to search by solution, or search by service/product?
   The same thing goes for when I’m searching for example solutions: What do you mean by out-of-home advertising, for example? I click on an example, expecting an explanation of how you/a marketing company can meet these needs, and instead I get a huge (and somewhat unattractive) list of companies. I tried looking at an advertising company’s portfolio, and I was redirected to register as an ad/marketing company!?? Shouldn’t I be redirected to register as a corporate marketer, or just be allowed to get a sample of a portfolio without registering?

   What do you think of the user interface?

   It’s now been 20 minutes, and I still haven’t gotten my confirmation, so I can’t comment. I can tell you, however, that the information I’ve been presented with since trying to register is nowhere near as attractive or intuitive as your front page (which is pretty slick, aside from the comments I made before). Every time I try to get information about your client companies, your agency partners, or when I click “more information” to see what it is you actually do for client companies, I’m asked to log in. I can understand having to log in to contact ad companies (after all, that’s why you exist), but I shouldn’t need to register an account to understand how your business operates or what solutions you provide as the “middleman”.

   How would you improve the way that creative work is displayed?

   30 minutes. There’s no way I would keep browsing your site.
   When displaying search results, use multiple columns for the search agencies or do more to weed out agencies who register as saying they provide every service. Allow unregistered users to see marketing/ad agency portfolios. Right now, I’ve seen no creative work, 2 sql errors, have attempted to register 4 times, and have seen plain navigation errors (when I’m asked to register as an advertising agency when I try to look at an agency’s portfolio or services). I’m also restricted from seeing any of the spotlights, or really from anything other than search results, a brief company overview of agencies, and your informational pages.

   Would you come back to the site? If so, how often?

   No, for a few reasons (in addition to the frustrations I detailed above)
   1. On advertising company profile pages, you have the company website right there. What’s to stop me, when I’m having trouble with your site, from just visiting an agency and working directly with them?
   2. The agency profile page should have some sort of showcase right there, without requiring me to register.
   3. The only “dated” material I can find is your press releases, which are from 2009. For a company that is trying to sell advertising agency experience, I’m very surprised that there’s no internal PR efforts after the site launched. With all the problems I just had, and the date on the press releases, I’d have to assume you’re not in business.

   Would you recommend this site to others? If so, why?

   No, for all of the reasons I mentioned above, other than as an object lesson of why it’s important that everything works before you try to go live.

   What improvements would you like to see?

   Asked and answered when it comes to functionality and copy. There are a couple visual improvements, though:
   1. I really like the complimenting colors of your logo, but I’m disappointed that that blue (along with the concept of overlapping) doesn’t show up anywhere else on your site. The muted grey/light brown is a calming combination, but it’s also… calming. Is there any way you can make the site fit the pallete of your logo scheme a bit more?
   2. Try giving the sense of “dynamic content” on your front page. This could be a slideshow of portfolio artifacts (to showcase your agents), links to case studies from client companies (which establishes your credibility), or other information.
   3. Since you don’t have a toll-free number, you should either have a Google Voice widget (to allow people to connect to you via g. voice for free), or a live chat application.
   4. In your informational pages, there should be some graphic elements. In the about us, why not have a shot of your company HQ, or at least the building you’re in? (downtown Atlanta is beautiful).
   5. There’s no actual information about the “you” behind the company. What makes MarketingMine credible? What experience do your officers have that establishes they know the advertising/pr/marketing arena? When were you founded? etc, etc. Your “about us” shouldn’t just be another pitch, it should have solid information about the company.

   Do you think this provides a valuable service to the marketing community?

   If it worked as intended, it would be wonderful. I love the idea of, as a business, putting together a “wish list” and then letting ad agencies fight for my business. I like the idea, as an ad/marketing firm of getting directed leads from interested clients who can give me an idea of what they want. If you could just get the initial, signing up part to work as intended, this would be an extremely valuable tool!

   Would you pay for this service? If so, how much?

   As a client company, nothing. I shouldn’t have to pay you to pay an advertising company. As an ad agency, I’m not sure. I found on Deojo that you are/were offering your services for around $2,000 annually. That’s a number that will weed out the companies not serious, but there’s really no indication that you can deliver on that sort of investment.
   Acting like an ad agency that might partner with you, I did a little investigation, and again, shame shame on your own internal marketing/PR efforts. There’s almost nothing about you from 3rd parties, and the only sites I can really find are ones like Deojo (which is a free web design/pr/marketing portfolio and creative showcase), which shows how it blows you out of the water in sheer traffic. It also looks like you have almost no backlinks, and have not provided any company information for your domain registration. I am now very wary, as a potential advertising agency, of giving you any money.’
   I would suggest, instead of an annual subscription, taking a percentage off the top on completed deals. That’s what a lot of “service matching” companies do, and it seems to work well.

   How do you think the site compares to other similar sites/competitors?

   As a comparison, I checked out Agency ComPile. It looks like this is the same company? In any case, the page has the same flaws; there’s no clear indication of who you’re marketing to, what the service is, and there’s no way to look “under the hood” without registering. While I think you could have a very valuable service, I’d rather check out Deojo and contact companies whose creative I really like.
   Also, for the record, 1 hour later, and still no email (and I received the confirmation that my profile was accepted and to wait for the email). Again, there’s something very broken.
   HTML/Code
   I peeked under the hood and looked at your page source. Boy, you sure have a lot of formatting errors! Run all of your pages through a W3C validator and clear up your unclosed tags, unrecognized special characters, and undefined/un-opened attributes, and get rid of some of that white space, and I bet you’ll have a lot less problems with page rendering. As it is, every time I load the page, I can see the formatting gets all “blown out” until Firefox re-renders it. I didn’t count/check your div tags, but from the extensive commenting, I almost guarantee you have unclosed divs, and you have several that are missing the > to end the element. Also, why are you using both a table and div/css for page layout? You can achieve everything you want in a table with floating elements defined in your CSS.

5. Please visit http://www.marketingmine.com – what do you think the site is about?

   It is a member specific online community.  Specifically…for marketers.  A place to source new business and how to submit RFP’s (request for proposal)

   Sign up as a Corporate Marketer member here https://www.marketingmine.com/profile.php?type=c (you may need to wait a few moments to be verified).

   When I first tried to sign up it took me to a invalid page.  I tried it again a 2nd time, remembering that I DO have a business email that I can use.  I just haven’t used it for awhile..duh.
   After waiting for 52 minutes, I STILL DO NOT HAVE A VERIFICATION EMAIL
   I am going to stop here since I am unable to proceed as instructed.  I could go ahead and critique your First Page, but as others have already done it, and I know that that is not what I have been instructed to do, I will not do this.  I would recommend that you immediately make this ‘tester’ friendly if you really want realistic feedback.

   Once verified, sign-in and comment on various elements of the site. Be sure to conduct a search, view creative work and rate it.
   What do you think of the user interface?
   How would you improve the way that creative work is displayed?
   Would you come back to the site? If so, how often?
   Would you recommend this site to others? If so, why?
   What improvements would you like to see?
   Do you think this provides a valuable service to the marketing community?
   Would you pay for this service? If so, how much?
   How do you think the site compares to other similar sites/competitors?

   
    

6. * Please visit http://www.marketingmine.com – what do you think the site is about?
   
   I think this site is about finding an advertising or marketing agency for your business.  My initial assumption is that this is a well organized directory, attempting to pair businesses with the right firm for their advertising needs.

   * Sign up as a Corporate Marketer member here https://www.marketingmine.com/profile.php?type=c (you may need to wait a few moments to be verified).

   I have a problem here.  After I submit my information, the page just reloads. Usually, when signing up for an account on a website, you are a directed to a verification page.  The page will say that your information has been submitted or is awaiting verification.

   As other reviewers have mentioned above, the signup process doesn’t work.  I tried submitting the information for my husband’s company 4-5 times.  Each time, I would receive no verification that the information had gone through and no e-mail.

   Finally I tried the information for my ecommerce store.  It happened to go through, and I got this message:

   “Thanks!

   Thank you for registering. We’re now verifying your information to provide you access to the secure and confidential Marketing Mine database.

   You’ll receive a confirmation email shortly with your username and password to login. ”

   Now, if I were actually seeking your services – rather than just seeking to review the site – I would have never tried six different times to register an account.  I definitely would have gone elsewhere after one or two tries.  This is a basic necessity of site functionality that must be corrected as soon as possible.  As you can see from the reviewers comments above, the site can’t be properly tested without this feature working.

   * Once verified, sign-in and comment on various elements of the site. Be sure to conduct a search, view creative work and rate it.

   I have waited over five hours and no confirmation e-mail has arrived.  I attempted to submit for a forgotten password and that e-mail did go through, but I got this message when I tried to log in: “Your account has not yet been verified. You should receive an email shortly.”

   Unfortunately, as with the instances above, I am unable to give a full review without access to the site.  Please get that fixed and I would be happy to give my full review.  Thank you!

7. $5 awarded to greatfeedback4u.

8. $5 awarded to mattgsx.

9. $5 awarded to Sierra12346.

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