Campbell, Harrington & Brear

April 19th, 2012
Posted By: Mel Campbell, Jr.

“Help! I’m advertising in yellow books and I can’t stop myself!”

That, in a nutshell, was a company’s call for help. For years, yellow book advertising had consumed this company’s marketing budget. And for years that made sense.

Then again, the company was founded in 1972. Here it was 2010, yet the company was still spending tens of thousands of dollars annually on an antiquated medium that’s essentially untrackable. (Yes, the days of the yellow books are over.  When was the last time you used one of the directories?  Heck, people under 35 never use them and those older use them very rarely. Today’s shoppers use their smartphone or computer.)

So the company came to us for guidance into this new digital world. And we explained how those yellow dollars could produce much more green using web-based marketing.

Unfortunately for this particular company, their present website was a manufacturer’s site reskinned for their own company’s use … very little branding and almost no SEO.

So the time had come for this local company to rethink its marketing strategies and step into the modern world of online marketing … a very efficient and effective tool.

Our Plan

By reducing the company’s yellow book commitment to the barest minimum (the client couldn’t go cold turkey), we were able to redeploy dollars into the creation of a new website – which launched in early 2011.  We also developed a web promotion strategy with trackable Search Engine Optimization and strategically designed, measurable pay-per-click campaigns (the first of which launched October of 2011).

We created a new website that is user-friendly and informative with multiple ways of contacting the client for pricing or service. And since the site is content managed, it’s easy to update the content frequently, which improves search engine visibility and allows the client to keep promotional offerings fresh.

Ongoing site maintenance, keyword research, the addition of fresh content and other search optimization techniques by CH&B has enabled our web-based strategy to succeed.

The site’s performance was boosted by a well-targeted pay-per-click campaign which benefited the organic performance of the site as well.

Compared to October of 2011, February of 2012 showed:

• an increase of 125.7% in average time spent on the website
• an increase of 41.7% in pages viewed per visit
• an increase of 5.4% in percent of visitors produced by organic search
• a drop in the bounce rate of 11.2%
• 54 calls were generated in one month via the mobile component of the pay-per-click campaign

Meanwhile, each month, the number of customers contacting the company via the website to make purchases, schedule appointments or ask questions increases. And our Search Engine Marketing techniques have turned the Special Offers page into the most frequently visited page on the site.  A harbinger of future sales results.

“We have been able to position this brand in a way that’s distinct from the manufacturer’s brand, while showcasing the company’s expertise and uniqueness in the marketplace,” says Angela Wenner, Campbell, Harrington & Brear account executive. “A lot of people claim expertise in web-based marketing, but the proof is in the data.”

Why continue to throw your money away in yellow book advertising when you can track and acquire real results in a web-based strategy?