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?

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August 9th, 2011
Posted By: Mel Campbell, Jr.

Now we are down to the final chapter … if “advertising” in the phone directories is not the way to go what should you do?

Here are the steps to a better advertising approach while spending your companies money more effectively and efficiently.

1. Drop all of your phonebook directory advertising.  All of it.
2. Do not enter into the phone directory company’s new on-line services.
3. Take your existing directory commitment budget and put it all on red in Vegas.  Just kidding.
4. Take your existing directory commitment budget and develop a strategic new media plan of your own that includes a well thought out website, a social media component, e-blast marketing, and support it with a strong SEO program and possibly an SEM program.
5. It must start with a strategic plan first.
6. It must be supported by a strong SEO commitment.
7. Everything must be executed by well qualified, new media experts with at least five solid years of experience.  Find a good company, they are out there.  Try 717-846-2947.
8. If you can’t do it all in one year, build it over a number of years.  Website with SEO first.
9. Embrace your program and commit time to it.  It will pay off with business results much better than your yellow page advertising ever did.

The good news is by reassigning your phone directory dollars you can move into the new interactive media world without additional expense.

THE END.

AUTHOR’S NOTE: For the record.  Over the past thirty-four years or so, none of the companies who followed our recommendation to drop yellow page advertising ever went out of business.  Nor did they lose business.  They all survived and in many cases flourished because they put those phone directory promotional dollars into alternate media that really did advance their business.

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July 19th, 2011
Posted By: Mel Campbell, Jr.

Over a year ago, I wrote an article called Beware The Digital Age.  I felt there was so much material written about the good news side of new media – and there is a good side – that people needed to be made aware of the negative side and all the many hidden traps that accompany this new advertising medium.

The major warning I wrote was, “… they are dying industries.  Industries who have felt it coming for years but are now at the Pearly Gates.  For newspapers, the Yellow Pages, many printers, and some publishers, it’s over.  The big danger to you is they are quickly reinventing themselves and now marketing themselves as experts in fields they know nothing about.  Newspapers are web developers, web advertisers, your digital expert source.  Yellow Pages is selling SEO and SEM services.   Even printers are entering the SEO, SEM business.  Desperate industries do desperate things.  They know nothing about these things.  Avoid being a victim in their decline.” Continue reading “Part IV: Resist! Don’t Be Assimilated into the NEW On-line Directory Companies’ Programs.” »

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July 18th, 2011
Posted By: Mel Campbell, Jr.

When New York Wire Company spun off its consumer insect screening line last year, it also sold the New York Wire brand name and its unicorn logo.

The company was now free to specialize in its true competencies: the design and production of engineered industrial open mesh and light wire material for a strong group of core customers – as well as for a yet-unknown, untapped universe of potential customers.

Continue reading “Making Marketing Mesh for a Re-Wired Company” »

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July 5th, 2011
Posted By: Mel Campbell, Jr.

Okay, so I am now assuming that you, after reading the first two blog posts, believe paying out your hard earned cash for yellow directory advertising is a total waste. If you don’t believe that, you need to reread the first two installments on this topic or go back to reading about unicorns and their rainbow poo.

Yellow directory advertising is over. Permanently.

So what’s a person to do? Simple, next time, tell your yellow directory rep you are out all together.

Now, I know you are probably thinking: “Okay it’s over for phone directories, but I will just slash the budget by 50% or 75% or 90% this year.” Kinda ease your way out of yellow advertising.

Continue reading “Part III: Saying Goodbye Is Never Easy … What Do You Mean I Can’t Cut Back?” »

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June 27th, 2011
Posted By: Mel Campbell, Jr.

In today’s sales marketing and promotion world, your company’s website is your brand’s mothership, the living, pulsating heart of what is, hopefully, a contemporary media strategy.

Your blog; email blasts; social media accounts like Facebook, Twitter and Linked-In; phone apps; PURLs; QR codes; whatever … are just a few of the many new media tools that when working together will shape your brand, while directing traffic to your website.  It is the interaction and linkage of these multimedia components that creates the SEO octane that lifts your company closer to the top of Page One on search engines, which strengthens your brand, enhances your image, increases sales, grows revenue …

That’s just a tiny slice of the new media market today.  In many ways, the market is so brand new and so difficult to understand due to its constant evolution that few people have any real knowledge about it, much less a real understanding of how these new tools can help build their business. Continue reading “CH&B Interactive Media Seminars: Simplifying and Clarifying New Media” »

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June 21st, 2011
Posted By: Mel Campbell, Jr.

There was a time in a world long, long ago when yellow telephone directories may have had reason to exist.  That day is way gone.

Back then, if you were a local retailer, all your advertising dollars were in the Yellow Pages except for some local media advertising that directed consumers to your Yellow Pages ads…and, well, that may have worked 40-plus years ago.  It won’t work in today’s world.

Let’s get one thing straight from the beginning:  The phone directories are directories and nothing more.  Period.  No matter what sweet talk the sales rep fed you, they have never been an advertising vehicle.  They are, first and foremost, a book people go to for phone numbers. People do not do their “shopping” in the phonebook as their reps would like you to believe.  It is a book that lays there until someone picks it up to look up a phone number and then calls it.  And that habit has totally changed.

The medium of choice now is on-line phone number searching on Google, Yahoo or Bing.

Continue reading “Part II: The Case for Leaving Yellow Page Advertising.” »

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June 9th, 2011
Posted By: Mel Campbell, Jr.

For 34 years we have counseled our clients on whether they should be in the two phone directories – Yellow Pages and Yellow Book – and, if so, to what extent: i.e., how big an ad, how many pages of ads, and how many books they should be in.

Sometimes, we have advised clients to increase their stake in the directories. Many more times we have advised them to reduce their exposure, or eliminate it all together from their “advertising” mix.

Some clients accepted our advice, many more agreed with our assumptions but didn’t have the intestinal fortitude to step away from the phone directory punchbowl.

Continue reading “Part I: In Yellow Pages? You Shouldn’t Be.” »

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May 31st, 2011
Posted By: Mel Campbell, Jr.

“Without question, this website advances the development and use of future hospital sites,” states Mel Campbell, “as well as sites across a range of industries. It also features an information architecture that allows visitors to get to the content they need and want, quicker.”

Roughly two years ago, Holy Spirit and Campbell, Harrington & Brear embarked on a new media strategy for the hospital.  One key component to the strategy was the development of a new website.  Not just any new site, but a site that would be fully managed by the hospital, without having to drag in the IT people or a third-party provider for every change.

There were other important objectives, too. They wanted the site to better target the hospital’s audiences with cleaner messaging. They desired quicker, easier access to the “library” of information. They also asked us to market the hospital’s Centers of Excellence, promote the brand better, and develop greater search engine optimization (SEO). Continue reading “CH&B’s New Mammoth Content Management System (CMS) Site Introduces New Simplicity to Management of Large Websites” »

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