Campbell, Harrington & Brear

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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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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February 21st, 2011
Posted By: Allan Pettit

Whether your business is small or large in the scope of its service and the products it offers, advertising strategy and media placement are crucial to the success of driving traffic to your location, creating sales leads, or generating orders online.

In the past, a traditional media buyer would handle media placement. However, as the universe of media options has grown, the responsibilities of the position have grown as well. The traditional media buyer has been replaced by the media strategist – a person who has command of and can manage the plethora of new and traditional communication platforms for reaching your target audiences.

A media strategist will examine your needs as well as your budget to fulfill those needs.  The media strategist will then develop a course of action based on research of your business and the numerous channels of communication that are available to reach your target audiences.

Continue reading “Our Media Buying Services Simplify the Confusing Landscape of Advertising” »

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September 15th, 2009
Posted By: Allan Pettit

CH&B is delighted to announce the launch of the new Accomac Inn website.

The Accomac Inn, for decades one of Central Pennsylvania’s most elegant restaurants, needed a brand new website – one as fresh as the redefined Inn itself.

Not only had the Accomac renovated its interior, making it lighter, brighter and more welcoming, it had transformed its menu too, thanks to a whole-hearted commitment to serving only the freshest local seasonal fare.

Our job was to conceive, design and construct a website as appetizing as this new Inn experience. What we delivered is something that they will be able to savor for a long, long time.

While touring the site at www.accomacinn.com, take a moment to visit the blog. Not only does it enable the Accomac to inform its customers about a range of issues in real time, it also plays a big role in search engine optimization.

Continue reading “Scrumptious New Website For Gourmet Restaurant” »

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