It’s been quite a while since my last post and so much has changed! Let me briefly bring you up to speed. The Yellow Pages division of Academy Media Group has transitioned over to National Yellow Pages Media (www.nypmedia.com).

Renae Dabney and I are now employed by NYPM, a leading independent National Directory Marketing agency with no affiliation to any advertising agencies or marketing services holding companies.  NYPM works with a diverse base of regional and national clients.  The interactive division, YellowWord (www.yellowword1.com), provides search engine marketing, Internet Yellow Pages, online content management and performance-based advertising solutions for local, regional and national advertisers.

It’s been a few months and we’re finally getting acclimated with our new surroundings. We’ve missed the opportunity to correspond with you all and we’re in the process of starting a new blog.  The industry has gone through tremendous changes recently and we’ve got a lot more info to share with you.

Thanks for your patience and continued readership.   Please bookmark our new blog at http://nypmedia.wordpress.com.

Renae and I, as well as the rest of the NYPM team, look forward to hearing from you in the near future!

Okay, I’m climbing back up on my soapbox.  I’ve been meaning to address this issue, yet again, for a while now but an article recently forwarded to me reminded me that it’s time to put the gloves back on and duke it out with you Yellow Pages nay sayers. 

First of all, let me state for the record that I am a proponent of the Internet.  I love it!  I’m on it all day long, for personal and professional reasons.  On those rare occasions I am unable to get online I’m not a happy camper.  But as much as I love you Google, MSN and Yahoo, you have done me wrong from time to time and have lead me down the wrong path, causing me extreme frustration.  I know you’re taking steps to clean up your databases and make the search function a more user-friendly and relevant experience but you could learn a thing or two from my good friend the phone book.  Advertisers in the Yellow Pages pay to make sure their information is correct and it’s updated at least once a year.  You’re not likely to find advertising for a company that’s gone out of business.  And if you do, you’d better believe it’s going to be cleaned up by the time the next issue publishes.  And yes, I sell national Yellow Pages advertising for a living so you may think I’m biased.  I prefer to think of myself as an open-minded sorta gal.  Like I said, I’m a big fan of the Internet, and I sell advertising space there, too, so it certainly wouldn’t behoove me to discount the value of Search Engine Marketing and Local Search.  But don’t diss the print directory!

I could throw a bunch of stats at you and if you’d like to contact me I’d be happy to provide you with all the data and research your little heart desires.  But for the sake of keeping this short and sweet I’m going to leave you with this simple, yet powerful stat…85% of the U.S. population used a Yellow Pages directory last year.  85%! 

I know folks want (and are using) the phone book and I have to look no further than my neighbors to help me back up that statement.  I live in an apartment complex.  In the past our directory publisher AT&T delivered the books to our front doors.  This year they decided to give folks the option of receiving the books.  Instead of dropping them off on every door step they built shelves in the lobby of each building.  If the residents want a book they simply have to help themselves.  Because I do what I do for a living I have a particular interest in that stack of phone books.  And guess what…I’ve watched the stack get smaller and smaller every day until the supply had to be replenished…more than once.  So there you have it…the books are not forced on anyone, yet the demand is there.  Proof that people still use and rely on their print directories!

Print Yellow Page Users Take Action

Posted October 28th, 2008 by Jack Loechner

According to new research by Knowledge Networks on behalf of the Association of Directory Publishers (ADP), the ADP National Yellow Pages Study shows that 85% of the U.S. population used a printed directory last year. Independent publishers (those not affiliated with local telephone companies) enjoyed a strong share of this consumer usage, with 40% of overall Yellow Pages look-ups going to independent directories.

Larry Angove, ADP President & CEO, says that “The usage share number confirms that independent publishers still have growth opportunities in print… the fact that independents are responsible for 40% of overall directory usage… indicates to national advertisers and their CMRs that independent directories are a choice for their national placements.”

Print Yellow Pages provides advertisers with consumers who take action after referencing a directory, says the study, with 78% of directory users contacting an average of two businesses:

• Telephone contact is the most common action taken (93%)
• In-person contact (31%)
• Online contact (10%)
• Mail (1%)

We’ve had some great times during the twelve years we’ve been in business and we’re really excited about the recent marriage of divisions within our organization and expanded menu of services.

A heartfelt thanks goes out to our hardworking employees and loyal clients.  Without each and every one of you this day wouldn’t be possible!

I’m going shopping for a new cell phone this weekend.  It’s kind of a big deal for me because, like my cars, I keep my phones until they’re on their last leg.  I’ve been doing a little online previewing and it’s simply amazing to me how far we’ve come.  Once upon a time I worked for one of the major wireless carriers, back in the day when there were only two of them.  My first mobile phone was just that…mobile…as it was installed in my car.  And the portable phones came in bags that you had to carry around and I swear those things weighed 10 lbs!  So yes, I’m blown away by the advances in modern technology and all the amazing things we can do with our little phones these days.

I’m not fancy.  Okay, yes, I carry a Pink Razr and it’s got a rhinestone encrusted cover, but that’s strictly cosmetic   What I mean by that is my phone has three basic functions…I use it to make phone calls, to send text messages and occasionally to check my personal email.  It may have more features I am simply unaware of but it’s served its purpose so I don’t feel like I’ve been missing out on anything.

But when I hit Circuit City this weekend and talk to my friendly Verizon rep I’m sure he’ll tell me all about the wonderful new things phones can do these days, features I simply can’t live without and of course I’ll buy into it and upgrade to a model with more bells and whistles.  Will I use the features?  I suppose with a little education, I think maybe, yes.  Especially if I purchase a phone with the MP3 player built in.  Video.  Local Search.  Mobile coupons.  There’s an awful lot we can do and some days it’s just downright overwhelming.  I still type in complete sentences when texting so I’ll need a little time to wrap my head around all these other very cool features.  Baby steps, baby steps.   

But this brings me to an article I read in Advertising Age.  Not unlike me, it seems most folks simply want to talk on their cell phones.   I’m certainly not denying there has been a healthy shift to mobile.  I know more than one “Crack”berry addict   The invention of the iPhone is driving more people to watch online videos, surf the web and check their email. I think the younger population is a driving force in the use of the some of the newer, fancier applications found on today’s mobile devices. 

But according to the Ad Age survey 3 out of 10 wireless device owners would prefer a small phone with fewer features in the future.  I wonder who these people are?  I’m guessing the older generation, a little reluctant to embrace change, maybe?  But I can’t wait to see what very cool features my next phone will include…and of course it will be pink!

A survey conducted by the Pew Internet & American Life Project (as reported by Mediaweek) shows that search ranks #2 in the daily online activities of American adults.  Over 2200 individuals were polled this past April and May.  Here’s the breakdown of the group’s Web habits.

Coming in at #1 — no big surprise here, is email.  60% of users access email on a daily basis.

#2 — belongs to search at 49%.  Yes, that’s 49% utilizing search on a daily basis.

#3 — News sites are visited by 39% of users every day

#4 — Weather sites at 30%

And rounding out the top 5 — Social Networking.  Surprisingly, despite the enormous amount of people jumping on the social networking bandwagon, only 13% of users log in to the social networking sites on a daily basis.

Do these numbers surprise you?  I guess I’m your typical Web user because these stats seem to fall right in line with my own personal activities.  First thing in the morning, I grab that cup of coffee and check my email.  But I’m online all day (and some of it is even business related.  Said with a wink, of course!!). 

The percentages for search are sure to increase as it becomes more accessible and faster thanks to the estimated 55% of Americans using broadband connections these days.  And let’s give credit to the search engine sites for diligently working to improve the user experience by making the information easier to find and, thank goodness, relevant. 

So, now that you know how popular search is among the general population…anyone wanna talk SEO? 

In my last post I gave a general overview and definition of “web marketing.”  As I mentioned in that post, there are a variety of different activities under the web marketing umbrella. The one I will be focusing on in this post is search engine optimization, also known as SEO.  Of all the web marketing activities, SEO is quite possibly the most widely know and there’s good reason for that.

There are two main ways to show up in a search engine: natural rankings (those results whose position in the listing is based off the quality, content, and popularity of the site), and paid listings (activities such as Pay Per Click campaigns).  Although it is always a good thing to show up in the search results for a given search word / phrase, more value will typically come from those results that are on the “natural” side of things. Now don’t get me wrong, there is alot of value in PPC campaigns as well, but for the sake of keeping your attention and not getting off track I’m going to remain focused on giving a basic explanation of SEO and the natural side of things for now. I’ll go into greater detail regarding PPC and other paid activities in the future.

To sum it up, SEO is basically the process of improving one’s web site to help with its appeal and usefulness to not only the search engines, but also to its users. One thing to understand, and it seems many people lose focus here, is that a search engine has never purchased anything from a web site. It’s never requested a quote or inquired about volunteering either. The point being, a search engine result can do you a world of good, but it means nothing if the information on your site and the usability of your site is not up to par for your users –  the ones who DO purchase, inquire, and submit requests for quotes or additional information. A rule of thumb for an effective SEO campaign is to optimize your site for your users while following the general guidelines of the search engines. Do this well, and your site will naturally do well in the engines.

There are three main things that go into determining how your site will rank in the natural search results.

1) Site architecture – this refers to the site’s programming, design, layout, etc. It allows the search engine “bots”, also referred to as a “crawlers” or “spiders” to index your site’s content. If your site isn’t programmed properly or if your site is made up entirely of images, the search engine bots will not be able to find your content, thus you will not be indexed for certain keyword or phrases. So when you have content about hammers on your site and someone searches for “hammers”, if your site is search friendly the search engine will be able to index you as a potential result for that phrase. If the bots cannot find you, you aren’t even in the game let alone ranking highly.

2) Content - content is king! The more relevant content you have on your site the better.  A search engine’s ultimate goal is to return the best and most thorough results to a user for what they searched for. So, with that said, the search engines scan all the millions of sites out therefor content relevant to possible searches. Using the hammer example again, if site owner A has the term “hammer” listed on one of its product pages one time, it does have content relevant to the search keyword “hammer” and it could potentially rank for that keyword. Now, site owner B not only has product pages talking about hammers, but also a “history of the hammer” page and specific descriptions of their hammers (claw hammer, craftsman hammer, etc.). Because of this additional content, Site owner B has a much higher likelihood of ranking further up in the search engines because of the extensive amounts of content and thorough knowledge of the subject, so, when it comes time for the search engine to display results for the search term “hammer” it’s going to want to present the most thorough results possible, i.e. site B. Now remember, none of this is even possible if we don’t have the proper architecture (#1) in place.

3) Popularity - popularity refers to the amount of links you have to and from your site. Think of a link from a web site as a vote of confidence. If a web site links to your web site, the search engines basically view this as confirmation that the linking site believes your site has valid and helpful information. Having a link from a web site that is also in your industry or, better yet, an authority in your industry, will weigh much more heavily in the search engines than a site completely unrelated to yours. So to once again go to the hammer example; if you sell hammers and you have a link from Mom and Pop’s Bakery, yes, you have a link but what does Mom and Pop’s know about hammers? Now if Craftsman Tools is linking to your web site, this link will benefit you much more because Craftsman obviously knows about hammers and is considered by the search engines as an authority.

Another thing to consider is reciprocal linking and one way linking. The most beneficial type of link is from a web site to yours and that’s it. Less benefit is given to a link when you are linking right back to them rather than them simply linking to you. Again, we are simply skimming the surface of the art of increasing your sites popularity and the intricacies of proper linking.

Proper SEO is an art form. It requires a combination of research, implementation and tracking (analytics and stats). In blog posts to come, I will elaborate further on those three items. For now, I hope I was able to give you a very basic overview of what SEO is and how it works. As always, if you have any questions, I will be more than happy to answer them.

For more information, or to begin dialog, contact our friends at Academy Media Group.  We look forward to helping you further understand the basics of effective Search Engine Optimization. 

Thanks for reading!

— Josh Best, The Karcher Group

Josh Best is a Sales Rep / Account Executive for The Karcher Group, a web development, marketing and hosting firm located in North Canton, Ohio.    

I subscribe to MediaPost’s Email Insider newsletter and every day I receive some valuable little nugget of information.  This post by Loren McDonald, vice president of industry relations for Silverpop, details some generally accepted best practices for email marketing.  It’s so great I simply had to pass it along to our readers.  I’ve condensed the info to highlight Loren’s important DON’Ts of a successful email marketing campaign.  You can read the post in its entirety by subscribing to MediaPost’s Email Insider blog.

DON’T

1. Make it difficult to unsubscribe.  When you camouflage your unsubscribe link, recipients will click the spam button so frequently that ISPs block your emails. Make it easy to unsubscribe, but also make it easy to give your subscribers alternatives to do what they really want, like changing format, frequency, email address or interests.

2. Forget to include a “Welcome” message and/or wait weeks to send the first message.

3. Overmail. This is typically the number one or two reason people hit the spam-complaint button or unsubscribe.

4. Use a large single image as the core of your email.  Not only does this create a problem with recipients who use preview panes, have images blocked, it can also get your email blocked or filtered to junk folders by ISPs such as Hotmail. 

5. Overlook the use of alt tags.  An alt tag is the HMTL code that describes an image and displays when the email client/ISP blocks the image. Have your email designer and copywriter create descriptive tags for each image.

6. Rely on graphical links.  If recipients can’t see the image-based link, then they won’t click on it.  Use text links, especially for navigation and key calls to action, and create HTML buttons that render even when the email client blocks the corresponding image buttons.

7. Omit a preference center.  Make it easy for subscribers to change their email address, frequency, format and profile/preferences

8. Forget to design your email for the preview pane.  More than a quarter of consumer users and half of all business users read email in a preview pane.

9. Use a person’s name in the “from” line. Tell the recipient the email is from “Company A”. 

10. Hide email registration.  Sell potential subscribers at every possible turn, with an invitation that highlights your email benefits, on every page of your Web site.

According to a new survey conducted by Direct Partners, New York, Email Marketing is the most effective form of direct response among large US corporations.

The surveys were sent to 30,000 US companies with 2007 revenues exceeding $100 million.

28% of the senior executives who responded to the April survey said that email works most effectively for them, while 24% reported that direct mail worked the best.

This study shows that large companies are gaining acceptance of Email Marketing, however, in our daily dealings with our clients, and prospective clients, we find that Email Marketing has captured the interest of companies of all sizes, from the Mom-and-Pop Shops to the larger corporations.  Why?  The benefits are obvious.  It’s

• Quick to distribute
• Inexpensive versus other media and, if done properly,
• The response is rapid

Some interesting statistics were recently put out by The Interactive Advertising Bureau (IAB), the Neilson Monitor-Plus’ report and the National Newspaper Association. How you interpret these results depends on whether you’re of the glass is half empty or the glass is half full mindset.

It’s being reported by the IAB that although online ad revenues continue to grow, the quarterly gains are slowing down. 2008 Q1 experienced an 18.2% increase over 2007 Q4, however, it’s a substantial decline from the 26% year-over-year growth reported by the IAB.

Additionally, the Neilsen Monitor-Plus’ report states that Internet ad impressions grew only by 14.7% in Q1 of ‘08, compared to 31.9% last year.

Newspaper’s websites ad revenues grew only by 7.2%, versus 22% reported the year before.

In a separate article I ran across in Advertising Age, Robert Coen, senior VP-director of forecasting at Magna Global predicts total US ad spending will rise in ‘08 by 2% to $285 billion.

And finally, according to a recent MediaWeek article , interactive media budgets grew from 8% in ‘05 to 14% this year.

The bottom line is this…advertising revenue growth rates may have declined but there is still growth.  It’s all in how you look at it.  So again, I ask you, do you look at that glass as half empty or half full?

Effective Monday, July 28^th Worldwide Media Group* is changing its name to Academy Media Group.  The content from the Worldwide Media Group blog can now be found here. 

We’re excited to announce the recent consolidation of divisions and name change within our organization. 

In keeping in line with industry trends and satisfying our clients’ needs, we have taken steps to diversify our product suite.  We’ve added Search Engine Marketing, including Search Engine Optimization and Pay-Per-Click, Website Design/Development and Email Marketing services to our existing offerings for National White and Yellow Pages advertising for print directories and the Internet.

In doing so, we’ve realized the added benefit of bringing our division together with our parent company, Academy Communications, Inc., to more effectively promote and market our organization as one entity, instead of two.  For the past twelve years each brand has worked independently and we’re looking with great anticipation toward the future.  Moving forward, Academy Communications, Inc. and its Worldwide Media Group division will be united as Academy Media Group!

We will continue to utilize our key resources, our employees, capitalizing on their strengths.  We will “marry” the two divisions and their respective service offerings to now include traditional media such as Radio, Television, Outdoor, Direct Mail and Promotions, in addition to the Search Engine Marketing, Web Design/Development, Email Marketing and the Yellow Pages services mentioned above.  This will allow us to work together more effectively, bringing you, and our customers, a total solutions service provider.

*Worldwide Media Group was not affiliated with Worldwide Media Direct, Inc.