Over the course of the past year, I asked 12 prospective clients what they would do if they wanted to find a local business. The overwhelming response from all 12 (as anticipated) was “Google it!”, or something akin. Beyond my first inquiry, I pressed the issue by asking “What words would you use in that […]
A couple months ago DAC Senior Research Manager Lynn Duffy wrote a blog post about the benefit of having a local number in a print Yellow Pages ad. She discussed the success of some current testing by one of our clients that had added local numbers to ads that traditionally featured a single toll-free number. […]
With nearly a decade of testing and measurement experience in both print and online Yellow Pages, I can tell you one thing for sure: service-related businesses should be advertising a local phone number. Why, you ask? Because local phone numbers have been shown to bring upwards of 68% more leads in total, on average to […]
DAC held an American Marketing Association (AMA) lunch series session titled “Digital Lead Generation Minus the Guesswork” yesterday at the Doubletree Hotel in Cleveland. DAC’s Vice-President of Client Strategy Nasser Sahlool led the afternoon seminar. Topics discussed included: digital trends, SoLoMo – Social, Local and Mobile channels, methodologies to succeed in a dynamic digital environment, […]
Recently, directory publisher AT&T reached a deal to sell a majority stake of their Yellow Pages division to Cerberus Capital Management, a deal that values the business at about $1.42 billion in equity. They are one of many directory publishers who have had to re-organize their businesses in recent years. For decades, directory publishers have […]
When I joined DAC’s research department six years ago, one of the tasks that landed on my desk was to track monthly the number of Yellow Pages directories in print in both the US and Canada. I never gave the task much thought, but the figures recently have been hard to ignore. The US is now […]
Do you get 80% of your leads from your top four markets? Is your franchise aligned to service only certain zip codes? Do you know what directories (if any) your customers are using? Successful local search campaigns are built through targeting specific local market areas and ensuring that your message reaches consumers in that area. […]
This is the first installment of a multi-part blog series on the growing gap between online marketing efforts measured through online transactions and online marketing measured through offline behaviors. It’s easy to understand why marketers love online marketing. It’s just so measurable. I spent years in print and broadcast media, and demonstrating return in those […]
For businesses, local marketing usually deals with the people that they wish to include: Those living in the target markets served by the business, and those living in markets that the business would like to develop. Time, money and effort is spent understanding who these people are, what they need and want, how to reach […]
This is part three of a three-part series on SMX (Search Marketing Expo) 2011 at the Javits Center in Manhattan. Read part one here and part two here. The first two days of SMX focused on search marketers chasing Google and Google chasing the searcher. Day three was about everyone chasing the conversion. The sessions I attended […]