We’ve all noticed Yellow Pages directories have gotten thinner as a result of media migration. Consequently, many people wonder if the Yellow Pages are still a good value for 2013. Absolutely! One way to look at it is, with less Yellow Pages competition … you’re actually getting more leads. But, for those who are still skeptical – we have some hard core statistics from CRM Associates (November 2012) to share with you. Yellow Pages remain: Relevant Yellow Pages are a powerful medium for reaching and influencing active shoppers: A significant percentage of active shoppers (roughly 24%) seek out and are influenced by Yellow Pages ads (print or online) – more than all other media except online sources. Effective Yellow Pages are a highly-effective medium for reaching people who are ready-to buy: Almost all users of the Yellow Pages (six out of seven) will make a purchase. No other medium can boast this high of a follow-through. There is no “waste” with Yellow Pages advertising. Decision-Impacting Yellow Pages ads help shoppers make purchase decisions: The majority (58%) of Yellow Pages users are actively shopping (have not already chosen a business). 60% of users that have only one business or brand in mind when they seek out the Yellow Pages end up looking at other ads. Thus, about three quarters of Yellow Pages users are shoppers and use information in the Yellow Pages ads to help make shopping decisions.                       Targeted Yellow Pages delivers a strong, valuable, highly-targeted audience: The majority of usage is driven by “out-of-the-ordinary” events, such as life-stage changes. Yellow Pages users tend to be leaders, smart shoppers, willing to try new brands, and willing to pay full price for good value. Yellow Pages users spend 25% more than the average customer for most of the top headings. About one out of twelve Yellow Pages references are for business purposes; business users spend twice as much as consumers on average. Recent Yellow Pages are only used when a consumer is ready to make a purchase, which makes Yellow Pages ads highly influential. Permission-based Users of Yellow Pages actively seek out the information in ads. 100% of ads viewed are closely evaluated. There is no better time to reach a consumer than when that consumer has a need and is interested and actively seeking information about businesses and their products and services to help make shopping decisions.  Good for Business Yellow Pages ads deliver prospects – the typical local display print ad delivers close to 140 calls per year and the typical IYP ad delivers over 85 calls per year. Yellow Pages are the most effective medium for attracting new customers: The majority of sales resulting from the Yellow Pages are from new customers to the businesses. Great for the Bottom Line A typical business receives $14 of sales revenue and $5 profit for every $1 spent on Yellow Pages print display ads. Other Yellow Pages products have returns even higher than that. Summary The conversion rate to sales from Yellow Pages is almost ten times greater than almost all search and direct marketing vehicles. It takes 9 clicks from Paid Search to have the same chance of making a sale as one call or visit from a Yellow Pages user. It takes 17 clicks from Online Display ads to have the same chance of making a sale as one call or visit from a Yellow Pages user. Yellow Pages has the advantage of being the most effective medium at reaching and influencing an audience of consumers that are ready to buy and are looking for information to help make their decisions on who to purchase from. Telephone marketing has the second highest conversion rates, but is costly, with low SROI values as a result. Emails to house lists and Yellow Pages space ads provide the highest SROI values of 28 and 34 to 1 respectively. Businesses must be wise in the allocation of their advertising dollars – taking care to focus on the quality of leads from each source and the effective cost per sale from each vehicle, instead of focusing only on the top line “lead” counts. Large numbers of leads do not necessarily translate to large numbers of sales. Not all leads are created equal.  

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(The views expressed within this blog are my own and do no reflect the views of Berry Network or AT&T.) The month of March was significant for Dayton, Ohio. The weather was amazing – we enjoyed lots of sunshine and temps in the 70’s and 80's. That is not typical March weather in Ohio! The University of Dayton, located just a few short miles from Berry Network, hosted the NCAA First Four Tournament Games. And, the President of the United States, along with British Prime Minister David Cameron, flew into Wright-Patterson Air Force Base to join thousands of basketball’s faithful fans for the game. One of the aspects I appreciated most about the whole event is that politics seemed to take a back seat, if only for a couple of hours. It was a welcome change. For the last few months, American’s have been inundated with political campaign messages every where we turn; television advertisements, disruptive telephone calls and constant news about the upcoming Presidential race. I, for one, was glad to have a day of reprieve – to sit back and enjoy one of America’s favorite pastimes – basketball. It seemed as if the local atmosphere experienced an exciting shift. Residents were upbeat, the local news was positive and people generally seemed to be having a good time.   It seemed like basketball momentarily transcended politics. Political party lines didn’t seem to matter (well, not as much as normal). Regardless of a person’s political affiliations, the citizens of the Dayton area enjoyed a prestigious visit from the President of the United States! It was very exciting and very American – as the City of Dayton and its resident’s basked in the nation’s spotlight, soaked up the warm spring air, and plunged into March Madness.    

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A new partnership between Devon Security and Berry Network, Inc. is particularly important to Devcon’s massive nationwide expansion efforts.   By leveraging Berry Network’s strength and expertise in local search advertising, the new alliance will help Devon Security build brand awareness and increase advertising presence in new market areas.    “We chose to partner with Berry Network because of the strategic value they bring to the table,” said Kristin Clark, Devcon Security’s Vice President of Marketing. “The team at Berry Network excels at implementing our advertising programs, but more importantly, they’re willing to develop and explore unconventional strategies to help us achieve our goals.”   “Devcon is a perfect fit for our agency,” according to Sherri Kavanaugh, Berry Network’s Vice President of Client Strategy.  “We’re at our best when we’re working with clients that desire a true strategic partner. Devcon is strong, expanding rapidly and there are lots of opportunities for us to utilize our expertise, tools and proprietary technology to support and accelerate their growth.”   About Devcon: Devcon Security is one of the fastest growing security companies in the nation. Founded in 2004, the Devcon brand is composed of local security companies rooted in the security business since 1968. Devcon is run by a management team with more than 100 years of security experience and employs nearly 1100 people in offices across the nation. Utilizing state-of-the-art equipment, Devcon maintains two monitoring centers and offers superior customer service. The company offers residential home security systems, as well as small and large business security solutions – including commercial alarms and video surveillance systems. Devcon is proud to be among a small percentage of security companies to have a 5-Diamond certification from the Central Station Alarm Association.

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Social media is the new frontier in healthcare communication. Patients are seeking answers before and after medical appointments. People that were once private about their medical conditions are now connecting with family, friends and complete strangers to get opinions on their conditions and possible treatments. And, today’s new “social patient” is venturing online to get ratings and reviews about hospitals and doctors in order to get more comfortable about their healthcare decisions. So, why all the caution and concern by hospitals about joining the new social revolution? Is it really that complicated and risky?  I believe most of the pressure and uncertainty can be eased by answering a few common questions for the hospital:   1.  How engaged should our hospital be in the social stratosphere? The social media environment is enormous; literally thousands of social networking sites and applications are available. The breadth of it all is simply overwhelming when you try to understand what’s available. So, don’t even try. The best approach to determining where—and to what degree—you should get engaged in social media is to look at it from an outward strategic perspective. Your organization needs to ask:   ·    Do we want to simply watch and be aware of conversations in our community? This is an activity that your healthcare organization should do at a minimum. The more you know about the topics and issues being discussed about your organization, its services and staff, the better you will be at shaping your organization for success. This activity is easy and can be done with little or no investment. You can simply use a browser and visit common social media sites.   ·    Do we want to go a step further by engaging our hospital in social conversations? The answer here can be more easily determined by deciding … “When a patient is expressing a complaint online, would we like the opportunity to respond and help solve the issue?” Or, “If a patient is posting a question about our services, would we like to offer answers for all to see, not just that patient?” If the answer is that you would like to engage in conversation, then you need to involve your IT department so that you can set up and manage your own social media accounts within your organization. I say this because many organizations block social media from company access. Begin by setting up accounts and responding to content on sites such as: Twitter, Facebook, LinkedIn, Ning, and Twibes.   ·    Do we want to go all the way into social media by becoming a thought leader and conversation starter?  Again, this depends upon your strategy as an organization. If you are the healthcare brand leader in your community, consumers expect you to take the lead in social conversations. They will watch what you post, how you position your organization, and what you say to patients and constituents in the community. Take the opportunity to do just that. Post your press releases on Twitter and Facebook. Announce job openings on those social networks — as well as on LinkedIn.  Get your physicians engaged on Facebook by posting their opinions on health topics and issues. Write articles for posting on WordPress and Blogger. The bottom line is, if you want to be a healthcare leader, you also need to be a leader on the social front by pushing content and creating discussions, rather than just reacting.   2.   How can we best use social media without the fear of violating HIPAA requirements? The position to take here is no different than what you do today. Your employees know they should never release information about specific patients and their medical information. You trust that they comply with HIPAA regulations in their personal time, why not trust that they would do the same in the work environment? Granted, incorporating social media into the workplace facilitates greater opportunities for employees to make mistakes, but it can also be viewed as a means for making employees more aware of privacy rules and methods. That said, a social media policy is a valuable document to help protect your organization from potential liability. The easiest way to begin drafting a policy is to look at how other organizations have already tackled the subject. One rule of thumb is to keep it simple. Danbury Hospital in Connecticut does a good job of this on their policy. They begin by differentiating between personal and professional online activities:   ·   Personal blogging is not a business-related activity and should be done during personal (non-work) time only.   ·   Company-sponsored blogging may only be done after express authorization of public relations/marketing.   ·   In the event that you participate in personal blogging, the following applies …   Other social media policies by hospitals include: Mayo Clinic, Cleveland Clinic, Sentara/OptimaHealth, Sutter Health, and MD Anderson. Perhaps the safest overall position I have seen organizations use to protect themselves is to have employees that are engaged in social media add a disclaimer on their blogs and social media sites similar to: “The opinions and statements on this site are my own and are not approved, reviewed or endorsed by my employer or any other organization.” You can find a host of additional information about social media policies for healthcare organizations at 100 Best Health Care Policy Blogs hosted by RNCentral.com.    3.   Who in our healthcare organizations should be responsible for social media? This is a question that your management needs to answer. Typically, a simple social media presence can be managed by one person. This person should be familiar with your hospital’s positioning, branding and service offerings. Quite often, this person is in a marketing, PR or customer relations role. This person can watch conversations, report on the sentiment and subjects discussed, monitor your competitors, and manage a corporate Twitter and LinkedIn page. However, if your communications strategy requires more social engagement, then you may want to add responsibilities that include writing and responding to blogs, speaker forums and chat rooms. This may require the involvement of a physician or another subject matter expert who can respond intelligently to questions and comments. At the highest level of social engagement, for organizations that want to be a community leader, you should form a “social team” that includes members from IT, marketing, public relations, community relations, and possibly members of your outside agency. The more connected team members are to each other and the more ownership each has in the process, the more successful the social media program will be. You should also assign a person within your organization to perform tracking and measurement using social media tracking tools such as: Twitalyzer, Twinfluence Rank, HootSuite, Addictomatic, Social Stats and Google Analytics.   In summary, the way I like to address hesitations and uncertainties about social media is to quote Reed Smith, director of project management at the Texas Hospital Association, who said, “These conversations are going to happen anyway, so it's just a matter of whether or not you're going to participate in the conversation. If you're not involved, you don't really have any influence."   If you would like assistance in creating a “healthy” social media program for your hospital, please contact me at mark.williams@berrynetwork.com.  You can also join me on my social media sites below as well as on Twitter at @Just4Hospitals.  

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