Having been through the post 9/11 advertising downturn with a Yellow Pages sales agency, I can attest that 2001 and 2002 saw a dramatic increase in bad debt and slow-paying customers. Some publishers in the U.S. went from 2 percent to 3 percent bad debt and slow-pay customers to 5 percent to 8 percent in …

A recently released research paper from Integrated Media Measurement Inc., based on data from 3,000 panelists in six major markets, finds that multi-platform advertisers see increases in the number of consumers they reach while also significantly improving conversion rates. 
According to the IMMI paper:
Increasingly, major advertisers are launching multiple platform campaigns and media companies are …

I read with interest a recent blog post on the Utah Web Services site that really hit home with me on how SEM and SEO are being sold and how they should be sold. SEM and SEO are inherently technical products. The reality, as pointed out so clearly by a CEO (read decision maker and …

Over the past several months, The Kelsey Group has been talking with a number of sales managers and directors of companies in the directory, newspaper and online space to understand the challenges of recruiting, hiring and training online reps. The sense from our interviews is that the market for skilled reps who understand and have …

Elizabeth Gage of PCM International posted a well thought out blog on the challenges small and medium-sized businesses face when purchasing search engine marketing campaigns, either on their own or through Yellow Page publishers. After reading her thoughts on the subject, I couldn’t help but realize that the focus of current SEM efforts has been …