Taking Stock of Diamond Certified Experts

When I was in school, it was always exciting when the first semester report cards came out. Some of my friends dreaded this time of year, but I liked it because it gave me an idea of how I was performing and what I could do to improve. I kept that mindset with my two daughters—as they went through high school, first semester report cards were good indicators of what college opportunities would be available for them.

So, what does the first semester report card of 2018 look like for Diamond Certified? As you’ll see in this letter, we’re proud that we’ve met our goals for continually improving the Diamond Certified Resource. In January, I made a simple but ambitious promise: this year, we would focus on bringing Diamond Certified Experts to more places than ever before. We’d go beyond the diamondcertified.org website, where owners of top rated companies share their industry expertise and personal stories with consumers. We’d even outdo the Diamond Certified Directory, which now features county-specific Expert Tips in the back of every edition. This was a challenging goal, but we were determined to succeed.

Six months later, I’m pleased to report that we’ve kept all of these promises and then some. Here are a few of the achievements we’ve made with Diamond Certified Experts:

• More experts are featured on the diamondcertified.org home page (12 rotating per week).
• Each company’s Diamond Certified Expert Contributions are now featured on its Diamond Certified Company Report page.
• Diamond Certified Expert banners (geo-specific) are featured at the top of KTVU.com.
• Diamond Certified Expert Ads are featured in Bay Area News Group (BANG) newspapers, including the East Bay Times, the Mercury News and the Vallejo Times-Herald.
• Our newly redesigned Diamond Certified Portal makes it easy to sign up for Diamond Certified Experts and order Diamond Certified Expert Tip reprints.

Diamond Certified Expert Ads are seen by hundreds of thousands of San Francisco Chronicle readers each week.

Expanding the Reach of Diamond Certified Experts
I’d say that’s a report card to be proud of! However, even though there’s plenty to celebrate, we’re not finished with our plan to expand the reach of Diamond Certified Experts. So, as a bonus to this six-month review, I’m excited to announce the next phase of the plan. We received such a positive response to our BANG newspaper ads that we decided to add another publication to our distribution of Expert information. Starting this month, Diamond Certified Expert Ads will be prominently displayed in one of the largest and most respected publications in the Bay Area: the San Francisco Chronicle!

Take a look at the Diamond Certified Expert Ad example on the right. We’ll be running these ads in the Chronicle twice per week (Tuesday and Thursday) in four geographic zones: San Francisco (daily readership of 170,129), the Peninsula/Santa Clara (daily readership of 105,603), the North Bay (daily readership of 65,663) and the East Bay (daily readership of 163,309). Each ad will appear in Section D of the newspaper, which is commonly known as the “Bay Area” section. Picture it: your potential customers and current clients pick up their morning papers, and in the midst of catching up on the day’s local news, they see your Expert Tip, read a portion of your Human Interest story and put a friendly face to your company name. If you qualify for Diamond Certified, this type of exposure will be invaluable for positioning you and your company as helpful local experts who care about your community.