Hampton Roads Chamber of Commerce and its Invisible Members Directory

Each year as the Hampton Roads Chamber gears up their membership drive, spending thousands of dollars on glossy print collateral materials, fax transmissions, emails and phone bank drives. However, the Chamber has lost site of the most powerful advertising medium today. The Internet.

I joined the Hampton Roads Chamber of Commerce in August 2005 with visions of networking nirvana. I attended new-member meetings and rubbed elbows at multiple networking events throughout the year. Eight months later all I have to show for my time and effort is a small stack of business cards and not one business referral.

In all fairness to the Virginia Chamber, I did not attend every single networking event. I simply can’t. I have a web design company to run. However I would have at least expected a small nibble or a third-party referral. As a Chamber member and business owner, I would expect referrals from both chamber members and non-chamber members who recognize and respect the Hampton Roads Chamber of Commerce brand.

It hasn't happened because the Virginia Chamber is missing a key networking component.

Missed Networking Opportunity

The Hampton Roads Chamber of Commerce represents 2,500 member firms that employ nearly 300,000 working men and women. The Chamber extends its programs to 17 cities and counties in Southeastern Virginia. Herein lays the problem of a largely missed opportunity. The Chamber membership roster has literally ‘no-web-presence’. The current Virginia Chamber membership listings are buried in an arcane database that is slow and cumbersome to use. The database pages are invisible to search.
At best the current membership directory is just window dressing.

Who’s Asleep at the Wheel?

I emailed the appropriate leadership at Hampton Roads Chamber of Commerce on many occasions, but my mail was returned by spam-block. (My email comes from a business domain, not a free-mail domain). I complained to my membership representative and a new membership recruit. All my suggestions and complaints fell upon deaf ears. The cost for building a powerful membership directory would pay for itself in one year. Having your business listed in a search engine optimized Hampton Roads Chamber directory would become the most important reason to join or renew your membership.

Internet search is growing at a phenomenal rate. You can’t watch a paid advertisement on television without seeing a web address. Most often the commercial is about an online business. As of late April 2006, Google is trading at +$450.00 per share.

Does anyone at the local Virginia Chamber notice this?

Who Uses Global, Regional and Niche Directories?

Global directories also known as ‘search engines’ include, Google, Yahoo, MSN, Ask, Excite, Alta-Vista and many more.

Regional directories include Verizon Super Pages, Yellow Pages online, Resource Links, Google Local and thousands more.

Some examples of niche or specialty directories include:
Lawyers/ Findlaw.org
Industries/Global Spec and Thomas Directory
Ad Agencies/Marketing Tool/Communication Arts/Xemion

There are literally hundreds of thousands of niche directories
that aggregate data by business, location and name for every type of business imaginable.

What Purpose Would Virginia Chamber Directory Serve?

To put it simply, ‘It would provide any size business a powerful, full web presence’. If the Chamber had a Hampton Roads membership business directory that was built-well, programmed correctly and crawled by Google, Yahoo and MSN, the price of new membership would be worth the cost alone for having your business listed in this powerful online directory.

A new, stand alone Chamber directory would serve to compliment a member’s new client search.

The Virginia Peninsula Chamber of Commerce managed to get it half right, but they have a long way to go. Their directory is embedded in their chamber web site. It is clunky and hard to use. Worst of all they charge their members additional fees for various levels of participation.

The Williamsburg Chamber of Commerce does a little better job of displaying results, but it too is invisible to search engines as they have old style ‘framed-pages’.

* 02/21/2008 UPDATE: The Williamsburg chamber has redesigned their web site. Nice job! Note: I would get rid of the clunky message scroller in the middle of the page. It detracts from the beauty and eye-flow of the website!

We looked at other Virginia Chamber of Commerce directories to include; Eastern Shore of Virginia Chamber of Commerce,
Fairfax County Chamber of Commerce , Chincoteague Chamber of Commerce , and the Arlington Chamber of Commerce. These membership directories all fared about the same, from bad to worse.

A properly built and designed chamber directory will derive its power and ability from the sheer number of listings and reciprocal link participation amongst its members. Further more, if the main Virginia Chamber participated in linking to the local chamber directories they could become an Internet presence comparable to the power of the regional Super Pages.

Why not join your local Virginia Chamber?

Hampton Roads is ranked the 31st largest Metropolitan Statistical Area (MSA) in the United States. This alone is reason to build a ‘Google friendly’ business directory. However, it seems that the old-boy network in charge of running the day-to-day operations are still of the belief that print, politics and pomp are the important orders of the day.

There is a commercial that reminds me of the leadership mindset of our local Virginia chamber chapters. It features a young man banging away at an IBM Selectric typewriter in the middle of an Internet café.

So, am I saying that the local Virginia Chambers are old-fashioned,
old school or behind the times? No not really. They are simply out of touch with how the Internet drives the global business economy.

Today 50% of my new business comes from major search engines, 45% is derived from referrals by existing clients, and the remaining 5% comes from my membership with the Town Center City Club. The Town Center City Club, located at Town Center Virginia Beach in the Armada Hoffler building provides me networking opportunities in an intimate setting with the shakers and movers of Hampton Roads, Virginia.

Should I renew my Hampton Roads Chamber membership in August 2006?

No thanks. Not until they get serious about their web presence and can provide my business a viable marketing avenue.