Every now and then I come across a business owner who still thinks they have to advertise in the Yellow Pages. I put together this small list of the top five reasons I say you don't
1. Hardly anyone uses the Yellow Pages to find businesses online, today they are using the Internet sites like Google and Yelp to find quality service people.
2. It's way over priced, cutting deep into your profits, and in today's competitive market that no longer works.
3. It's to hard to track your ROI, in any type of print advertising you have no way to find out exactly where your customers came from.
4. It's set in stone, it's printed and can't be changed for a full year.
5. It's to one dimensional, it's just one media in one place with no connection to anything else.
I would love to hear your feedback or ideas of what works for your marketing. Have you taken on online advertising and how is it working for you?
Well, I'm not a plumber, but do own and operate a small local service business. Yours are common objections to yellow page advertising. I dismiss most of them.
1. True, but there are still people who pick up the phone book
2. They are expensive. You have to determine what ROI you are willing to live with.
3. Completely untrue. You can have special phone numbers, even some that record the calls, and receive detailed reports. You can track how many calls you closed, your closing percentage, and exactly how much business you got from the ad. Ask a yellow page representative, they can set you up, typically for no or little additional cost.
3. continued.... I had a marketing firm call me once and try to say that I(as a one man show) could not possible know where my sales came from without such aids as tracking numbers. He said how can you be sure they looked you up in the phone book? I said because I am standing in their kitchen looking at the phone book open on their table, turned to the page with my ad, with my ad circled and notes next to it. Apparently he was trying to show his fellow salesman how impressive his skills were and had me on speakerphone. They erupted into laughter as I had soundly won the argument and he hung up the phone, embarrassed. So you can track all of your sales, it is easiest when you are a small outfit like I am, and all it takes is "so how did you hear about my company?"
4. Great! Double check it and don't worry about it again for a year!
5. This could be a downside, but you can list your website. I think it is good to keep people focused. Why would I want them to be distracted by other media instead of calling me to place an order?
All that said, the reason I am searching this is because my revenue from yellow pages ads is down 50% this year and I am wondering if it is happening to everyone before I choose to cancel them. If you make money on your yellow page ads would you cancel them? No. Internet is great but if you can make money with other ads also, then run them.