As the closing date for Yellow Pages looms many businesses are starting to question and compare the value of the different advertising mediums available to them. For many businesses that target a local market, the Yellow Pages has always been seen as a reliable and effective source of inbound leads; often representing the lion’s share, and in some cases the whole of their marketing spend on advertising.
Return On Advertising Spend was never an Exact Science
Tracking the ROI of traditional advertising has always been fuzzy at best, and certainly too costly and time consuming for most small businesses to accurately do, particularly when the objectives are metrics like rates of brand recognition. But direct response advertising like Yellow Pages is more easily tracked, especially where the initial enquiry comes in via the phone – customers will often volunteer information – like where they got the business’ number. Otherwise simply including an offer unique to each advertising medium can help their tracking, and asking where they heard about your business is not generally considered intrusive. I know from speaking to small business operators, at the very least most have a feel for the number of enquiries they attribute directly to Yellow Pages. I also know that many are finding the effectiveness of Yellow Pages has been declining, and it is usually the very reason why they are speaking with me.
At Least Not Until PPC
One of the very nice things about advertising online, aside from the fact that it tends to offer awesome bang for your buck, is that accurate tracking comes built in. It can offer that excellent bang for your buck because you only pay when someone actually responds to your ad. It would be a bit like only having to pay Yellow Pages each time someone actually phoned you. And because you only pay when someone actually sees, and in most cases also clicks on your ad, the advertising medium needs to accurately track the numbers so they know how much to charge you.
And once someone is on your website you can follow then around right through until they place an order or make an inquiry. For these reasons it makes it totally transparent as to how hard your online marketing dollars are working for you. And for a well managed PPC campaign it’s usually the case that they are working a lot harder than your other advertising dollars.
To Be or Not To Be – in Yellow Pages
I’ve recently had several clients call me and ask me, the man competing with Yellow Pages for their advertising dollars and with an obvious conflict of interest, whether they should renew with Yellow Pages. As one customer pointed out, at his premises he was the only business that bothered to collect their copy of the Yellow Pages. Two piles, minus the copy he removed, sat in the foyer until they were sent for recycling.
My response is always the same, I use the Yellow Pages every day, it is my computer’s monitor stand. But there are also people out there that don’t own a computer and therefore have no need for a monitor stand, so they may still rely on the Yellow Pages for its original purpose. So in the interests of “throwing the net wide” if you can afford it I always suggest advertising both online and offline to reach both audiences. After all I have a constant reminder in my life of those people who exist solely in the offline world – my father. My dad’s always been both an avid end user and firm believer in the effectiveness and value he has received over the years from advertising in the Yellow Pages.
My Father - Techno Phobic and Proud
Dad has stated on multiple occasions that one of his goals in life was to never learn how to use a computer. So anti-digital was my father, a chef by trade, that his microwave is the old school type with the dial on the front. I feared if this ever went on the blink and could not be replaced he would go through the rest of his life without the convenience of a microwave rather than replace it with a digital one with buttons.
At 60 years of age he came pretty close to realising this ambition. He required open heart surgery to replace two valves and things went wrong, almost costing him his life. He subsequently spent 12 months in hospital. Prior to him going into hospital I went shopping with him to help choose a new mobile phone. A mobile was the one piece of technology he did concede to owning, albeit he never sent or read SMS nor stored any phone numbers other than those he committed to memory. The salesman’s own phone caught his attention. It was an iPhone 3Gs. It caught my dad’s attention not because of its sleek design or its impressive list of features, but because it had a big screen and BIG numbers. He fell in love with the big numbers and wouldn’t even consider another phone.
Then Things All Came Horribly Unstuck
Fast forward a few months, my dad’s stuck in hospital and rather than asking me to bring fruit or books when I went to visit he wanted iTunes vouchers. I would go up to visit and he’d be showing me all the Apps he’d discovered and teaching me how to do things I didn’t even know a Smartphone could do. When he got out of hospital he went straight out and bought a 24” iMac. Needless to say, I was in a state of disbelief.
But two events last weekend made me realise the digital age is leaving nobody behind. I called my dad and the phone conversation started off by my father first announcing he’d seen on my wife’s Facebook post that our four month old son had just started on solids, and he loved the YouTube video she had Tweeted a link to – of our son in his Jolly Jumper. He then went on to say that despite scaring the hell out of him, he has decided to dump his ad in his beloved Yellow Pages.
What about you, do you advertise in the Yellow Pages, is it still effective? Or have you found a novel alternative use for it like me?
About Darryl
