Allow me just to start off this post by stating I am a capitalist. I’m an entrepreneur. And more than just about anything, I love seeing other businesses succeed…..with the exception of the subject of this article.
The Mistakes We Make
No More Ridiculously Expensive Yellow Page Advertising...Let's Celebrate!
As a small business owner of almost 10 years now, I’ve made some really, really dumb mistakes marketing. Having tried just about every medium and having blown hundreds of thousands of dollars on inefficient campaigns, I can now say the days of our company throwing dollar bills on the campfire are over. Wasteful advertising is now a bygone. And with it, may I clearly say that it brings me great joy to see The Yellow Pages having practically gone the way of the dinosaur.
You see, for years the Yellow Pages were like the Death Star of the advertising world. They essentially had a monopoly because they were the only show in town and they were the place consumers went to find information and products.
The Yellow Pages Debate
As a swimming pool company, this was especially true for my business. Every year, my partners and I would sit down and agonize over having just the right Yellow Page advertisement. How big should it be? Color or not? Lots of information and just beautiful pictures? How big is the other guys’ ad? Blah, blah, blah…..And then once we had decided on the ad we wanted, we’d receive the news of how ‘rates had gone up again’. I’d always just sit there and listen to the sales rep, wanting to vomit while thinking to myself, “The day I never have to be in this stupid book again will be the happiest day of my life.”
Sadly, for years that day never came. The rates kept going up and up. And because our service area was in multiple cities, that meant we had to be in multiple phone books. Eventually, we got to a point where we were spending about $3,000 on Yellow Page advertising alone each month. This might sound like chicken feed for some companies, but monetarily speaking, this was an absolute killer, especially for a small business like ours.
Out with the Death Star….In with the New Era of Small Biz Advertising
But our story is no different than so many small businesses across America.
Out with the old.......
For years, the monopoly of the Yellow Pages sucked company advertising budgets dry, laughing all the way to the bank. They knew that consumers used the Yellow Pages to find just about any and every service or product. They also knew small businesses had no choice but to be in the book and pay their outrageous rates. But alas, the information age has ushered in a new era of consumer education.
In 2010, no longer do consumers open the phone book to find information. Think about it. When was the last time you actually used the phone book for anything? Chances are, if you’re like most consumers, you now use the Internet for at least 80% of your business searches. And if the number is 80% today, it will likely be 90% in another year or two.
But this phenomenon is exactly what is so beautiful about marketing 2.0. Now, instead of spending $40,000 this year on Yellow Pages, plus $20,000 on direct mailers, plus another $30,000 on radio advertisements, and finally another $25,000 on various print media; my business’ advertising budget for 2010 will be less than $20,000 this year and will produce more leads than it ever did with YP advertising. In fact, our YP advertising this year consists only of our name and number, which costs us about $100 a month. Not that’s what I’m talking about!!
Spend Less, Get More
The idea that a small business with roughly 4-5 million dollars in annual sales could spend less than $20,000 a year on advertising and still generate hundreds upon hundreds of inbound leads would have been preposterous just a few short years ago. But with the all-powerful Internet, and the utilization of awesome websites, killer blogs, helpful and remarkable content, as well as the use of social mediums; businesses can create phenomenal advertising campaigns simply by putting their nose to the grind and slapping their fingers on a keyboard. And do you know what I think about that?………AWESOMENESS!!
Dang I love the Sales, Marketing, and Web 2.0 era in which we now all find ourselves immersed in. And dang do I absolutely get a warm fuzzy when I think about how the Death Star, err Yellow Pages, can now go back to figuring out how to run an honest business.
So if you and your business have not gotten with the program and embraced web/marketing/ and sales 2.0, then I say it’s time to get with it and make great things happen. Be a part of the greatest technology and business movement of our lifetimes and start making your mark in this new world today!
Questions or Comments? Please leave your thoughts below as I absolutely enjoy hearing from readers.
{ 14 comments… read them below or add one }
Hi Marcus,
I work for SuperMedia & we are an advertising agency for small to medium sized businesses. We publish the Verizon Yellow Pages, are home to Superpages.com & have SuperPagesDirect direct mail products.
I could not agree with you more that traditional yellow pages are dying. But at SuperMedia, our media consultants develop marketing campaigns that fit each client best & that could be to advertise on Superpages.com, our SuperpagesDirect Direct Mail products &, when it is appropriate, our yellow pages. We also have a variety of tracking tools and services to help businesses build their online presence with search engine marketing campaigns, PPC advertising, web site building and hosting, etc.
In 2008, there were more than 12 billion references to the print yellow pages & 66% of adults use it in a month. Also, 48% of consumers say print yellow Pages is the source they use most often and 9 out of 10 users make or are likely to make a purchase. I could give you many more stats, but the bottom line is the print Yellow Pages continues to be a strong & viable media choice when consumers are ready to buy.
Fact is, there is a need for a yellow pages. Unfortunately, for years the YP industry was focused on defending their product instead of differentiating it.
Last year we introduced the SuperGuarantee (www.superguarantee.com) program available in all our products. When a consumer hires a painter, auto mechanic, contractor, plumber or other service provider that is part of our program, we will stand by the work. If there is a problem, we will step in & make it right. If we can’t, we will cut a check for up to $500 to the consumer. The program is free to both the consumer & eligible client. Since the launch of this program we have seen double digit increases in the possession & usage of our directories — increases that we haven’t seen in years.
For our SMBs, we’ve created the SuperTradeExchange (www.supertradeexchange.com) – a national barter program where our clients can provide goods & services to other clients within the exchange. A great way of doing business in a recession.
I hope you & your readers can see that there are benefits in working with the right company.
Thank you for the opportunity to comment.
Lisa Vilfordi
Wow Lisa, thanks so much for your comment. It appears that ya’ll are on the right track in terms of coming up with creative ways to make the YPs more useful, cutting edge, and user friendly. My only question would be is YP now adjusting their price structure so it’s more in line with other mediums in Marketing 2.0? Regardless though, thanks so much for your thoughts Lisa.
Great post Marcus. It is always helpful to see real life examples of how small business owners actually benefit from the “new era of small biz advertising”. I will definitely be sharing your article with other small business owners.
Great to see you again Julie…Yeah, that’s really what this blog is all about– Real life examples….and thanks for sharing
marcus ,
i have gone the pay per call route with yellowpages i have a seperate # tyhat will track all calls generated by yp i will try to stay in touch with results . but i only pay when the phone rings . dead maybee not but becoming more responsive . yea !
Good point Gari. Pay per call is certainly a better model IMO than the old methodologies. After all, there really is nothing better than being able to track advertising and truly know where your $$$ are going. But thanks for stopping by Gari and hope to see you around again.
Hey Marcus,
I understand your feelings about print YP, they have ripped you off, because they were a monopoly, but they are not dying nor they are a dinosaurs. Lets call them a conservative elephants that move a bit slower because they were enjoying their monopoly position. As you see in Lisa’s post they start to move and once most of yp publishers do that the advertisement jungle shall get even more noisy than ever. The point I would like to make is that once YP catch up with the web2.0 frontier your business shall be paying once again the same budgets to IYP or any other independent web agency, because what you call AWESOMENESS shall be a practice of your competitors and without professional experience and constant improvements in your web2.0 approaches you would get decreasing effect. However, there is one thing you are right though. You will not get frustration any more and you would get quantitative and transparent results. After all, life is not about getting cheaper, but more quality.
Stay tuned. YPs are waking up.
For your sake Stefan, I hope you are right. Time will tell
I dont really know what you talking about right here. This cant be the only way to think about this can it? It seems like you know a great deal, so why not explore it a lot more? Make it a lot more accessible to everyone else who might not concur with you? Youd get a lot more individuals behind this if you just stopped making general statements.
Thanks for your comment DGS. My statements are strong, and because they are I’ve received many ‘thank yous’ from small biz owners over the last year for helping them understand that YP, at least in its old form, is antiquated and ineffective–this is not an opinion, it’s the facts, which is why many of the YPs types of books have gone out of business. Businesses, as well as consumers, finally realized there was a better way. Notwithstanding, YP is listening to people like me and changing the way they do business by adding trackability and pay per call functions. Props to them and props to the ones that care enough to save businesses thousands of dollars in lost advertising dollars.
lol I hate the phone book. And for awhile there, the kept popping up all these different companies, all wanting you to advertise in theirs. I’m happy to say I haven’t had any ads with them for almost 4 years.
.-= Domain Name Ninja´s last blog ..Making money on the internet =-.
It is rather liberating, isn’t it Ninja
Just talked to an AT&T rep about yellow pages listing. Their print directory is $8/mo, which is fine for now. But here’s my question. The price for basic listing on yp.com is around $70/month. Would you pay it? Any stats on the effectiveness of that particular online directory or recommendations on the best out there? Thanks!
I would ONLY do a pay-per-call Lorraine. In fact, I personally don’t believe in advertising that isn’t directly measurable, which has always been a big problem of YP.
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