Yellow Pages: The Least Understood Advertising Medium

What Yellow Pages Ads can and can't do 

Yellow Pages Ads can't sell for you. With one exception, you can't make a specific offer that a potential customer can accept. The fact that your ad will hang around for a whole year eliminates that possibility. All a Yellow Pages ad can do is make the phone ring. Your goal is to have your phone ring before any of your competitors' phones ring. If you get the first call, you have a chance to make sure there is no second call. If you are consistently getting the second or third call, often the deal is already closed and you're out of luck. This brutal truth goes on down the line. Most people stop after three calls. If you are consistently getting the bargain-hunter, super-cost conscious callers, you are probably getting the fifth, or worse, call. Oh, and that exception we talked about? The only one we can think of is a pizza place that puts its take-out menu in the Yellow Pages.

Yellow Pages Ads can support other media. If someone sees your billboard, hears a radio spot, or even see your television ad, they are rarely immediately ready to buy. They are in their car when they see the billboard or hear your radio spot. A similar thing holds true for television ads. How likely is it that a buyer will be holding his or her phone at the exact moment when your thirty-second spot airs? Not very likely at all. Billboard, radio, television, or other forms of advertising have the same drawback -- The potential customer may catch your name, but will rarely catch your phone number. So, where do they go to get the phone number? The Yellow Pages of course! When you spend ad dollars to bring buyers to your heading, you had better be getting the first or second call!

Yellow Pages Ads can be designed and targeted to specific buyer types. A Yellow Pages Ad is, when all is said and done, an ad. It can, and should, be targeted as tightly as possible to a specific type of buyer -- your buyer. Like any other type of ad, they must be designed to hit prospects at an emotional level. How often have you chosen one bottle of wine over another by just looking at the label, somehow knowing it would taste better? Why do you pick a particular magazine off the rack and not the dozens of others? That's the power of design.

Yellow Pages Ads can provide immediacy. Nobody just browses the Yellow Pages. People who see your ads are actively looking to buy your product or service. No other medium comes close in this respect. Your newspaper ads are seen while reading the news and may not even be noticed. You leaf by a magazine ad while browsing articles. You hear radio spots while driving to work. You see television ads while watching your shows, and sometimes resent them. You look at Yellow Pages ads to see Yellow Pages ads! You see them to buy what they are showing. In fact, 52% of those who go to the Yellow Pages buy within 48 hours. 79% of those who don't buy are very or somewhat likely to buy in the near future (Statistical Research, Inc.)

Yellow Pages can't do it all alone. This is definitely not a case of "Build it and they will come." Just being "in the book" doesn't cut it. People either love 'em or hate 'em, but nobody is ambivalent about Yellow Pages ads. Like anything else, your experience decides which camp you fall in. Your Yellow Pages budget is a significant cost to your business if it doesn't work, and a huge asset if it does. We suggest you hedge your bets and make an informed, professional decision about how to spend your hard-earned dollars.

There are a lot of traps a Yellow Pages Advertiser can fall into, particularly when he or she relies on the free design services the publisher provides. Publishers sell ad space. The more they can charge for that space, the better off they are. But who is looking out for you? The traps are everywhere -- weak or non-existent headlines, poor use of images, inappropriate use of color, wrong size ad (too big is as bad as too small), disregard for priority placement methods, etc., etc., etc. Safely, and effectively, navigating those traps is a huge challenge.

You spend thousands of dollars every year on your Yellow Pages Ads. How "free" is a bad ad design? How well is it working for you? Is it a big asset, or a big pain in the asset? Do you have enough business, or would you like more? Do you think you are spending too much money on the Yellow Pages? Are you reaching the type of buyers you want to reach, or are you always dealing with comparison shoppers (a.k.a. "Bottom Feeders," "Bargain Hunters," "El Cheapos")?