How to be Successful With Yellow Pages Advertising
The Yellow Pages are a great way to advertise your business
simply because they are a directive medium (as opposed to a
reactive medium like newspapers, radio or TV advertising). In
other words, consumers and businesses use them when they are
ready to buy not because they are simply curious.
One of the main advantages of the Yellow Pages is that people
can only get information on your products or services if they
call you, which gives you a chance to convince them that you
offer the very best in your industry. When people decides to
call they are motivated to get something they need. The problem
with Internet advertising is that people simply fill out an
inquiry form or send you an email to get the information they
need, BUT it does not show any commitment on their part. If
prospects do not want to talk to you, it will be a lot more
difficult to close them.
It is a lot more powerful when someone decides to call you as
oppose to someone who hides behind a computer.
Local Search makes any small business stand out nationwide or in
the neighborhood. Consumers and businesses want both online and
local information.
Consumers look for information about local products and services
on the Internet but studies show that 35% of online searches are
about local businesses. About a quarter of all Internet users
conducted local searches. They would do even more of it if the
data for small businesses were better compiled. Small local
businesses haven't gotten much benefit from the widespread shift
toward global and online commerce. But the combination of search
engine marketing and Local Search can put even small operations
on the radar screen.
Find out whether your business is already included in various
search engine databases. Make sure the data about your operation
is accurate and complete. Then make sure to get listed in the
others.
http://www.local.google.com http://maps.yahoo.com
http://www.mapquest.com http://www.superpages.com Additional
Players:
CitySearch AOL - In Your Area www.topix.net www.vivante.com
www.mobilemaps.com How many of these Internet Yellow Pages are
you in?
Yahoo.com Excite.com SuperPages.com NetScape.com Switchboard.com
MapQuest.com Lycos.com InfoSpace.com MSN.com Smart Pages.com
AltaVista.com 411.com AOL.com Verizon.com WebCrawler.com
BigBook.com CitySearch.com DirectoryStore.com And many more.
What are the advantages and disadvantages of Yellow Pages
advertising?
Advantages of Yellow Pages advertising:
Your ad works all year long. It gives your prospect a method of
easily locating and contacting your business. Many consumers and
businesses feel more confident about doing business with a local
company than someone who is out of state. It can help you
describe the differences between you and your competition. You
pay by the month instead of one large payment. Disadvantages of
Yellow Pages advertising:
You must commit to an entire year of advertising. You are
immediately placed with a group of your competitors, making it
easy for the prospect to shop around. That is the same problem
with online search engines, although online advertising is
probably even worse. Some classifications are so cluttered with
advertising that your ad becomes buried and ineffective. It is
only effective when a prospect looks you up in the correct
classification, assuming the prospect knows what classification
to look for in the first place. How can I determine if Yellow
Pages advertising will benefit my business?
Probably the easiest way to determine whether or not Yellow
Pages advertising is effective for your particular business is
to look in the Yellow Pages under your business category and
observe the types of ads that your competitors are taking out.
In fact I suggest you call your competition and ask them if they
are satisfied with their Yellow Pages advertising. If you see a
lot of ads (and especially big and expensive ads), you can
assume that these businesses are making this type of investment
because it has paid off for them.
How to be successful using Yellow Pages Advertising
I would highly suggest you to get a decent size ad because
listings are too small and nobody will bother calling you.
One important rule that applies to Yellow Pages advertising is
to have a larger ad than the rest of your competition. When you
have the largest ad, 30 percent of Yellow Pages shoppers
motivated, ready-to-buy people will call you first. The bigger
the ad the more calls you'll get and the more sales you'll make.
Use multiple colors in your ad. It costs you more, but adding a
color improves readership by as much as THREE TIMES.
Last and most important:
Be aware that writing ads is not something that everybody can
do. There are copywriters out there who study how to write
advertisements. If I were you, I would hire one immediately that
would write all my ads. There are very successful copywriters
out there that will make a very big difference in the success of
your business. There is nothing more important for a business
than hiring a copywriter to write powerful and effective ads. It
will probably determine how successful you will be in business.