Introduction
The Yellow Pages have been considered a lifeline to small/mid-sized business owners for years now. Back in the late 1990’s and early 2000’s, the Yellow Pages was a great medium for reaching people looking for products and services relating to your business. Today, the Yellow Pages’ advertising rates have increased approximately 3-7% each year, yet less and less people actually use them. The decline in use closely mirrors the adoption of broadband Internet service, and a large portion of young adults and business buyers never consult the Yellow Pages at all. Now, if you’re targeting a demographic that is not adopting broadband Internet service - lower social-economic segment and the over 50 segment - you should be just fine.
Reason #1 - Ad Placement
The investment in Yellow Pages doesn’t allow for such precise targeting, and successful placements usually rely heavily on your company name, the size of your ad, and the creativity of your ad. Search marketing gives business owners highly targeted placements depending on what their customer is searching for and what websites they visit.
Reason #2 - Multiple Category Listings
A lot of painters, repairmen, and handymen consider themselves to be general contractors, and the Yellow Pages can have you put in the “general contractor” category for a nominal fee. But, what happens when people aren’t looking for a “general contractor” and instead are looking for the detailed term “painter?” You provide painting services but the customer won’t see you when looking in broader areas of your business and vise-versa. You’d have to buy all of the categories that surround your business in order to get the most impressions as possible. Most likely, your ad budget won’t provide you with ads in all of the different categories, and it could diminish the quality and size of your ad if you’re spreading yourself that thin.
Search marketing allows you to “buy” all of those categories without having to pay for the media upfront. You pay based on the amount of clicks or impressions your ad is given, not on the amount of categories you choose to target.
Reason #3 - Ad Modification and Spending
Business owners spend ridiculous amounts of money on Yellow Page advertising. We’re talking thousands, if not tens of thousands of dollars a month. Plus, most of the contracts are for a year, which doesn’t give you much flexibility when it comes to changing ads. For instance, heating and cooling companies have products and services that are very seasonal. Heating for the winter and cooling during the summer. Also, some businesses don’t do much selling during certain times throughout the year, but they’re still forced to pay the full monthly ad spend.
Search marketing gives you the ability to modify targeting, placements, ad copy, and ad spend on the fly, and you can see the results almost instantly. Also, you can pause ad campaigns when you don’t find advertising to be effective for certain seasons or times of the year.
Reason #4 - Measurable Results
Usually business owners want to measure their ad spend so they can determine their return on investment. Unless you have a special 800 number for every category of your marketing, you have no idea what is working and what isn’t. At this point we are only talking about the leads your ads generate, not the amount of impressions they get. What happens after your potential customer sees your ad? What is the percentage of those who see your ad and call you? You have no way of knowing these answers with traditional advertising. The Yellow Pages can only estimate these numbers.
Search marketing gives you the exact number of impressions, clicks, and cost for each of your ads. The data also lets you know what the customers do when they click your ad and visit your landing pages.