A couple of years ago I met with a client that was reviewing their Yellow Pages advertising. The proposal included an increase over the previous year, yet the ad size and position was the same. And of they decided they didn’t want to keep increasing their spending they faced the potential that their ad would be dropped from the position they had spent 4 years getting. A year passed and another proposal with a price increase was presented, this time with a proposed additional $500/month to advertise on their online edition. Each year the costs go up yet the effectiveness drops as more and more people look online.
Another of our clients pays $500/month for a small 6th of a page ad in a yellow pages directory in California. For all that money his add ends up on the 34th page in his category. I can’t imagine anyone is going to flip through 34 pages, find his ad and purchase from the business. So why has he spent the money year after year? Status quo? Everyone else is doing it? Slick selling tactics? Not sure how else to spend their advertising budget?
I believe it is all of the above. And each year the client is charged a higher rate for the privilege of advertising in the book – this despite the fact that fewer and fewer people are using the Yellow pages each year. I have not used the Yellow Pages in 5+ years to find a business. More and more this is becoming the norm, not the exception.
While the Yellow Pages may be effective in some markets for certain products and services, I believe that in general Yellow Pages advertising provides a very low return on your investment in marketing, particularly in crowded categories where it can cost thousands of dollars a month just to show up in the first or second page.
The various Yellow Page directory companies are now aggressively building their online presence by targeting their existing client base. The problem is most of the proposals I have seen tie their online advertising to buying traditional print directory advertising. And on top of it all they are keeping with their existing model of the more you pay the higher your listing. This model is ripped right from their old game plan and it will mean unless you are prepared to spend a large amount of money your ad will never get seen by your target market. This in turn will make the online Yellow Pages as obsolete as the offline Yellow Pages. There are just too many better ways to invest your advertising dollars!
