Yellow Pages Advertising – Are you Wasting Your Money?
Yellow Pages Vs. The Internet.
Your competitors could be making a killing from a tiny Yellow Pages Listing, while your hugely expensive display advertisement becomes less and less effective in generating business for you.
What you are about to read will probably shock you, and then delight you as you realise that you can take advantage of something that almost none of your competitors know anything about.
Here’s the old mantra that we hear repeated endlessly. (Especially from YP consultants wanting to sell us bigger display adverts)
“A bigger Yellow Pages advert will bring you more business.”
But over the past year or so, you could be finding that the phone isn’t ringing as much for your business. Even if you bought a bigger advert.
There’s a reason for this. Internet Searches.
How the Internet Smashes the Old Advertising Rules
People aren’t using their paper directories any more. How often do you still use yours? Ask your friends – Do they use a directory to find goods and services?
Or do they use Google.
This Graph Is a Wake Up Call.
Latest research from the US shows that all age groups up to 65 years old now use the internet in preference to paper directories.
The blue parts represent internet searches. The yellow parts are printed directories (ie Yellow Pages)
Yes, the survey was done in the United States. But it would be a brave person who said that these results wouldn’t apply in Australia.
Our statistics could be the same now, given the penetration of the internet into the Australian lifestyle, where 72% of households now have internet connections. (ABS, 2009)
So if you believe that an increasing number of Australians are using the Internet to search for goods and services, the following discussion is valid.
Your Expensive Yellow Pages Advert means NOTHING on the Internet.
The trend towards internet search means that fewer and fewer people will ever see your prime position display advert in the printed directory.
They will instead see a Google Local Search box at the top of the screen, which normally contains the names, addresses, phone numbers, and website links for seven businesses.
These seven businesses will receive the majority of enquiries from internet users.
Because they are perceived as being the most important, because they are at the top.
Just like the business with the biggest display adverts printed in the directory are seen as the most important.
Here’s the punch line:
The businesses appearing in the Search Results have NOTHING to do with the size of the listing that was purchased.
This is REALLY IMPORTANT to grasp, so I’ll put it another way.
If you have a huge listing, you won’t necessarily appear on the first page of search results. You could be on page 3. Or page 27. where NOBODY will ever find you or your business.
Do you reckon this would explain why you’re getting less calls, despite buying a larger display advert?
On the other hand, a business with a tiny three line listing could be on page one of the search results.
DO This Test NOW.
If you advertise in the Yellow Pages in Australia, do this little test. (I’ll wait)
1. Open up Google and do a search for your business category, and your location.
For Example, Assume that you are a plumber in Dandenong, Victoria and you wanted to check out your local search listing.
Open up google, and search for plumber dandenong
You’ll see this Local Search Results box at the top of the page.
It has maps, and up to seven names, addresses, and phone numbers of businesses in the areas you specified.
Now, if I was a plumber who had paid for a full page advertisement, I’d be pretty annoyed if my name wasn’t on this list.
And if I was a plumber with a small, 3 line entry, I’d be very pleased.
2. Check the results for your own business type and location.
Were you shown in the results?
If not, it’s very likely that you are losing customers to the businesses who are displayed there.
Not On The List? I Can Help.
The businesses that appear on the list are there not because they paid Yellow Pages the most for their advertising.
They are there because Google thinks they are the best examples for that category.
You can research Google Local Search and find out all the things you can do to make your business move higher up in these listings .
Or you can engage me to do it for you.
The cost of this will depend on your business category, and the “strength” of the businesses currently shown on the first page.
Because hardly anyone knows about this at present, you have a change to take first page position – or even the top position – at a cost that is a fraction of your yellow pages display listing costs.
In many cases, you could appear on the first page for under $1,000.
And have a higher internet visibility than a business who had spent $100,000 or more on a full page advert.
Contact Me Now.
I will only work with one type of business in any one location, so if you want to find out more please me an email telling me about your situation.
Or ring me on 0417 010 575
Eric Graudins
Eric@TheInternetBloke.com
Case Study on Local Search
You now know the basics of how Local search can help your business.
If you want to know more about how it works, here is a small case study. You can repeat this yourself for any category and location you choose.
I’ve chosen Furniture Removals and Storage, because there are 7 full page advertisements in the phone directory. So, if the old visibility rules apply, you would expect these companies to come up first in the online listings.
Starting Page 444 of the 2010 Hobart Yellow Pages-
Full page adverts for Grace Brothers, Bells Removals, Wridgeways, Chess Price, Watkins Removals, Radcliffe Transport, and Easy Move.
This is a competitive category.
7 full page advertisements. That’s a LOT of advertising dollars.
A Google search for furniture removals Hobart shows the following local results:
Here’s the size of their advertisements in the printed Yellow Pages:
- Pickfords – half page
- U-help - half page
- Budget rentals – 3cm column listing
- Grace removals – full page
- Storage Tasmania – simplest line listing
- Radcliffe – full page
- Wridgeways – full page.
The companies on the first page of this local search results will get the majority of calls from the Google results.
It’s interesting that 4 companies with full page advertisements do not appear on this list. And that 2 companies with tiny listings do appear.
Remember: For more and more people, these companies will be the only ones that they see when they search for a removalist in Hobart. They won’t bother looking at the paper directories, or click through to the “More Results” link which shows the 46 removalist companies on another 5 pages..
If I were one of those 46 other removalists, I’d sure as hell want to be on that first page.
If you want to be on the first page, you have 2 options.
1. Learn all about Local search optimisation, and push one of the existing removalists off the first page.
2. Engage a local search consultant to do this for you.
I offer this service, and in most cases can get your business onto the first page of the local search results for under $1,000 (sometimes under $500, depending on the strength of your competition)
Sometimes there are strange things in the promotional world that sometimes allow those with a small budget to leap ahead of the big boys? Well, this is one of them.
It may not be fair that a business that pays for a one line ad is more prominent than a business paying tens of thousands for a full page advert.
But that’s the way it is.
I hope you can see the implications of this.
If you have spent tens of thousands of dollars on a full page listing, I’ve probably ruined your day.
You should go and do a search right away to make sure that you appear on local search for your service and location. If you are not, you will certainly be losing businesses to your competitors who appear there.
If you’ve been wondering why your market share is falling despite you buying bigger adverts, you’ll now understand one of the reasons.
If you are a smaller business with a tiny directory, you should be jumping for joy.
Because this is your chance to steal a lot of business from the big players in your field.
Go and check your local search listings. Does your business appear on the first page?
If not, you need to do something about it.
Or face losing more and more business as more and more people start using the internet to search for their goods and service providers.
Unhappy with your Local search Result?
Contact Me NOW.
If you think that your business would get more calls if it was in the top local search listings for your business and your location, contact me now.
I can get your business onto the first page of the Local search listings.
For most business, I can get you onto the first page for less than $1,000
(And generally, this is a one off cost – unless your competitors lift their game and start optimising their sites.)
But for the moment, this is unlikely. Because nobody knows about this yet, and those businesses who do this now should make a killing.
(Note: due to the nature of Local Search, I will only do this work for one type of business in each local area. Otherwise a conflict of interest will exist.)
So go and check your local search results.
If you’re not happy with them – contact me ASAP to discuss your situation.
Before your competitor does 
regards,
Eric Graudins
0417 010 575
Eric@theInternetBloke.com
Eric,
Right on Man. I preach it all the time. I tell all of my local biz friends. – Are you on the map??? You better get there so people can find you. With the internet you need to be found on their cell phone, GPS, laptop, home PC, Heck have your own app. Get on the Map,
Thanks,
Great Article
Scott Mosteller
Thanks Eric I agree I haven’t even opened a yellow pages from out the plastic wrapper for two years. Luckily I have implemented this on my website business to unfortunately my mission statement is not as of yet usefully definable however I chose my niche and drilled down and then thanks to a PDF from Howie Scwhartz step by step showing me how to register I am up there. I just tried to fill my-mail in above but it said the Feedburner was not subscribing to this blog perhaps you go over and retweak this.
Best
Robert.
Never a true post and I wished me and this post met a few months ago
Why ? out of the blue i got a phone call from yell and I was sold via the term,
Your Phone Will Ring OFF The Wall, it cost me £740 to see if it did to which my phone is still sitting on the wall….3month later……except its never been on the wall but for them lets say it is and thats where it stays and my arguement to them is just that…..Been there done that and wished I see your post before
That Yellow Pages vs. Google thing made our team go out on the streets of Melbourne to randomly ask where people go if they are looking for information. We even made a video about this to document their answers. And their answers were really interesting. Let me share a snippet of the results here:
The Survey Results
Q1. How often do you use the print version of the Yellow Pages?
7.69% use it regularly
23.08% once a month
15.38% once a year
53.85% never use it
Q2. How do you search for products and services you’re looking for?
92.86% use Google.com
7.14% use Yellow Pages
Respondent Quote: “I reckon the yellow pages is obsolete, why would you spend money on the yellow pages when they’ll just as easily find you on Google.”
Q3. How often do you use Google?
100% use Google.com everyday
Respondent Quote: “If I need information I go straight to Google.”
Google won that round. Would you like to run the same thing on your end? It’ll be interesting to find out what they have in mind too.
Cheers,
Dave
Hi David,
I haven’t done as sophisticated a survey as yours, but I ask people this question all the time.
Around 8 out of 10 people say that they never use yellow pages any more.
It seems to have reached the 80/20 Rule with the people I have ask, 80% not using the phone books in any way at all, and the 20% is shrinking every day!
Hi Eric,
That’s fine, we just tried the old school-man-on-the-street-approach and we got the answers we need.
And yes, it could also be as simple as what you did. I guess the YP guys really have to work double time this time around, agree?