In years gone by the Yellow Pages were the place most people would go to when wanting to contact a local business or find a service in their local area.
That was the days when the hard copy book would be delivered to all households.
This still continues as far as the directory being delivered to households but just how effective is it in the days of the internet and mobile phone marketing? Many businesses are still paying hundreds if not thousands for a listing in the yellow pages.
That information is also published online.
Now the key question here is just what is the return on investment for the yellow pages listing? Also how effective is it for the customer? First I am looking at it from the customers point of view.
Today I did a search for a coffee shop in Gungahlin, ACT.
That is where I live.
The results I got were interesting.
As I am a local I know the area quite well.
Of the six listings four are for businesses that have gone out of business.
On top of that many of the coffee shops that are in business in Gungahlin were not even there to be found.
Now switching over to the point of view of a business owner.
It seems that having a yellow page listing did not help four of the businesses.
One important thing to be aware of as a business owner is just how effective is your marketing.
If for instance you do have a yellow pages listing do you know if that last phone call you received or that walk in customer was a result of the listing? With any advertising it is important to have some form of tracking in place so that you can see the return of investment on any money you do invest.
It is no good spending on a variety of marketing methods if you do not know which one is actually pulling in the customers and leading to sales.
Good tracking can allow you to boost profits by spending more on what is working and eliminate what is failing.
Getting back to the yellow pages, you could say mention a certain code when calling and give the customer a small discount, or setup a specific phone number just for calls coming in from that ad.
To summarise this tracking is key.
You may find that the listing is just not worthwhile any more and it could be time to dump the listing.
That was the days when the hard copy book would be delivered to all households.
This still continues as far as the directory being delivered to households but just how effective is it in the days of the internet and mobile phone marketing? Many businesses are still paying hundreds if not thousands for a listing in the yellow pages.
That information is also published online.
Now the key question here is just what is the return on investment for the yellow pages listing? Also how effective is it for the customer? First I am looking at it from the customers point of view.
Today I did a search for a coffee shop in Gungahlin, ACT.
That is where I live.
The results I got were interesting.
As I am a local I know the area quite well.
Of the six listings four are for businesses that have gone out of business.
On top of that many of the coffee shops that are in business in Gungahlin were not even there to be found.
Now switching over to the point of view of a business owner.
It seems that having a yellow page listing did not help four of the businesses.
One important thing to be aware of as a business owner is just how effective is your marketing.
If for instance you do have a yellow pages listing do you know if that last phone call you received or that walk in customer was a result of the listing? With any advertising it is important to have some form of tracking in place so that you can see the return of investment on any money you do invest.
It is no good spending on a variety of marketing methods if you do not know which one is actually pulling in the customers and leading to sales.
Good tracking can allow you to boost profits by spending more on what is working and eliminate what is failing.
Getting back to the yellow pages, you could say mention a certain code when calling and give the customer a small discount, or setup a specific phone number just for calls coming in from that ad.
To summarise this tracking is key.
You may find that the listing is just not worthwhile any more and it could be time to dump the listing.