Yellow Pages

This is the most frequently encountered form of advertising. It is also one of the most effective forms of advertising, if done correctly. The trick is to have the most effective ad in the book, allowing you to enjoy a disproportionate share of telephone inquiries. This will come at the expense of your competitors. In order to maximize response rates, we need to analyze the competition. We'll start by studying the operating tactics of the people that produce the ads for the vast majority of your competitors, the Yellow Pages. The Yellow Pages is a very successful advertising product that is hard to beat. This fact allows the different Yellow Page publishers throughout the country to attract high quality salespeople. The advertising salesperson when seeking employment, looks for a product that generates a satisfying return on the investment for the client. This means the customer will be a repeat customer and the salesperson will enjoy repeat business. A good experienced advertising salesperson knows he or she is in it for the long haul. This steers them away from high pressure products. The high pressure products pay the highest commissions, but the burn out rates are high. The seasoned salesperson looks to compromise earnings with working conditions. The cream of the crop wind up with the major TV and radio stations. The next cut goes to the major magazines, then the lesser broadcast television and radio stations. Then we get to the Yellow Pages. The Yellow Pages like their salespeople to specialize. They give each salesperson several categories to work. The salesperson calling on you might also specialize in carpet retailers, or plumbers. The salesperson will typically be compensated substantially by salary. They don't want any high pressure tactics used. There are different Yellow Page companies around the country that will have varying pay plans. Some might have a salary, some might call it a draw against commissions to be earned, and some will have other terminology. I expect that the salesperson receives about 70% of their earnings in the form of a salary, or other regular stipend. The rest comes from commissions. Here's the kicker. The salesperson usually only receives a commission on the advertising that a given customer purchases that is in excess of the purchases that same advertiser made in the previous year. This means that they are going to try and sell you and your competitors more advertising each year, whether or not it makes any kind of sense for you to do so. These salespeople are going to take as much of your advertising dollars as you allow. Find a Yellow Pages a few years old, and compare the amount of ads then and now. Don't listen to the Yellow Pages salespeople. They have a job to do. They are not your personal marketing consultants working for you. You need to look at these salespeople as order takers. They inform you of deadlines, rates, pick up artwork, bring proofs, etc. Don't counsel with them. You don't know what they might tell your competition, even if it's just an accidental slip of the tongue. They are working for the Yellow Pages, not you. Never have the Yellow Pages produce your ad for you. They are not specialists in your field. They do ads for the butcher, the baker, and the candlestick maker. You want to have a Yellow Page ad that draws the consumer to you. You want all the calls for your type of business. If you got just 35% of the calls, many of your competitors would drop out of the book next year. What if you got 50% of the calls? The Yellow Pages does not have this as their goal. Ask yourself why they don't allow any pricing information in the Yellow Pages? The Yellow Pages wants all of their advertisers to get a piece of the pie. I want you to pay for one piece of pie and get all the calls. If I made a Yellow Pages ad for you and your competitors all dropped out of the book the next year, I'd consider it a compliment. Now, we'll move onto specifics. The Yellow Pages forces you to buy large ads for front positioning. I recommend buying a full page ad in full color for some and less expensive ads for others. You should consider multiple listings in the same book if your product mix lends itself to it. I don't like using anything smaller than a ½ page ad unless the book has less than three competitors in your field. Color makes for the most interesting, attractive ad. Always use photos in your ad. If your edition allows you to purchase a white space, instead of yellow, go for it. Try using a separate telephone line for your Yellow Pages ad. This will give you a bulletproof system for counting responses. You need to know how much per call, you're spending. If you are going to use two large ads, try a different phone number for each. If you disconnect the phone number in the ad, the yellow pages usually will stop billing you for the ad. You could try several different ads, in different geographical books, each with a dedicated telephone number. If you find that you can't pull customers from a certain book, disconnect the telephone and end the billing for that Yellow Page ad. It's always a good idea to push out into the adjacent communities to see if you can pull from there with the Yellow Pages. The disconnected telephone tactic gives you a parachute in case your ad in a particular book isn't cost effective. Never assume you should continue any advertising just because it is producing business. Look at the cost per customer and the profit per customer. You'll see as you become a more accomplished marketeer that there is always a number of ways to attract new customers, it is a good return on your advertising investment that you are after. The ad needs to be able to grab the attention of the casual browser, very rapidly. The ad needs to draw the eye to it. It needs to be noticeable, attractive, and interesting. Most important it needs to quickly convey to the reader what is in it for them, the benefits. The two best ways to grab attention are with photos and headlines. Decide what it is you are going to offer the public in your ad. Next, ask yourself what benefits the customer will derive from these services or products. This is what your headline needs to convey. People respond to ads because of the benefits to them. Merely waving a flag out there in your ad stating what you sell isn't what I mean. The consumer can't determine any benefits relating to you over your competitors from such an ad. Most of the ads in the Yellow Pages are designed ineffectively in this fashion. A headline that says "Brown Hardware Center" doesn't cut it. This sort of headline doesn't convey the benefits of using you. Tell them your story in the headline. You'll need to be creative. Start out with a list of what you want to market in terms of services and goods. Then, add to this list the benefits a customer will derive from such purchases. Next, form your headline. I like to use one major headline, and a one or two lesser headlines contained within the ad. I don't mean a shopping list. Shopping lists don't set you off from your competition. If your competitors didn't offer the same goods and services, they wouldn't be your competition. Don't forget that people can fill a need with different products. Before and after photos are excellent. A good portrait photo of the staff is always a nice touch. It helps get attention. Sometimes pictures of inanimate objects such as buildings, offices, products and equipment can help. If you have a certain piece of equipment that your competitors don't have, you can promote yourself effectively using the equipment. The problem begins when your competition acquires the same equipment. Always, give the customer reasons for choosing you expressed in the form of benefits to them. Stay away from anything other than the official Yellow Pages unless you need to target non English speakers. In this case the ethnic Yellow Pages is a good choice, such as the Spanish Yellow Pages. Keep your ads large and in full color. When I design a Yellow Pages ad for a client, I like to study the competitors' ads. This enables me to look for a niche, or chinks in the armor of the competition. I don't think you can effectively design an ad without doing this. The success of a Yellow Pages ad is directly related to the competitive ads in the same book. What works for one business in another city, might not work for you. The big problem is that you don't know what ads your competitors are going to run, until the book comes out and then everyone can't change their ad for a year. The best strategist wins.