Examples of creative advertising include billboards, radio, TV, newspaper, Internet banner ads and magazines. Businesses use creative advertising to gain name recognition. When we think about a hamburger what fast food restaurant comes to mind? For most it is Mc Donald’s. When we think of tissue paper what brand name comes to mind? Because Kleenex is so well branded most people refer to tissue paper as Kleenex. It literally took thousands of impressions in order for us to permanently link the brand to the product.
Because there are thousands of businesses competing for our business we are bombarded with 2500 impressions a day. We could be driving out in the middle of nowhere with the radio off and have some car drive past us when we notice the Mercedes symbol. Two reasons that businesses use creative advertising is to one, brand they and two create sales. As stated above, TV, radio, print media and Internet are good ways to do creative advertising.
So what happens when we have been enticed by a billboard ad? We turn to directional type advertising. Years ago the first place we would look was the yellow pages. This is where many businesses missed the boat. Yellow pages were the media that tied all your advertising efforts. Imagine that an acupuncture ad conveys pain relief. A potential customer goes to the phone book to find the business. While they are looking up the phone number they see a competitors ad that is bigger and better. They ultimately do business with the yellow page advertiser. What a sad way to loose business to a yellow page advertiser. This is a classic example of directional advertising. That yellow page ad was designed to direct business directly to that business. The other and ever increasing media type that is directional is an Internet search engine. Because of the expense of yellow pages and a multitude of directories to choose from I encourage my clients to have a solid Internet presence. Often times I refer them to AbsoluteWebworks. They specialize in local searches.
One of the nice things about yellow page advertising is that it is what is termed directional advertising. What that means is that most people that use a phone book to look for a product or service are ready to buy. This translates to roughly 70 to 80 percent conversion.
Once you have determined that advertising in the yellow pages is going to be profitable, the following acronym can help you with good ad copy.
R – Reliability
- National Brands – Years in Business
A – Authorized Brands
S – Special Features
- Area Served – Hours Open
- Delivery – Credit Cards
C – Completeness of Service
I – Illustrations, Logos & Slogans
- Products & Services
- Brand Logos
- Credit Cards
L – Location of Business
The next important thing you want to do is to determine one of the most important things that you can provide to your customers. Place this at the top of your ad. Business owners often times want to put their business name on top. People are more interested in how you can help them rather than your name. Following these steps will help insure that you capture the best rate of return on your investment.
Should there be only one phone book in one city? Absolutely not! Here is the reason why. Lets begin with you, the business owner. What if you could be the only business in town that does what you do? Wouldn’t that be nice? Of course it would. Why would that be nice? That is because you would not have any competition. Therefore you could name your own price. That is pretty much how things were many years ago when the utility companies were the only game in town. If there was a rate increase you did not have an alternative. You either had to take it or leave it. Many businesses could not afford to take the risk. They had to bite the bullet and pay the higher price. For years it was such a profitable business for the utility companies. Back then many businesses could not survive if they timed their yellow page advertising incorrectly. If they missed the cut off they would have to go a whole year not being in the book. That leads to the other advantage of a second book. In most cases a second directory will come out six months apart from the other. In this case if you missed one book you could try to be profitable in the other.
In the markets that I have worked, there have always been no less than 3 phone books. With so many choices, what is a business owner supposed to do? The truth of the matter is that there is no way of telling what a consumer is going to pick up during a time of need. What amazed me was just because a business owner had a preference they would only advertise in that book. This represented missing over 50% of the market. I understand the frustration of having to be in more than one book. Here are some suggestions.
There are several things to consider. First off determine what is the dominant directory. This can be a difficult task. What I have found is the publisher that contracts with the local telephone utility company has the largest print count. This usually insures better distribution. The other advantage to a utility directory is that when there is a new resident to the community they are usually issued a phone book from their phone service provider. The single biggest disadvantage of a utility directory is that it is usually 3 times more expensive to advertise in them. Some examples of utility directories in the North West are Dex and Verizon.
At a minimum if a business has a large client base they should at least be in bold print in the major directories. Look at it as the cost of doing business. It is a courtesy to existing and referral customers. Once you have determined the books rank, you want to see if it will be possible to be profitable in that directory. If you are new to this media and the directory is well established it is unlikely that your program will be as profitable as the ad that is in the number one position. It does not matter that their full-page ad cost 4 times more than your quarter page ad. Depending on how far back you are they will probably get 8 times more calls. I know this because I have analyzed the call tracking results of competing ads in the same heading. If a directory is new this could be a good opportunity to get good ad placement. Placement is everything in this media. Before you do anything you want to make sure your type of business is even looked up in this type of media. I will share business headings by rank at a future date.
This leads me to the question of cost. I have worked a market where the leading directory was the utility book. Just because it was more used did not mean that is was a better investment. In fact it was a worse investment. Here are the reasons why. Apple to apples it cost 3 times more than the competing directory, however it in no way got twice as much usage. It would have to get at least 3 times more usage just to get the same results as the less expensive book. The other reason is that many times there will be less competition in the other directory. This helps the businesses because if you have a larger portion of the pie your odds increase that you will get the call.
Here is one strategy I have seen used in a market where fortunately the non-utility book clearly dominated. Budget your yellow page advertising dollars and go as big as you can in the leading book. In the remaining books just have representation. In the case of my client she would do a half page in the leading directory and just a quarter of a column in the rest. Most of the time this was just enough to be in the number one position in the top directory. Her strategy impressed me, and that is the reason I have posted it here.
My take is that yellow pages advertising are a dying media. Here are my reasons why. Just like newspaper where you can’t find any used vehicles sold by private parties, more people are turning to the Internet for information. I am not saying that yellow pages are dead. There are still thousand of people that use and will continue to use this media. Yellow pages advertising is not as effective as it once was. In most cities there are at least 3 competing directories. This dilutes the effectiveness of all books. With the advent of cell phones, laptops and gps devices it is sometimes quicker and easier to get the information we need using the latest technology.
This leads me to online directories. I do not totally understand why someone would use an online directory when in most cases you can get similar information just by googling it. I think that google could absolutely shut down all the online directories. I think it is foolish to dump thousands of dollars in TV advertising, promoting online directories. I believe that is one of the reasons major yellow page publications are on the verge of bankruptcy.
I challenge anyone in the industry to prove me wrong. I hope I am wrong for the sake of all the hard working sales representatives out there.
The best time for a phone book to be distributed is summer. Here are the reasons why. Lets say that in your area there are more than one book, very likely by the way. I know proof positive that when a major phone directory is distributed other directories see a drop in usage. Being that summer usually gives us better weather, more major projects will be started during that time. Construction, landscape, carpet cleaning, roofing and concrete are just some of the businesses that may benefit from a summer time directory. Keep in mind that I am not saying advertising in this media will be profitable. There are many other factors you have to consider. I will cover those at a later date.
A winter directory is probably a better choice for a tree service business. It really depends on what area of the country you live. All my experience is in the North West, Oregon and Washington. We have a lot of trees and strong winter storms. Of course many businesses stay pretty consistent year round but overall businesses as a whole pick up during the summer. I have worked two markets where we have a winter directory in one area and a summer directory in another. I could adamantly tell my clients that our competitor’s directory had stronger usage than our winter directory.
Just because one directory has stronger usage than another does not mean that advertising in that book will give you a better return on your investment. You have to look at cost, ad positioning and the number of competitors in your heading.
