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.