How much money do you spend on your Yellow Page advertising every year? Have you ever wondered how to maximize your Yellow Page advertising dollars?
What if you invested your money into Internet Marketing to optimize your website or perhaps into a Search Engine Marketing (SEM) campaign such as Google AdWords?
Let’s consider SEM:
- Assume you spend a total of $10,000 in Yellow Page advertising dollars every year.
- Assume you are covering your “local” market, but your service offering really branches out of state, perhaps the entire South Eastern United States.
- Assume your average cost per click on Google AdWords is $2.50
- Remember, impressions are FREE! What’s an impression? It’s when your sponsored Ad appears to the consumer within their search results, but the consumer has not yet clicked the Ad link.
In our example above your Yellow Page advertising dollars could have produced 4,000 prospect customers visiting your website. Let’s be realistic and say 10% of the visitors (people that clicked your Ad and visited your website) expressed an interest in your product/service by contacting your business (by phone, contact form, store visit, email) giving you 400 warm leads with a mind to buy. Over a 12 month period you’re looking at over 33 opportunities per month.
Through Search Engine Marketing such as Google Adwords you can target the demographic area you want to reach so you’re not limited to local phone books. You can open the flood gates by marketing to your entire service area, or limit your Ad to only appear in search results within a certain zip code!
Worried about cash flow?
You can pause your campaign with Google AdWords to stop the spending. Or, if you want to set your budget to a certain spend per month you can set your daily Ad spend, or monthly ad spend.
The choice is yours!
Before you simply cut your Yellow Page advertising, have you quantified the business you receive from your various marketing campaigns? If you don’t know how many calls you’re getting from your Yellow Page Ads, setup each print advertising campaign with a unique, trackable phone number. They’re cheap… especially if nobody calls the numbers! Imagine the confidence you will have when you cancel your ineffective campaigns the following year and redirect those marketing dollars in Internet Marketing.
Remember When?
Back in 1989: If you didn’t have a listing in the phone book, then your business didn’t exist. According to the savvy consumers of Today: If you don’t have a website then you’re not a serious business; If your website doesn’t show up in the top 10 search results on search engines, then your website doesn’t “exist”. No website means no business.
Let’s Get Real
Following are some real questions to answer for yourself with real answers about your Real Yellow Pages:
- How many people glanced at your yellow page Ad this month?
- How many calls did you get last year from each Ad?
- Which Yellow Page Ad gives you the most bank for your buck in closed business?
- How many phone books are you in and what areas do those phone books cover?
If you don’t know the answers to these questions, then why do you continue to advertise in the Yellow Pages? If it’s not working, make a change!