Years ago, Yellow Pages was a premier source for local (and national) businesses to advertise their company, attracting leads and customers to their brand. However, with 89% of customers beginning their buying process using a search engine, the question now becomes should you promote your business page with Yellow Pages? Is this still a viable channel for investing marketing dollars to bring new sales to your business?
The answer is no. Because more consumers are using the Internet for their discovery and buying needs, its best to divert your money to online strategies that will produce optimal results in your marketing. In fact, we’ll give three top reasons not to invest your marketing with Yellow Pages and share how you can successfully leverage online marketing to better promote your business.
3 Reasons Not to Promote Your Business with Yellow Pages
#1 Consumers Search Online before Doing Anything Else
Perhaps the top reason why the Yellow Pages is unsuccessful in generating fresh leads and sales to your business is because today’s consumers are finding their answers online. Seventy-two percent of Americans own smartphones that allow them to access information readily at their fingertips. Since the majority of decision-makers are referencing the Internet listings, your Yellow Pages ad has less of a chance targeting this group.
#2 Price is Prohibitive, Especially in Larger Cities
In order to really stand out, you have to purchase a much more expensive ad such as the front of a section or the cover. Some businesses are spending $2000/month promoting their company with Yellow Pages. Print advertising is costly, so if you have a minimal marketing budget, this can easily wipe you out! The ROI achieved with Yellow Pages is minimal. Online marketing is not only cost-effective, you can spend more and obtain better results than you would using Yellow Pages.
#3 Difficult to Track Performance
The best way to gauge your marketing to see if its working (or not) is to test, track, measure and analyze. The problem with Yellow Pages advertising is the challenges of tracking its performance. Unless you have a system where you use a separate tracking or phone number and/or keep tally of the calls generated from your ad, it will prove arduous to determine the effectiveness of this campaign. It is also time consuming. There are a plethora of online analytics and tracking tools that easily allows you to measure how efficient your strategies so you can adjust and tweak them accordingly.
3 Better Alternatives to Advertise Your Business
There’s a better way than advertising with Yellow Pages, and that’s focusing a good chunk of your energies online to naturally attract ideal customers to your brand. Through the art of inbound marketing, you’ll draw prospects to you that are more qualified, improve your conversion rates and boost retention.
You see, today’s consumer is using the Internet as a source to solve problems and get their questions answered…something that Yellow Page ads are limited in providing but is at the heart of inbound marketing strategy. Investing in this technique will yield amazing returns in your traffic, leads and sales.
Here are three quick tactics you can implement to appeal to your consumers in lieu of Yellow Pages.
#1 Business Blogging
Perhaps the best way to be positioned as an expert and authority in your niche is to share valuable content through blogging. Blogging is highly beneficial to your brand in that it boosts your presence in the search engines, builds trusts with your audience and generates leads and sales for your business. Actually, companies who blog regularly have 434% more indexed pages than companies who do not (Source: Search Engine Land). Also, 82% of marketers who blog daily acquired a customer using their blog, as opposed to 57% of marketers who blog monthly (Source: Hubspot)
#2 Search Marketing
Did you know that 72% of consumers who did a local search visited a store within 5 miles (Source:Wordstream)? Implementing search engine optimization (SEO) and search engine marketing (SEM) practices bolsters your local online presence to attract consumers to your brick-and-motor business. Much more effective than Yellow Pages, search engines like Google and Bing are driving tremendous traffic to business sites.
Check out this SEO Beginner’s Guide for more in-depth content on executing this tactic.
#3 Social Media Marketing
Consumers desire to follow their favorite brands on social media. With the significant rise in social media usage, it’s imperative to establish and maintain an active presence on social networks. Facebook advertising makes it easy and cost-efficient for small businesses to set up marketing campaigns that targets ideal customers and attracts prospects to their brand.
The myth that your small business needs to be in the Yellow Pages is simply not true today. This source is not nearly as effective as they were years ago. In 2017, consumers want to reach and follow you online to stay connected with your brand. Shift your marketing strategy to online techniques that will produce far better results in your efforts.
Much success!
To learn more about implementing business blogging, search marketing and social media marketing into your business strategies, give us a call or send us a note today at Small Dog Creative 661-702-1310
Or Download our new E-Book below to learn how to get more leads for your business!
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