Advertise in the Yellow Pages - Top Ten Reasons

There's a lot of talk about the death of printed media advertising, and especially the fact that the printed Yellow Pages are becoming obsolete.

Now this may be true for some categories of businesses as online search can be much more easily accessed in some cases, but in other areas, the Yellow Pages is still a very effective medium of advertising and worth the price being paid.

So how do you know if advertising in the Yellow Pages is still paying off for you?

Here is a list of the top ten reasons of why your business should stay listed there:

1. You can look as big as your competition - You may be a small company just starting out in business but you can choose an ad size that makes you look as big and as professional as any one else. This can make a huge difference when trying to get customers and get word of mouth going.
2. People who look in the Yellow Pages are ready to buy - People don't read the yellow pages for fun. When they flip through the pages it's because they are looking to make a purchase. When you receive a call that originated from a yellow page lead there is a very good chance that you will have a sale.
3. The internet is not yet very good at local searches but the online yellow pages are - Actually, if you know how to properly phrase a search or g o the proper websites then you can find a lot of local content, but in general you need to know where to look and most people are not experts at doing a local search online. The online Yellow Pages however makes it very easy to find local smaller businesses.
4. The printed book is always available and sometimes faster - Silly as it may sound, but the internet is not always on. How about trying to find an electrician when the power is out? How about calling a plumber when the basement is flooding, you think it's faster to look it up in a physical book, or turn on a computer and do a search in Google?
5. Long term stability with the ad - Once you place an ad, it is there for a full year. You don't have to think about it. It is doing its work.
6. Over 75% of people still use the Yellow Pages - There are a lot of numbers showing that people still use the yellow pages. Granted the numbers are coming from the yellow pages sponsored research so they may not be 100% accurate, but there are still enough people using it for an ad to be worthwhile.
7. Lots of other businesses are doing it - Just because everyone else does it doesn't mean that you should, but come on how thick is the yellow pages book? It's full of ads! If the ads were not a good investment for those companies, would they keep spending money there?
8. Simple Advertising Venue - You don't have to worry about SEO techniques, or getting your website to appear on the first page of Google. Your ad is placed according to size and seniority. It won't change once it's printed.
9. Trackable - Sure the internet makes things more easily trackable, but that doesn't mean that an ad in the yellow pages is not. Just ask the caller where they got your number from and keep track manually if it is worth it for you to keep your ad there.
10. Return on Investment - Lastly,  and most importantly, is that you don't measure advertising by how much it costs, you measure it by how much business it brings in. If the profits from the jobs done due to leads from the yellow pages exceed the cost of the advertising there, then the return on investment is positive and it is a good reason to continue to advertise in the yellow pages.

So there you have it. There are many reasons to keep advertising in the printed Yellow Pages directory. It is true that the printed directory is undergoing some changes due to the internet, but overall it is still a very good marketing investment and be sure that it will be for at least another ten years if not more.