ForumsInternet/eCommerce

We advertise in the Yellow Book in several local markets in NJ and have had great success over the past 4 years. To our benefit, there aren't alot of local web design companies purchasing large ads in our region. Our ads have paid for themselves within the first quarter of every year since we began in 2003. As much success as we have had with the printed ads, I would not suggest having it as your only means, there should always be a mix in your campaign (internet, email and print).

Here are a few tips to aid you in your decision:

• As your sales person to show you the books for the areas that you plan to advertise in and see how many competing companies are also advertising there. Ask for the demographic data (how many businesses, residences, total population, average income)

• Look at the type of products you are selling and ask yourself, if you were your customer, would you be more likely to look in the yellow pages to buy it? go online? or visit a store in person?

If you are looking for advertising of your personal assistant business, I would not recommend yellow page advertising. I am not aware of any significant categories that would draw this type of client demographic for you (I say that having worked at Verizon Information Services (i.e. yellow pages, Superpages.com) for the past 7+ years.

I would actually refer you to look back at your own niche target of clients. I assume you have a higher percentage of clients in the "busy professionals" categories such as attorneys, real etate, doctors, and executive staff. There are online communities that you can market into with a much higher ROI on your money. For instance Linkedin probably has several "shakers" in your area that have exceptional professional networks. For the cost of a full-page ad you can establish a business partner in your area on Linkedin.

You can also look at working with established community sites in those niches or buying advertising on them. ActiveRain.com has hundreds of agents and brokers in that real estate market, which can be clients themselves or you could further get referral business by working with relocation agents.

I have not seen a business in your industry have a positive ROI with the print product. Even if you want to do business with those directory companies, I would encourage you to look more at the electronic options they have (pay per click, online listings, etc) that have measurable results and no long-term commitment.

$4350 to have a 2" x 2" ad in the Dallas AT&T yellow pages = 1 real potential customer call = ZERO ACTUAL REVENUE DOLLARS. You do the math on the return on investment. In my case it was a HUGE waste of money.

Yellow pages - complete waste of funds, unless you are some sort of local, geography limited biz (plumber, pizza joint, etc). Then, do a small ad, but offer a big reward if they visit your website to learn more (hint hint).

SEO - with $0 (zero) funds, I was able to get a variety of top-10 google rankings for my website. No magic, and not a lot of hours, just great content, and properly structured code and tags. Yes, I am a professional webdev, but I do this for my clients as well, as part of the service for building them a great website. No extra fees - it's baked right in.

Sites that are not mine, it can be a little to a lot harder, as one has to deal with the mess left by others to some degree (bad code, bad structure, no CSS, bad content, etc). Hard to give a price without seeing the patient.

Ongoing, none of my clients pay monthly fees- we use pre-paid maintenance accounts, and tweak for SE results as new key phrases are discovered or desired.

See, it's all in the ingredients you to make the soup...

PS: did you know that PIZZA is the only restaurant type that has its own section in the yellow pages? (really!)

Mike

That's Texas. I meant in the USA.

(ducking) - LOL

What about online yellow pages? Aside from Google and Yahoo Local Search (which are eating the paper yellow pages alive, BTW), there are many local search engines and even ones provided by the phone companies (in NJ, it's SuperPages.com).

Local Search engines are designed not to answer global questions or research the way Google can, but are narrow focused to commerce/businesses needing to advertise in a limited geographic area. The best analogy IS the yellow pages of days gone by, but now on the internet.

The trick is to find local search engines that people in your area actually use - putting up an ad in the middle of the desert does you no good. You can get listed, usually fairly inexpensively, and pay month to month (instead of being locked in for a year). You might even get a simple 'billboard/bizcard' type of web page (I would NOT call it a 'website' - grin) to list basic profile info about you and your biz, including a link to your REAL website - you have one, right?

Mike

Y Not Mag. Have you found the best low cost ways to advertise??
What is the name of your magazine and when is the launch date??
LUCKIEST