Telephone Directory Advertising...Please.

Welcome to our business publication about advertising, marketing and public relations...thanks for coming by.

Last week a friend who owns a nice little wine shop sent out an e-mail to several of his customers.  We're one of them.  In it he asked this question:  "Which do you prefer, Yellow Book or Yellow Pages?  Trying to figure out where our advertising dollars should go and we'd like to know what you think."

My quick answer was, "Save your money and put the checkbook away."

The longer answer is this:

It depends on what you are selling and your primary demographic.  That's not advertising agency "double speak" it is reality. 

In this case my friend is trying to reach folks who might like...wine.  In this part of the country there is plenty of competition from grocery stores, other wine shops, heck even Target sells wine.  So finding it ain't tough.

Finding somebody that knows something about wine is a different story.  We'll get back to that.

Telephone directories have had their day.  (Like rotary telephones.)  There was a time when the yellow pages directory was a staple of the advertising industry. 

That has changed.  Think of it...when was the last time YOU opened up a directory?  Me?  When I was in Memphis sixty days ago and I did not want to plug in the laptop. 

What should our friend do?  1)  Create a great website that he can update on a regular basis to keep fresh content; 2) Start writing (blogs) about the fact that he actually KNOWS something about wine and share the information. 

In the end...THAT is what his customers will be paying for.  Help, direction and knowledge.

There is no better time to get started than right now!  You with me on this?

Michael P. Libbie - Insight Advertising, Marketing and Communications...pass the wine!

Comments

[Craig Dick]

Great comments, I have a friend n the insurance business who spent a gob of money on yellow pages, in his words is biggest waste of money he has spent on his business. Simple tools such as a website, and blogs have his voice mail full every morning.

[Michael Libbie]

Craig: That has been our experience too and we think it will become even more of an issue in the future as social media and business published pieces continue to increase. Thanks for reading and for the comment. MPL

[J]

Listen... bottom line is that the use of yellow pages is in decline... no arguing that. These days... former high producing yellow page headings do better online then they do in the book. However.... the books are used more then you know.... and obviously would believe. It's a fact and if you really want to get into and give your friend good advice... you should. In my opinion I do agree with you about the wine business. It's not a good yellow page heading. My friend who owns a cab company in Ma is getting over 250 calls a month from a small ad in the yellow book. That's a lot of calls.... the preception vs the reality of the use of yellow book directories is just wrong. Yes it is decreasing but not done yet.

J

[Michael Libbie]

"J" - Thanks for the comment. Cab companies...OK, you got us. We'll stick with our advice "know your demographics". Like we said directory advertising has it's place but the business/service needs to weigh the cost/benefit. Like newspapers, where we see higher advertising rates even though subscriptions/readership has declined, telephone directories are in the same boat. Less use...higher costs. Thanks for reading and for the comment! MPL