When was the last time you used the yellow pages? Be honest! I know I throw mine away the same day they deliver it to my house. I haven’t used them for probably a decade or more.
If you feel the same way I do, then why do so many businesses waste thousands, if not tens of thousands of marketing dollars every year with yellow page ads?
It’s beyond me, but the better use of their marketing budget would be getting better results in local search. ComScore stated that over 90% of people looking for a local product or service, get online to start their research.
Immigration Solicitors London are the first to realise this.
Just imagine if they found your business first. What would it be to you in newfound money? Instead of sitting in the middle of hundreds of competitors in the yellow pages, “waiting” for someone to find you, you are getting found when people are actively looking for what you offer.
I was shocked when a friend of mine found out that a local business was spending $5,000 per month for the back of the yellow page phone book for a very, very small town. That’s $60,000 per year.
Give me that kind of budget, and I’ll get you to dominate your local market online, and bring in a flood of new clients to your business EVERY DAY!
I was looking through the Dex book here in Phoenix at the library, and came across a local plumbing company that had THREE FULL PAGES in there! Wow! I wonder how much that cost per year.
I then proceeded to try to find them by searching google. Guess what? They were on the fourth page of google (no man’s land) for their main search terms. And guess what else? There are 15,000 people EVERY MONTH searching for their services online and they aren’t getting not one of those people finding their website.
What a waste and a massive lost opportunity for this local company. I wonder if they’ll keep running those 3 pages year after year?
If you’re business is not found on the first page of google for local searches, you’re never going to beat your competitors. They’ll always win, and you’ll be in their dust.
Solution
Don’t completely remove yourself from the yellow pages, but if you had a full page, cut back to a 1/4 page. If you had a 1/4, just do a business listing, but realize it will not get you many eyeballs, so at that point, take all your yellow page budget and put it to online, local search.