phone book renewal coming up....what to do?

[huggytree]

the little local phone book that has worked soooo well for me in the past has done horribly for me this year

last year it got me $7,000 and this year the exact same ad is only $800

my ad costs $850

i am not in any of the yellow pages/yellow book phone books...they all do nothing for my business, but that little local one was a gem

last year i had the only 1/2 page ad...i was 1st in the book out of 7 competitors....this year 2 competitors did the 1/2 page also...it bumped me to 3rd and onto a different page.....i assume thats the ONLY reason since its the exact same ad...its a 88% drop in sales....

i want to pickup local business in my home town...im having trouble doing it....i thought of this book to be my 'gem'....a way to slowly break into the market 15+ customers a year....this time its THREE customers

do i go for a full page ad? or do i just drop out

where should i put the $850 into to help me locally?

the majority of my local calls are now off the internet.....im considering hiring someone to maximize my website...i assume it will cost more that the $850

any thoughts?

[Steve B]

One bad year does not make a trend. I'd stay in your little book and hire someone to maximize your website.

[vangogh]

I was thinking the same thing. One bad year does not a trend make. I'd stay in another year and see what happens. In the end you lost $50, which isn't a lot of money to take a chance on something that's worked so well.

At the same time I'd suggest the general trend is for people to be using phone books less and searching online more. While I think it still makes sense for you to give the phone book a try, it also makes sense to look more into their online equivalents. For the most part that's going to be local search, which includes the local components of the search engines, the online versions of the different phone books, and sites like Yelp and Angie's List.

I'd still give the phone book another year. Given how well it's worked for you in the past it seems like it's worth the risk to be there another year.

[getbizsanity]

Hi there,

What business are you in? You don't mention what other marketing tactics you've tried, but marketing works best when you stay in front of your ideal customer on a consistent basis, in multiple ways. It all starts by crafting a compelling message that pinpoints their problems or concerns, how you can help them overcome those problems and what makes you different and better than the competition.

The yellow pages are a bit of a dinosaur, so if you decide to give it one more year, I would like to suggest that you don't put all your eggs in one basket. You'll need to beef up your marketing message and find several other ways to get the word out there as well.

For sure yelp and angies list may be able to help, depending upon what type of business you have. If you have a local business, I'd make sure that you don't just rely upon online marketing and social media. Do you do any local networking? Building relationships with other local business owners who sell non-competing products or services to the same target market is a great way to generate referrals. Re online stuff: optimizing your website for local search is also important. Make sure you've got a keyword optimized presence on google maps, yahoo, bing local, yelp plus any other relevant directories in addition to optimizing your website for geographically targeted keywords.

[billbenson]

I agree with Steve B as well. One bad year doesn't mean a trend. Over time you are going to need other ways of marketing your business. I don't think that is what happened to you here though.

[huggytree]

so none of you would INCREASE the size of the Ad?

i am going to show the sales person my stats on how many jobs ive gotten out of their book...im hoping to get a better price for this year because of it...

i may keep my ad in this book for 1 more year, but i will tweak it a bit.....if its a loser 2 years in a row im gone

[Harold Mansfield]

If you can increase the size of the ad, why wouldn't you? You think you've identified the problem, you're getting lost in the noise. Many times advertising, much like politics, is about who is speaking the loudest.

It seems the ad has served you well. I wouldn't give up on it because of one year.

[Steve B]

I don't think I'd increase the size. In this particular case, we also know that it's an advertising medium that is getting looked at less and less each year as more people turn to the internet for this information.

Don't expect the advertising guy to give you a break because of your lack of results. If that were the case, they would have lowered their rates every year since the internet became established. They might cut you a break, but only because they don't want to lose you completely, not because you made a logical argument regarding return on investment.

[vangogh]

I'd probably increase the size of the ad, though it would depend on the current ad and the difference in prices. If you're existing ad is visible enough and stands out as it is, I'm not sure if increasing it will lead to more. On the other hand you won't know unless you give it a try one year.

Were there different ads in general between the last 2 years. Was there someone new advertising last year or someone who'd never used more than a listing who placed an ad last year. Maybe some of the business you'd been getting went to someone else who placed a better ad last year.

[KristineS]

It really depends on where your market is. We all know markets migrate over time. It could be that your market is no longer using the phone book to search for a plumber. It could be that someone created a better/bigger ad than yours and attracted more attention.

The only thing you know for sure is that you were in a different position this year than you were last year and you saw a drop in sales. Now whether that was because your market started looking elsewhere for plumbing information or because someone else did a bigger/better ad than yours is the question that needs to be answered. One way to answer it is to step up your ad so you're the first thing people see and then see what results you get. Another way, if you have contacts who would tell you this, would be to contact other advertisers who advertised in your category and see what their results were. If you have direct contact with your potential customers you might also ask them how they look for a plumber, but I'm imagining any work that comes through the phone book might be impulse work, so you might not have a lot of communication with those customers.

If it were me, I'd go big for one year and see what sort of results I got. That would help determine if the market had migrated or if someone had just done a better of job of publicizing themselves than I did. If the results at the end of next year are bad, then the answer is probably that the market migrated in which case it's not going to matter how big your ad is.