Today’s Australian reports Sensis’ Yellow Pages revenue is up 5% and White Pages over 11%. That’s an interesting result as it bucks the evidence that online advertising is hurting them.
At business events I’m finding many owners and managers are telling me they are dropping their Yellow Pages ads as they find they aren’t getting the returns they were hoping for and think online offers more return for their advertising dollar.
There’s a lot of people who agree with that idea and even Sensis’ e-business report showed 89% of consumers are using the net to research purchases.
So there is a pretty good argument for businesses to move their advertising online, but before doing so you need to look at what channels your market is using to find you.
For some businesses the Yellow Pages is still an important channel. For instance, the local plumber cannot afford to be without a Yellow listing.
But other businesses, say an online auction site, don’t need to worry about an expensive Yellow Pages display ad although a listing in the White Pages would probably help their credibility with some customers.
In the end, it depends upon your business and the customers you want to reach. If your business is a service business that generates work from emergency calls, such as the plumber, dentist, vet or a computer technician, then you will need some presence.
Even if your business doesn’t cater to those markets, the online Sensis listings are still useful as this plugs your business into the directory enquiries, 1234 and web based services, although these may not be as useful as Google or Yahoo!.
Marketing’s all about telling your story to the right people. While many of those people are now surfing the web, it may suit your business to still spend something for those people who insist on using the Yellow Pages.
Great post and cannot agree more.
Business owners and marketers have to understand where their potential and existing customers are searching, if thats in Yellow okay, but increasingly its Google.
In the end its return on advertising investment that counts.