Here’s an interesting post from Lawyer Advertising Blog entitled Yellow Page Advertising for Lawyers: Where Have All the Calls Gone? According to the post, lawyers are reporting decreased calls from Yellow Pages advertising but are afraid to cut their losses and lose their ad. Other professionals have reported similar results. The post identifies the reasons for this trend:
Since 1976 through the 1980s, yellow page advertising was
very effective. The Yellow Pages and classified newspaper ads were
virtually the only place a potential client could find a lawyer
advertising. There were very few lawyers advertising on TV, the
internet was unknown to the public, there were fewer lawyers
advertising in yellow page books, and there was only one yellow page
book.
There are several factors responsible for substantially
reducing a lawyer’s return on investment from yellow page advertising.
Today there are several countywide yellow page telephone books for each
county. If that’s not bad enough, there are also several smaller
village or community yellow page books. Most households will keep only
one yellow page book and throw out the others. Some people even keep
using old books and throw out the new ones. Will your ad be in a little
used book that’s thrown out?
Advertising fees for yellow page books has risen
dramatically over the years. Yellow page publishers have been losing
advertisers and revenue to competing yellow page books, TV, and the
Internet, yet they must still print and distribute the same number of
books. Faced with loss of revenue, rising printing, distribution, sales
and overhead costs, yellow page publishers have had no choice but to
substantially increase advertising fees.
The post concludes by suggesting that Yellow pages ads may still be
useful to attract a local clientele and points out, that Yellow Pages
are still less expensive than TV. (if you do decide to advertise in the
Yellow Pages, check out this interesting past post
on the subconscious messages that your photo may be conveying) But in
my mind, those really aren’t good enough reasons to opt for the Yellow
Pages. The only question for me is whether the ad brings in enough
clients to pay for itself.
Update (10/20/05) I wanted to update my incomplete advice here. There really are many more considerations that should be examined in taking out a Yellow Pages ad, besides cost recovery. First, in a listserve discussion, one astute participant pointed out that you need to generate at least double the amount of revenue as the cost of the ad for it to be considered a good investment. In addition, even if you’re getting back in business what you pay for the ad, it’s possible that those dollars could generate four or even five times as much revenue if applied elsewhere. Not losing money on the ad is really just the minimum starting point, but there are additional factors to consider.
Related posts:
- Let Your Fingers Do the Walking…At the Keyboard, Not the Yellow Pages
- Looking at the Yellow Pages from A Client’s Perspective
- Solo Marketing Makeovers: What’s Your Advice?
- Would You Run This Ad?
- Solo Marketing Makeovers: What’s Your Advice?
