Heyyyyyyyyy!

Check out this forum filled with grumbling yellow pages advertisers. While the sentiment expressed in these conversations represents the opinion of only a handful of people, it seems like whenever I encounter small, local businesses I hear the same thing over and over. Regarding my post on Yellow Pages 3.0 and how these companies will need to reinvent themselves, the more I see of this stuff the more I am convinced these IYPs need to move faster. The Yellow Pages still can provide a lot of value to smart marketers but based on this conversation they need to do a better job of proving this to their customers.

Here are some choice excerpts:

“It helps to be in there but with the internet I am down sizeing my yellow page ads…”

“This year I will be tracking them all (all YP ads) VERY closely b/c I am also going to upgrade the website and downsize the yellow page listings as many others are doing.”

“I’m sure by “making it (my YP ad) work better” he (my YP sales rep) means “pay us more.”

“my ads are a complete waste of money”

“let these YP folks know you know their business revenue is way down. Just like we have to adjust our margins when things are slower (or when someone else with the same stuff is in the same home against us!) these Yellow Page dummies need to do the same thing (and they will if you stand strong!)”

“YP ad’s are a wormhole for your advertising dollars.”

“print ads mainly attract [happy days] older folks shopping around, if that your target market then pages are for you. Good bye PRINT BOOKS, Invest in serach local .”

I am still trying to figure out the “happy days” thing. Where’s the Fonz when you need him?

Update: Greg Sterling has published some Webvisible-Nielsen data about this subject in his post Yellow Pages Advertisers Questioning Print

Share This Story!

About Author

3 Response Comments

  • Richard  November 12, 2007 at 1:13 pm

    How funny! The title is very fitting.

  • peakstudios  October 23, 2008 at 12:12 pm

    tom have you re ran the numbers since 2007? it is almost 2009 and i am guessing the numbers will show YP is losing too google. They called and went threw their stuff with me the other day and had no answer to any question that discredited their research. they even showed me an eye test where people look in the upper right corner of the screen first – we were taught to do that as a child it is called reading. when i asked where the people stopped and clicked they had no answer just that it is where people look first. I then asked if there is a picture, like a map just bellow the PPC did their eyes look there first? the answer i got was vauge and they were very unresponsive to any question doubting the validity of their research. I can put together research studies all day long to get a desired result as they have done but lets get some real facts that are current. We all know how many things have changed in googles local directory in the last year and how the results are now showing up on the first page of google when relevant.