YP Talk - Newsletter Archive - More Good Things in Yellow Pages Land

Newsletter Archive - Editor's Corner

More Good Things in Yellow Pages Land

02/15/2007 - Supposedly bad news sells. At least that’s what the newspaper industry thinks, and from my recent TV viewing, so do the major TV networks. All you need to do is open the paper or turn on a TV news show to see what I mean. It’s enough to make someone pretty depressed.

But good news also works. In our December article we ran a summary of really positive comments that we noticed online where people had good things to say about Yellow Pages. Regular readers of this newsletter know that I have launched a personal campaign to doggedly pursing those naysayers that choose to provide disparaging or negative views on our products or industry, and offer them some compelling evidence of the error of their thoughts. But the nice thing is that while I am on the look out for the doomsters, it is encouraging to see some of the positive things that people have said, posted, or done. You need to know about these positive comments also. So here are some recent ones we found.

Kudos for an innovative recycling program:

Ever taken the time to race around your entire neighborhood, grab all the old copies of Yellow Pages when the new one rolls around, and then re-use the outdated copies to make giant sculptures out of them before recycling? Well, if you haven’t then check out what Yellow Pages and the Woodland Trust have teamed up to do in England. Essentially, kids are engaged in a fun, educational recycling program through their schools where they compete against other schools in their local area for cash prizes based on the most books collected and finest sculptures created.

http://www.treehugger.com/files/2006/12/the_great_yello.php

Or a suggestion on where to find an accountant – gee, why not start with the Yellow Pages:

Finding Accountants Through the Phone Book: The most obvious place to start looking for accounting help is in your local Yellow Pages. Most areas will have a wide variety of accountants listed in their phone book, and some will even divide the listings by specialty, making it easier to tell a financial advisor from a forensic accounting specialist.

http://www.businessfinancemarketing.com/2006/business/where-you-find-a-good-accountant.html

Your car is on fire?? What do you do after they put the flames out? Grab the Yellow Pages:

They got us water and offered tea, loaned us their Yellow Pages, and gave us lots of sympathy.

http://www.seattlest.com/archives/2007/01/28/our_car_burned_up.php

And what does a marketing expert suggest to small businesses looking to reach prospects ready to buy:

Print directories, such as the Yellow Pages: These often claim the largest portion of a new entrepreneur’s resources, so make sure you get the most for your money. To be effective, your ad should contain exactly the information your prospects are looking for, and it should differentiate you from your competitors.

Advertise in the directories with the most listings and ads because these are the ones your prospects will search first. And consider spending some of your directory advertising dollars online, particularly if you’re targeting shoppers under age 35.

http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/17116617/

How about another funny, effective Yellow Pages TV ad that bails out a really bad hair cut:

http://plsthx.com/Funny_videos/1978_Funny_yellow_pages_commercial.html

Things are even looking good in Venezuela:

A year and a half ago I wrote this article about the thickness (amount of pages) of the Caracas-area Yellow Pages and its relationship with the state of the economy. All else equal, advertisers must have high expectations for the economy next year as the 2007 Yellow Pages contain 802 pages of ads, compared with 558 of the 2005 edition and 746 pages from the 2003 edition.

http://vzlanpolitics.blogspot.com/2006/12/yellow-pages-revisited.html

#85 of the “101 Ways to Drive Traffic” has a great thought – ADVERTIZE IN THE YELLOW PAGES:

85. Put an ad in your local yellow pages to get some local customers. Yellow pages tend to be more successful then newspaper ads because individuals are looking for a particular service when they are browsing through the yellow pages as opposed to newspapers.

http://beginners-make-money-on-internet.blogspot.com/2007/02/101-ways-to-drive-traffic.html

How about a very “Opinionated Marketer” that after some soul searching discovered that yes indeed, that print Yellow Pages really does have value:

You wanted to know where the nearest dry cleaner or florist or Indian restaurant was, you could look through the Yellow Pages and find it. They even had a nifty little jingle: "Let your fingers do the walking through the Yellow Pages.

http://www.opinionatedmarketers.com/2007/01/let-your-fingers-do-walking.html

Or even better, a Yell rep in England sells a local courier company a big ad, and now they are swamped with an increase in orders:

http://www.thisisbasingstoke.co.uk/news/jobs/display.var.1150103.0.give_them_a_yell.php

How about an advertiser that did his good deed of the day, and may have ultimately gained a customer:

I have an ad in the local Yellow Pages, advertising my company as a custom software development provider. Today I received a call from a lady which basically said something like this: "Hello, I have an Epson C63 printer, but I bought a ...

http://www.codeproject.com/lounge.asp?msg=1843290#xx1843290xx

What source would you use to pick out a mover?? The first thing to do is grab the Yellow Pages and let your fingers do the walking:

Smith Mountain Lake News - http://www.smithmountainlakenews.com/

Or significant growth in Yellow Pages online down in Australia:

Directories advertising is also experiencing "huge growth", Sensis Interactive general manager Chris Smith says. Advertising revenue in Yellow Pages online rose 56 per cent, demonstrating growing confidence in the internet from the small business sector….

http://www.theaustralian.news.com.au/story/0,20867,21170437-643,00.html

Think Yellow Pages isn’t a powerful medium?? Check out this story from an experience from 50 years ago. While it wasn’t a good experience due to the advertiser, it is still a powerful memory. Of course I’m curious why this newspaper is running this story now.

In desperation I went inside and looked under “locksmiths” in the Yellow Pages of the telephone directory. There it was! A half-page ad had the bold lines...

http://www.waxahachiedailylight.com/articles/2007/01/17/dailylight/opinion/editorials/column.txt

Smile. Be proud. Be happy. You are working a great industry, a surging one actually, at a time of great unrest in the media world. And yes, there are a lot of advertisers and users who really do appreciate what you do day in and day out in this industry even if they don’t take the opportunity to tell you that.