When Was the Last Time You Used Your Yellow Pages?

Yellow Pages Print Advertising Down 18.4%

If you are looking for a phone number or the address of a particular company, do you root around looking for your bulky Yellow Pages or do you simply go online and search?

Here’s the thing, 1 in 3 internet searches are now done on a mobile phone. Why? Because these days even with a slow connection it’s quicker to use your phone than finding your Yellow Pages, opening it to the right section and then struggling to find what you’re looking for.

The chances are your Yellow Pages are being kept somewhere inaccessible where it’s forgotten and gathering dust.

And another thing your mobile phone’s always within arms reach, some people even sleep with it under their pillow.  By the way the electro magnetic radiation from electrical items can cause all sorts of serious health problems so it’s best to switch your phone off at night but that’s another story.

If you own a business, will you still advertise in the Yellow Pages when it’s time for renewal or will you think about getting on the Internet to tell the world about your services?  If you’re smart, you will go for the latter option simply because you’ll get better and 100% trackable return on your investment.

What’s more Yellow Pages have been hit in goolies by the Google.  If you need hard numbers as proof for this well read on.  Discover for yourself why going digital is the better option in this day and age.

According to Yell, its revenues fell by 12 percent to £1.25 billion in the last 9 months of 2010.  The pre-tax profits were virtually cut in half from £75 million to £38.6 million.  Even the operating profit fell by as much as 72 percent from £335 million all the way down to £244 million.  The revenue, which the company gets from print advertising, fell by 75 percent of its overall total.

On the other hand, it is interesting to note that Yell’s digital media revenue increased by 10.4 percent, which is £342.2 million.  In the United States, Yell’s revenues fell by 17 percent while its online revenues increased by 14 percent.  The numbers do not lie and this is concrete proof that digital media is the new phase if you want your business to not just survive but to thrive.

Google recognises the power of local search and places a huge amount of emphasis on local results:

• 43% of all searches on the Google network included a geographical identifier.

• 86% of those people followed up with a phone call

• 61% of those people ended up making a purchase offline

If you’re still spending a fortune on Yellow Pages and other ‘old school’ advertising like newspapers, magazines and radio, you could be ‘missing a trick’.

Here’s the thing, small businesses are changing their advertising strategy because they need to be exactly where their customers are looking for them; online.

Whenever people want to find or buy something or research a purchase, they jump straight on the Internet and do a quick search – at home, at work or increasingly on their mobile phones.

But here’s what happens, if they don’t find your business in the results, they won’t know you exist and won’t buy from you.  It’s that simple.

The chances are your competitors that are getting found have already realised that online marketing is ‘hands down’ the best return on investment for your marketing budget.

Now let me tell you the whole story, if your competitors are getting found on the search engines and are all over the social media sites and you’re nowhere to be found, this means you’re in literally giving away business to them.

So, let me ask you a vital question…

Is your business easy to find online?

If you’re like most business owners you know you need to do something but you’re just too busy running your business to do anything about it.

Let’s face it, doing everything you need to do to make sure that you’re everywhere you need to be online can be overwhelming so it keeps getting put to the back of the queue.

You’re not alone, Thompson Local has found that 70% of all small businesses don’t do any local search engine optimisation to help them get found online.  This means that you are leaving the door wide open for larger online companies to steal market share from you, right on your doorstep.

Here’s the thing, you literally can’t afford to ignore what’s going on any longer because your savvy competitors aren’t.  And the longer you leave it you’re business is getting harder and harder to find.

What’s more, until you finally do take action it’s going to get more and more expensive to catch up with your competition.

Yellow Pages have been slow to react to the change in society and it’s cost them dearly.  My advice is to take action now before you get left behind.