The Yellow Plague?

For many of my clients the decision about whether or not to advertise in the Yellow Pages is an important one. For some, that Yellow Pages expenditure is the largest single line item in their marketing budget. And for some, particularly those in fields like personal injury or bankruptcy, those ads are still a good investment that pays off for them. But increasingly, the needs once filled by the Yellow Pages directories are being served by Internet search engines, and advertisers who formerly considered a Yellow Pages ad a necessity now see it as an option. They are cutting down or eliminating their Yellow Pages budget and spending it instead on pay-per-click advertising on search engines and other "new media."

As noted in an article in today's Boston Globe, the problem with Yellow Pages is not just a question of their effectiveness as an advertising vehicle. Many see the piles of directories littering apartment building lobbies and filling dumpsters and resent the litter and the waste. They see the mountain of directories printed and distributed to an increasingly uncaring public as an environmental faux pas, at the very least.

It's hard to predict how the Internet will affect different industries and products. Newspapers seem to have been hit hard. On the other hand, people who predicted the demise of the printed book have been astonished to see book sales go up, not down, in the Internet era. But it's hard not to think the Yellow Pages may be destined to go the way of the dodo.

Comments

[Frank]

Mark - Thank you for this good argument about the yellow pages as a key marketing tool. Been reading much about this lately. Many of your remarks are also covered on an aptly named blog called Yellow Pages The Dinosaur.

http://www.blog.yellowdinosaur.net

[Ben Glass]

To the extent lawyers are still buying yellow page space its usually for one of two reasons.

#1 Pure paranoia. They don't know what else to do and they are afraid that if they are not in there that they will never get a client again. They are intimidated by the marketing vultures (er... Yellow Page reps)

#2. Some lawyers have figured out that if you can make your ad dramatically different... not about you... but about an offer for good quality information...free report, audio CD, book you have authored on your practice area...that the Yellow pages is still a very profitable media. I know lawyers around the country who are still reporting great yellow page results but....their have as their headlines:

"Free Consultation"
"We Are Aggressive"
"No Fee if No Recovery"

or my favorite:

[Insert Firm Name Here]