Making the Most of Your Yellow Pages Investment

Yes it’s that time of the year again. With advertising deadlines for the Yellow Pages in June, it is time to reassess your ads for the next edition.

For some businesses, having an ad in the Yellow Pages may be the only advertising they do for the year. It is important to put some time into making sure you are maximising your investment by communicating the most effective message to your target customers.

The purpose of advertising in the Yellow Pages is to increase the number of leads to your business. However just open the Yellow Pages at any page and chances are you will see ads that don’t do anything to motivate potential customers to make contact.

Who is your ad talking to?

First define who you are going to be ‘talking to’ with your ad:

• Who are your customers?
• What motivates them to buy?
• Why would they buy from you instead of your competitors?

If you don’t know the answers to these questions take a look at your current customers. Your target customers will be modeled on these people.

Also take a close look at your competitors. What message are they conveying? What are they doing to attract customers that could be yours? Your aim is to be the number one choice for the Yellow Pages reader.

What size ad?

What space are you going to take in the directory? The bigger the ad space the closer to the start of the listings in your category you will be because the largest ads appear first. Most readers will scan the first few ads before deciding who to call. The further down in the listing your ad is, the harder your ad needs to work to ‘be seen’ by the average reader.

What’s your message?

Having a display ad in the Yellow Pages is not a cheap exercise so don’t waste space by treating it like a white pages directory listing. You should be specific and employ some of the following marketing principles:

Benefits: highlight the benefits to the customer in using your business over a competitors’. Notice that I say benefits. Benefits are not a list of features.

Unique Selling Point: this is something that your competitors can’t offer.

Answering Common Questions: pre-empt customer’s questions (or objections) and answer them.

Incentive Offer: having a strong offer can entice customers to contact your business.

Strong call to action: Tell your readers:

• when to act (now, today),
• how to communicate with you (phone number, website, visit store, etc.),
• and what they are contacting you for or about.

Structuring your ad:

The Headline: This is where you first capture the readers’ attention. Remember eaders’ are ready to buy, so you don’t need to waste space on convincing them to buy. Instead focus on persuading them that you are the right place to buy from.

Don’t fall into the trap of using your logo or company name as the headline. This will mean nothing to most readers.

For pointers on how to write effective headlines, see our website article “How to write headlines that get read”

Sub-headings: Smaller than the headline, sub headings help draw the readers’ eye to other key points in your product offering. They help to break up lots of text and make your ad easier to read.

Body Copy: You won’t have much space or words to get your message across, so keep your message to the point. Focus on the key selling attributes that your customer will be interested in.

Your Offer: Focus on one offer – the one that will motivate the majority of readers to make contact with you, and to put aside any objections or concerns about price.

Be more inventive than offering price discounts – these just cut into your profit. Consider bonus offers, such as packaging two items together for a perceived higher value product, or giving a strong product or service guarantee. Choose something that is relatively easy for you to offer but difficult for your competitor to match.

Keywords: Readers will scan your ad looking for keywords that represent what they are looking for. In our industry, if a client is interested in having a brochure designed, chances are they will tune in to those keywords in an ad that mentions ‘brochure design’.

Pictures: Including a picture in your ad is a proven way to attract readers to your ad. This can be of your product, of people or even yourself. Just make sure it is a quality image that supports your advertising message.

Production:

Once you have assembled all your material, proofed it thoroughly for errors, and had others review it and provide constructive feedback, its time to hand it over to your designer to turn your well constructed ad into a well designed one – that will have customers contacting you (and not your competitors).

Don’t forget to book your ad in with the Yellow Pages to secure your space.

Make sure you also have your staff and systems geared up to meet the enquiries you will receive from your ad.

Also make sure you measure the number and value of the responses from your ad. You can use this information to further improve your ad when the next Yellow Pages advertising deadline comes around.

Posted on May 20th, 2008 by Wendy Riley-Biddle
Filed under: Marketing