Newspapers … you have permission to fire: The Yellow Pages vulnerability
No tags for this post.Gizmotastic
One the biggest advertising expenses for business in local markets is the Yellow Pages. The pulp product has been around as long as people have been using the telephone. The problem today is that if you’re spending money on Yellow Page ads to reach the 40 somethings and below you’re wasting about every penny you put into it. This group of buyers are using local searches on the Internet or using social network sites to locate business in their area.
AT&T doesn’t want to lose any advertisers to social networks. In the first quarter of the year they brought in $1.3 billion in sales. In an effort to have a product that will reach an audience of younger buyers AT&T is rolling out a sister website the Yellow Pages website.
While AT&T is working to deploy their newer Yellow Page venture it the perfect opportunity for newspapers to reboot their local online directory as well. Most newspapers already have some type directory incorporated in their news website. But few have added web 2.0 features to their directories took keep viewers on the site longer and have them coming back. For years newspapers have had to compete against the Yellow Pages trying to prove that money spent on a local newspaper ad campaign has a better ROI than the Yellow Pages. Now is the opportunity to over take the Yellows Pages as people are abandoning them.
Dennis -
Here are my comments to the intial post:
I work for Idearc and wanted to share with you and your readers a new program we’ve developed to attract consumers of all ages to our print product – Verizon Yellow Pages – and online – http://www.superpages.com.
The SuperGuarantee (www.superguarantee.com) is designed to ease the mind of consumers who are looking to hire painters, contractors, auto mechanics and other service-based SMBs around the country. We are standing behind our advertisers, so if a consumer – who has signed up for free – has an issue of some sort with a client of ours who qualifies for the program, we are going to step in and try to help out. We will either make the situation right or pay the consumer up to $500.
We’ve also introduced a national barter program for our network of clients – – something pretty special, especially in a recession. We call it the SuperTradeExchange (www.supertradeexchange.com).
Thank you for the opportunity to respond,
Andrew Shane