Extinction Threatens Yellow-Pages Publishers
I was compiling stats for a client today concerning the ROI of paid search advertising (or Pay Per Click as it’s most commonly known) and came across the Online NYT article here. The article (with the provocative title above) opens with the statement:
Industry’s Web Sites Have Small Audiences, and Economic Downturn Has Eroded Ad Dollars; Hearst Unit Throws In With Google
It does raise a good question though – what industries most gain value from the Yellow pages? I can see that plumbers probably get good value from them but how about real estate agents or car service professionals?
I have a client who used to spend a small fortune on Yellow Pages advertising but now puts his advertising budget into Pay Per Click and is seeing a much better ROI. Targeted, local search terms are delivering motivated clients to his site for a cost of about 45 cents per visit. It doesn’t take a rocket scientist to work out that his cost per acquisition is going to be very low. It is also going to be very easy to measure, and that is the important thing. Checking his website stats on a Monday morning will tell him exactly how many clients visited his site and contacted him via his Search Engine Advertising campaign.
It’s a new advertising and marketing landscape out there and small businesses need to give some serious thought to where they will get the best ROI from their advertising dollar. Yellow pages is definitely not dead, and can without a doubt remain relevant for some time, but it isn’t for everyone any more.
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