Internet marketing should be your first priority when looking to create a strategy for marketing your business as opposed to a large spend in the Yellow Pages. Have a look at the facts and statistics about Yellow Pages directory before you shy away from investing in search and paid marketing options.

To most companies, advertising in Yellow Pages is the unshakeable cornerstone of their annual marketing spend and they would no more think of cancelling it than they would hire David Brent as office manager.

Surely Yellow Pages is established, recognised everywhere and enjoys strong distribution. It's expensive, but is there any alternative?

A moderately sized quarter of half page ad is looking at 3 -5K a year. A whole page? That can be anything from 5K to over 8K for the year. There's no negotiation; take it or leave it - and that's with the regulators on their back capping and indeed cutting rates by 3.4%.

How surprising is it that more and more of my clients are cutting back expenditure on Yellow Pages?

Not surprising at all really. If you think about it, search is not new and it has played a major part in marketing activity for decades in the form of phone books and directories. Effective search engine marketing simply takes this a giant step further, unlocking as is does the incredible introductory potential the web medium provides between supplier and consumer to connect and do business.

This trend is reflected in Yellow Pages own market analysis, which shows a downward trend in client retention from 78% to 75% year on year. Interestingly, it is newer customers who are leaving.

Yellow Pages ads are viewed by people who have all ready made a decision to buy. Don't emphasise why your product or service is needed but rather why it should be obtained from you. Consumers need and want two types of information from Yellow Pages adverts.

Firstly, they need to know why they should purchase from one company and not another.

Secondly, they need information that facilitates making their purchase ie they need to know how to make the purchase or have a call to action.

If you really focus and see things through your customers eyes then your Yellow Pages ad copy should virtually write itself.

The use of colour and how Yellow Pages charge for it is pretty unbelievable.

The book is now printed on white paper (think about it you can't have white ink)

Yellow Pages charge more for white in your adverts - 40% in fact.

But, Yellow Pages actually have to take an extra step to print a yellow coloured ad ie they overlay white paper with a yellow ink but this is cheaper than a white ad.

Our surveys show that colour is not the most important factor in selecting an advert. In fact, it is well down the list.

Yellow Pages sales reps often argue:

"It'll only cost you £800 a year to move up to the next largest ad size and ad colour. Don't you believe that the increased sales you'd obtain would more than offset that expense?"

This is a bad argument for a number of reasons....

It assumes that the business generated by your original ad pays for itself

It assumes that you make a 100% profit on each sale (nice work if you can get it)

It assumes that the use of £800 for additional Yellow Pages advertising would generate more business than would the use of the same £800 in another media

Nonetheless I see many of my clients putting all their eggs in one "Yellow Pages" basket without obtaining effective proof that their adverts are actually working.

The secret is to monitor the response to each and every advert you place.

If you can't measure it you can't manage it.

I know from my experience as a former Yellow Pages sales rep that one had to continually create a false sense of urgency. Typically Yellow Pages reps only work two directories ie they are in each area for six months at a time. The reps are paid a commission on signed orders so it's no surprise they go in for the kill.......

This article is free to republish provided the authors resource box remains intact.

To most companies, advertising in Yellow Pages is the unshakeable cornerstone of their annual marketing spend and they would no more think of cancelling it than they would hire David Brent as office manager.

Surely Yellow Pages is established, recognised everywhere and enjoys strong distribution. It's expensive, but is there any alternative?

A moderately sized quarter of half page ad is looking at 3 -5K a year. A whole page? That can be anything from 5K to over 8K for the year. There's no negotiation; take it or leave it - and that's with the regulators on their back capping and indeed cutting rates by 3.4%.

How surprising is it that more and more of my clients are cutting back expenditure on Yellow Pages?

Not surprising at all really. If you think about it, search is not new and it has played a major part in internet marketing activity for decades in the form of phone books and directories. Effective search engine marketing simply takes this a giant step further, unlocking as is does the incredible introductory potential the web medium provides between supplier and consumer to connect and do business.

This trend is reflected in Yellow Pages own market analysis, which shows a downward trend in client retention from 78% to 75% year on year. Interestingly, it is newer customers who are leaving.

Yellow Pages ads are viewed by people who have all ready made a decision to buy. Don't emphasise why your product or service is needed but rather why it should be obtained from you. Consumers need and want two types of information from Yellow Pages adverts.

Firstly, they need to know why they should purchase from one company and not another.

Secondly, they need information that facilitates making their purchase ie they need to know how to make the purchase or have a call to action.

If you really focus and see things through your customers eyes then your Yellow Pages ad copy should virtually write itself.

The use of colour and how Yellow Pages charge for it is pretty unbelievable.

The book is now printed on white paper (think about it you can't have white ink)

Yellow Pages charge more for white in your adverts - 40% in fact.

But, Yellow Pages actually have to take an extra step to print a yellow coloured ad ie they overlay white paper with a yellow ink but this is cheaper than a white ad.

Our surveys show that colour is not the most important factor in selecting an advert. In fact, it is well down the list.

Yellow Pages sales reps often argue:

"It'll only cost you £800 a year to move up to the next largest ad size and ad colour. Don't you believe that the increased sales you'd obtain would more than offset that expense?"

This is a bad argument for a number of reasons....

• It assumes that the business generated by your original ad pays for itself
• It assumes that you make a 100% profit on each sale (nice work if you can get it)
• It assumes that the use of £800 for additional Yellow Pages advertising would generate more business than would the use of the same £800 in another media

Nonetheless I see many of my clients putting all their eggs in one "Yellow Pages" basket without obtaining effective proof that their adverts are actually working.

The secret is to monitor the response to each and every advert you place.

If you can't measure it you can't manage it.

I know from my experience as a former Yellow Pages sales rep that one had to continually create a false sense of urgency. Typically Yellow Pages reps only work two directories ie they are in each area for six months at a time. The reps are paid a commission on signed orders so it's no surprise they go in for the kill.......

This article is free to republish provided the authors resource box remains intact.

There are many facets of business where being a tenacious do-it-yourselfer pays off well. Developing and implementing internet-marketing campaigns for your Phoenix Arizona company, though, may not if you do not have the knowledge to do it precisely. There is a specific rhythm to marketing your company on the internet. Done the right way it can be very financially rewarding. Overlooking important details or making even minor mistakes can result in huge profit loses and has even bankrupt some companies.

Accuracy is crucial when it comes to marketing your company. You have to be accurate in gauging who is most likely to be willing to buy from you, where to find and invite them to visit your website, and in creating a website that commands attention from search engines, and in converting visitors to buyers. Multitudes of online purveyors of internet marketing programs would like you to believe their promises that you can learn how to do this yourself in no time at all. Many company owners have opted to go the do-it-yourself route to market their companies thinking they could save time and more importantly, lots of money doing so. Sadly, most of them were disappointed with the results of their efforts and some even incurred huge losses before learning a valuable lesson. They learned that work such as website creation, search engine optimization, advertising online, and internet marketing more accurately hits the money mark-when performed by professionals.

Phoenix, Arizona companies offering seo and internet marketing services for example understand the nuances involved in demanding the attention of search engines crawling millions of similar websites to yours daily, do you? Are you aware that an integral component of the search engine machine is that it undergoes continues changes? The intent of this is to root out a€œspoofa€ websites and weed them from result pages. Unfortunately, good company websites can also fall out of a listing on results pages by search engines. This can happen with something as simple as misspellings in your tag titles. Other things that can halt search engines from picking up your website for listing are of a more technical nature that typically requires extensive training to understand.

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Take the first steps towards meeting the goal of marketing your company with the precision that earns the financial rewards you seek. Consult with a firm or company that provides seo, internet marketing, advertising online, website, and other services about where you would like to take your company with on-target marketing today. Look through a directory of Phoenix Arizona businesses to find seo and internet marketing firms to consider contacting with your questions about how they can help your company achieve more through professionally developed internet marketing campaigns and a dynamic website. You can also find listings for professional providers of seo and internet marketing services online in the Phoenix, Arizona area, and from other places as well.