Yellow Pages Power!

Posted by Steve Yankee on October 25th, 2007 in Case Histories, Recommended Reading, Traffic-Pulling Techniques, Yellow Pages Ad Basics, Yellow Pages Resources

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For years, attorneys and law firms were strongly discouraged from advertising their services. “Bad for our image, a lawyer soliciting for work,” muttered the Powers That Be. I remember quite fondly when the Bar Association relented and gave them the okay to advertise. It was the marketing equivalent of the Repeal of Prohibition! We watched with interest as the law firms in our community made a madcap dash to yellow pages reps with most orders being for at least one full advertising page, if not several.

Well, the furor has died down a little in past years, but it’s still one of the largest and toughest Yellow Pages categories in which to advertise. Which is why I’ve always recommended“The Lawyer’s Guide to Effective Yellow Pages Advertising” by Kerry Randall and Andru J. Johnson to my attorney clients. The always-entertaining directory ad pundit Richard Larkin says “Following the principles and exercises in this book will result in ads that generate more calls from the right types of clients, and will almost certainly give any lawyer a significant advantage over the competition. Any lawyer who advertises in the Yellow Pages without following the steps outlined in this book is taking a huge gamble with his or her money. A yellow Pages ad developed using the principles in this book will likely generate many thousands of dollars more revenue than one created by the directory publisher.”

This book is essential for law firms that advertise in the Yellow Pages because it clearly explains how to plan and design a more effective, targeted Yellow Pages ad campaign; one that attracts the type of clients the firm is looking for, one that stands out among competing ads, yet still follows the pertinent ethics standards for attorney advertising.

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Posted by Steve Yankee on October 24th, 2007 in Traffic-Pulling Techniques, Yellow Pages Ad Basics

In many cases, people who call to inquire about your services don’t really know what they should be asking you…so, asking for your price is always a safe bet. If you get one of these calls, suggests Steve Wernick of the event videographer’s organization 4EVER Group, the first thing you should do is ask THEM a question:

“Is the lowest price REALLY the most important thing that you’re looking for?”

If they say “Yes, I’m looking for the lowest price,” Steve advises that you simply give them your price and let them handle it from there.

Of course, you should be sure to give them all the BENEFITS of doing business with you before you tell ‘em the price, and I agree. If you were a videographer, for example, this is where you’d give them your number of years in business, the number of happy couples that have used you to capture their wedding in flawless detail, the number of companies and businesses that have found you to be a reliable, no-hassle resource for taping their meetings and seminars…you get the idea. Talk about the benefits of doing business with you…then give them a price.

If, on the other hand, if they say, “Well, price IS important but we’re looking for someone who can do a good job for us…” Bingo! There’s your lead-in. There’s where you start solving their problem and establishing all the benefits that your skills bring to the table!

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Posted by Steve Yankee on October 23rd, 2007 in Advertising Your Home Office, Traffic-Pulling Techniques, Yellow Pages Ad Basics

Nope, we’re not talking about the very small library. We’re talking phone books.

In most towns and cities, you receive at least two telephone books. Lucky you! Well, one directory will always be from your “carrier” –Ameritech or Southwest Bell or any of the other AT&T units that spun off from the Bell System and now, like a puddle of mercury in a corner, are coming back together. Your carrier is…well, the carrier, or provider, of your local land-line telephone service. The other books will be from one or more “independent providers” of the phone book in your area. Should you advertise in both? Well, if there were two roads running through your town, would you have a billboard on one road? Or both? “Both” is the right answer, of course. Within reason.

The good news is the ads don’t have to be the same size. We always ran a dollar bill size ad in our carrier’s Yellow Pages. And we ran an ad one-third that size in the competitor’s Yellow Pages directory, even though current readership surveys here suggested that each book commands about 50 percent of the population that uses Yellow Pages.

The reason for the disparity in sizes is simple. We always had the biggest ad in the Ameritech book, and we were the ONLY display advertiser in the competitor’s book, so we were -by default, almost -already the largest advertiser in booth directories.

Our strategy was to keep those ads running as is until one of our competitors got close (or equal) to those existing sizes, and then –and ONLY then –would we jump up in size just enough to make sure our ad REMAINED the largest.

Another thing we did was track our ads to see which book was most effective for us. I’ll tell you how we did that in my next post.

Questions? Comments?

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Posted by Steve Yankee on October 22nd, 2007 in Design Tricks and Techniques, Yellow Pages Ad Basics

Are you making these 9 Fatal Mistakes in Your Yellow Pages Ads?  Good article!

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