Over the years, yellow pages and video yellow pages have become effective tools regarding product marketing. Marketers have realized that the best way to improve sales of product/s is to advertise in the yellow pages or in the video yellow pages. Depending on the advertising budget, the marketers choose the content and design of the product to be printed.
Main objective of advertising product in the yellow pages is to generate more sales through phone calls. Presently, advertising on yellow pages is a 12 billion dollar industry. The yellow pages are available in print form and as well as online. Advertising in the yellow pages is similar to response advertising as anyone owning a phone can call up and enquire and purchase the product. There are quite a few companies worldwide who depend a lot on yellow pages advertising.
All sort of information required by the general public can be accessed by means of the yellow pages directory. When the advertisement is well designed, the prospective customers read and get full information of the product. Most of the advertisers are aware that the readers follow ?Z pattern? while looking at ads, which means they start to see the advertisement from the upper left corner and then move to the right.
Online yellow pages with audio and video are known as Video Yellow Pages. The visuals are very prominent and it is cost effective too. Customers get to hear the background music and view the pictures on your monitor. Marketing gurus feel that advertising on Video Yellow pages is one of the best methods to portray your product or service. One of the major websites offering video yellow pages services in Zoomsong.com. With the help of Zoomsong.com, customers are able to connect with the respective sellers quickly. Users can get the contact address and telephone numbers all over the United States.
The companies can market products worldwide with the help of internet marketing tools like interactive advertising, search engine advertising. Only the customers who are interested in the particular product or service can visit the site. There is no better way than advertising it on the yellow pages.
Local customer can also participate in video yellow pages. For instance, when a customer visits a restaurant, the customer too can post a video clip of their experiences in that particular restaurant by uploading videos via the digital camcorder or camera phone.
As more people are into online search these days, advertising in the yellow pages or video yellow pages became the best option for the businesses to adopt. In the future, more companies will use yellow pages and video yellow pages as their marketing tools. Business gurus feel, sooner they realize, better it is for them.
When you read your Yellow Pages contract you will see initials for various items success as BLN, WBLN, WFL, and ABLN. Most of these items cost between $ 7 and $34. Do you ever ask your sales Rep ?what the heck is this?? The reason you don't ask is because the item only cost $ 30 dollars, and you had it last year, and you don't want to appear stupid asking questions about $ 30.. The problem is that these unidentified items can add thousands of dollars to your advertising bill.
When you read your Yellow Pages contract ask the publisher's sales Rep what all the initials are and why do you need them. In almost all cases you don't need them because there is a cheaper or free version available.
White page listing (WBLN) - If you have a business phone you are entitled to a free listing of your business name, address and phone number in the White Pages and the Yellow Pages. You will be told that it's much easier for your customer to read a bold listing (BLN) and it only cost $31 than the semi bold free listing. Unfortunately it is not $31 but $372. The $31 is for one month but the contract is for a year. It is very clever the way the publishers show all costs on your contract by the month instead of by the year, even though the contract is for a year. Ninety percent of all business name listings in the white pages are the free listings version and their customers seem to be able to find them. People read the white pages alphabetically and the bold print can actually be confusing.
White Feature Listing (WFL) - This is the super big print that you see in the white pages. A bold white page listing (WBLN) cost $31 a month while the super bold (WFL) listings cost $90 a month or $1080 for the year. Can you imagine paying $1080 for something that is free, yet thousands of businesses have WFL's.
Anchor Bold Listing and Number (ABLN) - If you purchase a display ad you receive a free Incolumn listing in the same heading the display ad appears. You will be told that it's much easier for the customer to read your name if it is bold. An anchor listing is the business name, address and phone number and where your ad is located (see our ad on page 456). The price of a bold anchor listing can ranges from $30 to $114 a month or you can get it for free (ARL). As my son would say Duuuh.
Buy the largest display ad -All advertisers are told that the largest display and will receive the most calls. However research shows that the ad that contains the most pertinent information that the consumer is looking for, in an easy-to-read format, will receive the most calls regardless of size. Spend your money on ad design and copywriting instead of Yellow Pages ad space and you can reduce your advertising costs by 50% or more.
Process color ads - The Yellow Pages sales Rep will bring in a sample ad for your business that looks like it's straight out of Time magazine. Unfortunately a process color ad adds 40% to the cost over a black and yellow or spot color ad. There is no evidence in any study of Yellow Pages advertising that a process color ad increases customer calls.
Businesses that have followed my advice have been able to reduce their Yellow Pages costs by as much as 50%. Take charge of your yellow page program, and examine every item on your contract.
Never let the Yellow Pages publisher design your ad because they design all of your competitor's ads. The best money you can spend in Yellow Pages advertising is for a professionally designed ad. Remember the best designed ad will get the most calls.
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