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How to Promote Your Business in the Yellow Pages:

Ask the Expert

By Fran Finley

The Expert

Our expert on Yellow Pages advertising is author, speaker, consultant, Barry Maher. You may have seen Maher on the Today Show, NBC Nightly News, CNBC or in the pages of USA Today, the New York Times or the Wall Street Journal. His book, Filling the Glass was recently honored as “[One of] The Seven Essential Popular Business Books” by Today’s Librarian magazine. Few people realize that Maher is also the author of the book, Getting the Most from Your Yellow Pages Advertising, and that he conducts Yellow Pages workshops at conventions across the country. According to TIME, “Barry Maher has helped thousands of small businesses get the most cost effective Yellow Pages advertising possible.”

Does Yellow Pages advertising really work?

Well, it certainly can work. But it’s far more likely to work if you pay attention to a few key rules.

Can’t you rely on your Yellow Pages sales rep for any help you need?

Sometimes the rep can be part of the problem. Too many Yellow Page ads are whipped up in the few minutes the rep has left after trying to sell you a bigger ad. Ask, no, insist, that your directory publishers develop an ad for you that justifies the cost. If they can’t, have the ad produced yourself.

Okay, so you need a great looking ad. What about the content?

Content is another key. The first piece of ad copy that readers see, the headline, has to be powerful enough to drag them away from all those competing ads. Never use your company name as your headline unless it really is that powerful. Unless it really is the most important selling copy in the ad.

What other copy should you include?

You have to include all the hard, factual information potential customers need to make a decision to call or drop by: be it about image, market niche, products and services, features, brand names, expertise, pricing, quality, hours, reliability, speed, location, service area, credit available, whatever it might be.

So you should use every bit of ad space you’re paying for?

Absolutely not. Your ad is competing for readability with every other ad under your heading or headings. If it’s difficult to read, it isn’t going to be read. You’ve got to refine your copy until you can provide all the information potential clients want in an ad that’s so uncluttered and inviting that reading it becomes automatic.

What about visuals, like drawings and photos?

Nothing can turn a mediocre Yellow Pages ad into a great one faster than the right illustration. If your picture isn’t worth a thousand words, find one that is.

How about ad size: is bigger better?

Unfortunately, all things being equal, bigger ads get a greater response. They also get the best placement, closest to the front of the heading. Placement can be even more important than size.

A visually appealing ad can make up for some size, especially under a heading where all the ads are on the same page or two. It’s much more difficult to compete with ads on an earlier page. That page may never be turned.

Always consider placement when you’re deciding on ad size. Have your sales rep show you where the size you’re considering would fall in this year’s directory. That should give you an idea of the position, relative to the competition, you’d have next year. Sometimes going up a size and spending just a few more dollars will move you much closer to the front of the heading. Sometimes you can cut back in size without losing much in the way of position.

What about using color?

Color is eye catching. And expensive. If the money you’d be spending is approximately the same, you’re better off significantly improving the size and placement of your ad than the color.

Some areas are covered by several competing directories. Should you buy ads in all of them?

Make the sales rep prove value before you buy, especially when you’re considering a directory for the first time. If he or she can’t prove value, don’t put any real money there. Instead, try something small: perhaps even a simple in-column ad, or even just a listing. Track your response, survey your customers to discover how they discovered you. Then next year you’ll have know.

What’s the biggest Yellow Pages mistake you’ve ever encountered?

That’s got to be the attorney who found herself listed not under ATTORNEYS but under REPTILES. I’ll leave it to you to decide if that was perhaps more truth in advertising than she bargained for.

Which reminds me: Always insist on getting a proof for your display ad.

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Introduction

Home improvement businesses face a unique challenge in marketing themselves to potential customers.

Businesses offering services like loft conversions, double glazing, conservatories, landscaping, kitchens and bathrooms face widespread competition, some of it from larger retailers which can offer low prices thanks to greater economies of scale.

At the other end of the market, less reputable businesses can damage the reputation of the home improvement sector through poor workmanship or unethical marketing practices like cold calling.

Marketing channels available to home improvement businesses are often costly and hard to measure, such as local press or phone directory advertising.

Yet the effort in marketing can be worthwhile, with a typically high average spend per successful order. So how can a home improvement business stand out from the crowd, whilst achieving a good return on its marketing investment?

Direct marketing tools and methods can often offer the answer. Because it’s more measurable than other marketing methods, direct marketing is more measurable and it can be targeted more closely to those potential consumers most likely to buy your home improvement services.

Here are some of the ways in which direct marketing can help:

1. Planning

Before any direct marketing campaign you have to carry out some planning. For a home improvement business this can involve analysing your existing customers to see what they have in common. Using tools like Easycheck list profiling software (www.selectabase.co.uk/i-have-a-list/easycheck) you can discover more about your customer’s interests, likes, dislikes and lifestyle just from their postcode. Also look at there they are based and what type of home they live in, to help identify potential markets.

Once you’ve analysed your existing customers you can put them into different groups, or segments, and then prioritise which groups are of most importance to you.

For example, if you are a landscaper, you might want to target properties in local areas that you know have larger sized gardens. Double glazing companies may want to target homeowners in coastal or exposed areas, where their properties are more likely to suffer from the elements. Loft conversion or conservatory companies could target growing families likely to need more living space.

2. Direct Mail

Once you’ve identified your target segment, or segments, you can source lists of more people of the same type.

There are numerous reputable mailing lists available that you can select data from. For example the Consumer Profiles list (www.selectabase.co.uk/lists/consumer/) which allows you to target potential customers by lifestyle, Silver Prospects (www.selectabase.co.uk/ppc/grey-market-silver-prospects-list.aspx) is a specialist list of retired older people, and Recently Moved (www.selectabase.co.uk/recentlymoved/) provides a monthly list of people who’ve just moved into your local area.

Mail these lists with a good quality mailer, personalised to each person, explaining clearly why you are approaching them and the benefits of what you have to offer; price, service, testimonials, knowledge etc. Include a clear call to action and offer a no hassle free quotation.

Mailings can also be used successfully to drive traffic to your website, where people can see more about your business and obtain a quote online.

3. Telemarketing

Unsolicited telemarketing, or cold calling as its also known, has done much to tarnish the reputation of the home improvement industry.

However if you have your own list of leads, enquiries or prospects that you plan to phone, you can do so as long as you check each number first to see if it is registered with the Telephone Preference Service. You can check numbers as you go using an online service like www.selectabase.co.uk/1check/ or you can clean your list each month using software like Easycheck.

Also, it is completely acceptable to follow up a mailing to a rented list with a brief courtesy call asking if the homeowner received the information and if it was of interest. If it’s bought from a reputable source, your list will have been screened against the TPS just before you buy it.

It’s worth spending time briefing the person who makes the call to make sure they have good product knowledge and know how they should represent your business.

Summary

In summary, direct marketing methods provide great opportunities for home improvement businesses to identify and target relevant potential customers on an individual basis, without the interference of competitor’s messages that you find with press advertising.

Results can be measured precisely, and the results used to guide future mailings or campaigns. And if direct marketing is carried out in a high quality and reputable way, consumers will see that your home improvement business is going to provide a high quality service.