Bye-Bye Yellow Pages?

When I owned a local security guard company, I relied heavily on the Yellow Pages to get the word out to everyone I was “open for business” and to drive customers to call me for services. I had a snazzy page with a picture of the company logo and one of the patrol cars, plus I listed the services I provided and my phone number. This proved to be very successful, and within just a few weeks of the new phone book going out, I had a lot of responses. The Yellow Pages were great. They listed all the local businesses and were easy to navigate. Your business could be placed in several different categories to gain more exposure and everyone with a phone had access to them.

Now that we’ve moved into the age of the internet, it looks like the Yellow Pages and print media advertising is on its way out. Mark Robertson of ReelSEO has done some research on this subject and blogged about his findings here. The trend shows that online advertising and online video will be the Yellow Pages of the future. It seems like the data might be right. Many of the right parts are there to benefit small businesses: price, availability, and accessibility.

Beyond the bland banner ads and SEO, online video advertising is a powerful new way to tell your customers about your business. There are plenty of resources in the internet that enable a small business to promote their business through online video advertising. Just to name a few:

· YouTube – where you can place links in your web page that point to your video.

· Jivox – which lets you design your own video and market your product to specific markets.

· DirectoryM – has simplified the world of local online advertising by enabling you to reach millions of consumers through one online advertising network.

· SuperPages.com – offers free business listings.

While I hate to see the “good ole” Yellow Pages go by the wayside, I guess it’s time for small businesses to branch out and find out how technology can benefit advertising, even at the local level.

About the Author: Robert Peek