Are Yellow Pages Relevant to Your Business?
A new survey report by online review site, YELP.COM, all but declared yellow page advertising dead.
Most Business Owners say Yellow Page Books are Irrelevant to their business.
In May, Yelp presented a survey to gauge how business owners feel about yellow page phone books in the digital age. 76% of the 3,500+ respondents said “NO” when asked: “Are yellow page phone books still relevant?”
“Internet directories have led to a dramatic decrease in the number of business owners and consumers who use phone books.”
That’s a dramatic shift in business opinions from just a few years ago, and signals the importance of Local Businesses having a strong online presence.
Here are some more survey questions and results:
1) Most business owners don’t think yellow page phone books are useful to them:
“Yellow page phone books are useful to me as a business owner.”
Agree – 11%
Somewhat Agree – 17%
Somewhat Disagree – 19%
Disagree – 52%
2) Only about 10% of business owners use yellow page phone books more than once per month; 3 out of 4 don’t use it at all:
“How many times per month do you rely on a yellow page phone book to find a local business?”
“Zero” – 75%
“Once” – 14%
“Between two and four times” – 8%
“Five or more times” – 3%
3) Very few business owners believe customers find them using a yellow page phone book.
“Estimated percentage of customers who find me using a yellow page phone book.”
“0%” – 43%
“1-25%” – 47%
“26-50%” – 5%
“51-75%” – 3%
“76-99%” – 1%
“100%” – 0.1%
Yelp concluded: Business owners have clearly observed the shrinking relevance of yellow page phone books. As we continue to move away from printed phone books, online and mobile directories will continue to grow as the customer’s choice for local business information.
The results of this survey confirm that Local Businesses need to redirect their marketing budgets in favor of online marketing to reach customers who are using search engines to find local business services and products.
If you are a business owner, ask yourself if you are getting value from your yellow page advertising? Then decide if you need to change your promotional budgets to align with where your customers are looking for your products and services.
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Almost always I advise my clients not to put all their eggs in one basket, be it in phone directories, online, radio, television, or direct mail. There’s a lot to be said for the interactions that occur when a potential customer sees a business name from multiple sources. Absolutely agree, evaluate, know your customer, and decide how to allocate your marketing budget.
Those were interesting figures. We also want to know where people go if they are looking for information nowadays, so we decided to run a random survey months ago and this is what we got:
Q1. How often do you use the print version of the Yellow Pages?
7.69% use it regularly
23.08% once a month
15.38% once a year
53.85% never use it
Q2. How do you search for products and services you’re looking for?
92.86% use Google.com
7.14% use Yellow Pages
Respondent Quote: “I reckon the yellow pages is obsolete, why would you spend money on the yellow pages when they’ll just as easily find you on Google.”
Just like you, I believe that there’s a need for businesses to assess their promotional strategies. Using Yellow Pages was a thing of the past. Now, a lot of businesses are starting to recognize online marketing as the best way to spread the word about their business.
David, Thanks for the additional research data.
It’s amazing how many businesses still think they are getting customers from the yellow pages. Local Search (Google Maps) is the NEW source for business information. Many people have told me that they call the business phone number right from the Google Search Results Page without ever viewing the website or the Places Page.
Getting your business information on the Business Directories is the NUMBER ONE most important tool a business can use to attract new customers. And yet… only 4% have claimed their places page.
Thanks again for your comments.
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