It’s time to break up with your phonebook.
Seriously, if you don’t spend time together, I think you should probably dump it…in the garbage. Okay, that might be a bit excessive, but it is time to take a look at phonebook advertising.
When’s the last time you cracked open a phone book and spent time perusing it for a phone number or address? Been a few years? Bet most kids don’t even know how to use a phonebook anymore.
Most people are using the Internet…and the really tech-savvy ones are using the Internet through their phones…in other words, I don’t throw a phonebook in my purse before I walk out the door, and 90% of the time I need a phone number, I’m on the run. I suppose you could keep one in your car. It could come in handy if you need a tow truck or maybe you could use it to ward off an attack…but you probably don’t use it often, if ever, to find a phone number.
So this begs the question: WHY is anyone spending money marketing in them? Who is going to see those ads? Need car repairs done—where will you look first, for the company who paid the most for the biggest ad in your phonebook, or the company online with the best reviews from people who have actually used their services? I’ve heard tales (horror stories, in my opinion) of companies who spend thousands each month to have the biggest, most well placed, strategic ad in the local phonebooks. What’s the point if no one is opening them; isn’t that kind of like flushing money right down the drain?
By now, you’ve probably heard the term, “Go where the people are,” and that’s true for this, too. If you aren’t using a phonebook to find information—you are not an anomaly. There are many struggling phonebook companies right now because people are pulling advertising money and going “where the people are.” I heard a statistic about a company cutting their phonebook printing by 99% and that they distribute them by request only now. (I don’t think this is true for all, at this time.) Fox News (http://liveshots.blogs.foxnews.com/2010/02/04/green-legislation-targets-white-pages/) did a blog last week about how phonebooks aren’t green, (which is not what I am debating) and mentioned that there are many “green requests” to distribute phonebooks by request only. Would you pick up the phone, call and request one? I wouldn’t.
If you want to spend marketing dollars—go where the people are. The people are on the Web. Get found online by search engines and you will get found by the people looking for what you offer or services you provide. Spend your advertising budget somewhere where you can truly advertise who you are and what you have to offer. And the best part about this? It’s MEASURABLE! You KNOW how many people find you, what steps they take, and what you are being found for, which are all things a phonebook can’t tell you.
Not to say no one EVER uses a phonebook, because it’s true, there are people who do still use them, and see it as a valuable tool. (The best argument FOR phonebooks, in my opinion, is “what if the Internet goes away? A note to that: It won’t…and if it does evolve into something better that we no longer call the Internet, I think phonebooks will already have been used as kindling to keep you warm long before then) I think you could argue an industry-specific case for phonebooks being valuable…to a select few. So target the mass millions and market online!
Don’t think of it as cheating, but in the Internet era, it’s time to move on!
