17 Costly Yellow Pages Advertising Traps IT Companies Can Fall Into

By Tom "Bald Dog" Varjan

  1. Understand that the power of your Yellow Pages ad is in your copy. Not your logo, address or Visa sign.
  2. Change you ad from image advertising to results-accountable direct response advertising. For a comparison you can read about the difference between image marketing and direct response marketing

  3. Specify your target market in pretty deep detail

  4. Never take advice from the Yellow Pages sales rep. They are on straight commission which means they are not on your side. For more you can read about the nasty effects of sales commissions

  5. Make sure your ad boldly stands out of the mass of the other ads like a trombonist in a heavy metal band

  6. Make your ad about the target market's problem not about your solution. People think about their own problems not about other people's solutions to those problems

  7. For your success' sake, stay away from advertising agencies. Most of them pursue their personal agendas, like winning awards for their creations, so you become a mere Guinea pig in the agency's pursuit of success

  8. Offer both website and telephone contact in your ad

  9. Automate as much of the process of handling incoming enquiries from your YP ad as possible, so you can dedicate human effort to higher margin activities

  10. Make only one single offer in your ad otherwise people get confused and run away

  11. Your offer must solve an acute problem which is hurting the reader's company right now, thus must be solved right away

  12. If you can choose between number of colours and size, choose size. Colour is a nice to have. Size is a must have

  13. Replace your company's name with a powerful headline

  14. Offer something free to solve a specific problem for a specific target market - "Attention Black Labrador Owners: 13 Ways Of Keeping Your Dog Flee-Free... Forever"

  15. Test your ad extensively before submitting it to your Yellow Pages sales rep. As the military mantra says, the more you sweat in training (test hard), the less you bleed in war (lose money)

  16. Track the results from your ad after having submitted it to your Yellow Pages sales rep

  17. Writing ad copy is writing to sell. If you don't have the skill, then hire the skill

    18. Bonus

  18. If you run multiple ads, every year eliminate the duds, and keep polishing the winners

The Yellow Pages can be a profitable media for generating quality sales leads for your IT business. All it takes is breaking away from the herd of imitators and advertise in such a way that your ad stands out like a weasel in a cardboard shirt.

And if you need some help to pull it all off, then you can check out Winning Yellow Pages Advertising For Information Technology Companies.

Attribution: "This article was written by Tom "Bald Dog" Varjan who helps privately held information technology companies to develop high leverage client acquisition systems and business development teams in order to sell their products and services to premium clients at premium fees and prices. Visit Tom's website at http://www.varjan.com.

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