Articles & News About ISP's And The Internet

Media, the Internet, Yellow Pages, and Your Business

If you are reading this article, chances are you could use a little extra money. With the advent of the internet and the migration of advertising dollars from print to electronic (and this time, it's the real thing, I swear! Not one of those 1999 tech busts!...Seriously!) If you own a small business today, you look at many advertising mediums. The majority of these mediums lump themselves into 2 categories, creative or direct.

Creative has always been the crapshoot for the small business owner. A sales rep walks into your business, espousing the greater good of television or radio advertising, quickly moves past the ratings, viewers etc and into the sexiness of hearing your name at 6:57am Monday, Thursday and Saturday if you are watching station X or listening to station Y. If this product didn't work, a Super Bowl commercial price tag wouldn't make headlines every December (for how much Geico paid) or late February (to hear which is most memorable). The key with creative is frequency. If you have realistic budget for frequency, you can make the phone ring with a creative campaign. If you have that budget you probably aren't reading this article. Realistically speaking, you don't have a ton of money to risk on creative advertising effectiveness, haven't backed it up with a call to action, and you need, pound for pound, the least amount of advertising money possible, with the most phone calls...

Enter direct advertising. Classified sections in newspapers, they make your phone ring, if you're selling something people want. (For the record, advertising in the sports section of your local paper is creative advertising (people don't go to page 5 of the sports to regularly check out the latest prices on used cars.) Classified advertising is in the process of going from the newspaper industry's cash cow to taking it on the chin from EBay (ever heard of it?) and even more attractive small town slugger, Craigslist (you go Craig!). If you're business pumps out used cars by the pound, chances are you, or your salesmen are using these two websites to start realizing savings from Rupert Murdoch and his yacht-owning cronies. Even the best of EBay or Craigslist, however, doesn't put much of a dent in your P&L statement if you are service based like a contractor, or general retail, like a bookstore.

Enter the yellow pages... Pound for pound, no other medium makes the phone ring at your business like the good old fashioned yellow pages. Throw down your money, and answer the phone. You already know that. So do all the TV stations, radio stations, and newspapers in the country. The best protected advertising budget in any small business is the yellow page budget. Yellow pages are the scourge of the other guys. How many radio sales reps will walk into your store after you started your advertising campaign and say, "Tom, your $1,000 invested with my station this week got you 48 phone calls?" (If you find a station like that please send me the phone number, and I retract everything I said earlier) When someone wants a plumber, a pool boy, a new pool, or a divorce attorney for getting the new pool without his wife's approval, they pick up the weathered old yellow pages, leaf through a few adverts, and call someone that sells what they need.

So, am I telling you to advertise in the yellow pages?,,, Not so fast Skippy... First, let's look at the cost of the yellow pages,... You want the phone to ring in Miami, and you're a plumber? Better be ready to pony up some serious cash... say $3-4k per month. In Miami, the average cost of a service call could be around $65. If you don't have a crew, that ad needs to generate 61 calls to break even, not including the employee cost, travel costs etc. Not so bad? How many calls did you need to generate those 61 service calls? Did you go see everyone that called you? I would guess, for a contractor, you might get lucky and have a 50% close rate... 122 calls... to break even. Don't forget to pay yourself... 200 calls. Depressed? Better be glad you don't sell shoes. The same ad would generate a much lower close rate, and you need to sell an dump truck of shoes every month!

What's my point? Enter the ELECTRONIC yellow pages... No print bill, real time changes, and guess where all those print yellow pages are putting their money these days? BellSouth and SBC just paid $100M (you know, $100,000,000) for a new domain name, and combined their "competing" forces to make a better entry in the fray, thinking that you might remember yellowpages.com better than smartpages.com or realpages.com. (Makes you wonder where Google fits into the old branding and name recognition game.) Verizon seemed to get the concept a little better with superpages.com by aligning with Mr. Gates over at MSN right around the time Al Gore was inventing the internet. Getting back to the point, the internet yellow pages are going to do to print yellow pages what EBay and Craigslist have done to the newspaper companies. No paper, no ink, usage climbing (for electronic yellow pages, usage is climbing to as high as 70% of online searching, and buying) and real-time, do-it-yourself advertising. Advents such as community ranking, mini-sites, toolbars, pay per click, pay per call, and just about every way possible to pay for performance, track performance, and see what other buyers of your goods or services thought of your business. Due to the ever changing, "who's in first place" of the internet, there has yet to be determined if there is a Lance Armstrong in this race. Our own company USdirectory.com, via its partnerships, and investment into technology, is looking to become a late entry, blue-ribbon bearer. At this point, it's too early to clearly point out which one, or all, or none, of these companies will do to yellow pages what Google did to global search. That being said, even Google doesn't reflect enough tenure to ensure its own top position.

Who wins?? You do, the business owner. Technology is about to reduce your advertising budget the way Southwest and JetBlue changed the airline industry. Your customer base, as they migrate to the internet as vehicle of choice, will reach you at lower price points, and in greater volume, then ever before. Your mission, should you choose to accept, in investing in the right mix, at the right point, and try to cater not only to your existing radius of business, but around the planet with new and specialized niches... but that's another story.

Skip Middleton
Boca Raton, FL USA
USdirectory.com
Search. Find. Buy.

Other Article Sites

findabook.com  moneycd.info  a-mortgage.info   about-lemon-laws.info  aboutstudentloans.info
all-about-publishing.info  auctions-articles.info  bestcollege-university.com  bestispconnection.com
biblefolder.com  blogger-website.com  books-used.info  brokers-guide.info  buywindows.info  cable-dsl.info
career-miner.com  carpel-tunnel.info  cashinaflash.info  cashloanreviews.info  casinobell.com  chat-house.info
clearmycredit.info  collegeloantips.info  crones.info  depression-articles.info   dirnic.net  dishguides.info
divers-below.com  expodog.info   financewizz.com  fire-insurance.info  getgood.info  handleit.net   it-idea.info
health-supplies.info  hosting-right.com  insidealert.com  insurance-facts.info  jobs-employment.info
justgood.info  lookgold.net   lowcost-travel.info  money-source.info  myhostzone.info  numisblog.com
peoplesearchfinder.info  pr-articles.info  realeas.com   refinancing-guides.info  spyware-remove.info
telelot.info  the-law.info   toppaid.info  travel-deals.info  travelcorrect.com  wedding-guide-site.com
your-blog.info  your-credit.info

Online Sportsbook Review and Sports Betting Site Announces New Review
CasinoReview.org (http://wwww.casinoreview.org), a well-known online sportsbook review and sports betting site, announces review of BetUS.com.

Web Hosting Options
Here are some web hosting options to consider. There are advantages to each option.

Capable Networks Launches Three New Consumer Electronics Online Communities for NETGEAR, Monster Cable, and SanDisk Products
Capable Networks, which owns and operates online communities in the consumer electronics space, has launched three new online user communities - MonsterCommunity.com, SansaCommunity.com, and MyDigitalEntertainer.com. Capable Networks now operates eight consumer electronics online communities and their prominent clients include Netgear, Monster Cable, Sling Media, and WowWee.

Make Money Online ? Scripts And Their Potential
Making money online is not so easy if you just run aimlessly and grab the things that you never wanted to piling up the garbage you never wanted to. Be smart and even better act smart. Grab some better opportunities and implement them.

Build A MultiMillion Dollar Empire in Internet Marketing By Becoming A Marketer
Many entrepreneurs who struggle to make their company the absolute best in its field can be prone to failure if they do not possess a marketing potential within them. 10 year Internet Marketing veteran, Matt Bacak has created the "seven golden keys to success" strategy that will allow new entrepreneurs to harness their marketing ability so they can work towards creating their business into a multimillion dollar empire.

'Dave's Cool Little Website' Makes Waves in the Internet Community
Tim Knox of dropshipwholesale.net and Daves Purves use the top affiliate programs to create a very unique little website. Tim's star programmer, Dave Purves was the one to create the website he calls "Dave's Cool Little Website".

Online Business Success - Give It To Me Short And Sweet
When an EMT is bringing a dying patient into the Emergency Room, the doctor that meets him might say "Give me the bullet". A euphemism for "we don't have time for small talk or a lot of questions, tell me everything I need to know and be quick about it".

3 Great Reasons to Shop for Home Lighting Online
If you are a consumer who knows just what brand or style of lighting fixtures you are looking to buy, the internet can save you money. Conversely, if you are just learning about what lighting fixtures, interior and exterior, are available for your home, the internet is a great place to get educated.

Paid Survey 24 Celebrates One Year Online
Paid Survey 24 celebrates one year online with new content, big updates and an email newsletter subscriber contest to win $50.

Compare Life Cover Online
Many people are under the assumption that life cover is taken out to pay just for funeral costs While of course your life insurance could come in handy to pay for the funeral it is also taken out for many more reasons

Online Skateboard Gear Shop Started By Eleven Year Old
The son of a skateboarder, Spencer Semien was on a skateboard himself by the time he was three years old."All of a sudden, skateboarding became his passion," says his mother, Marla Sneed.

First Steps On The Internet - Hints And Tips
I have spent the last weekend researching and reading around internet marketingCall me sad

Internet Dating Tips for Beginners
There are lots of Internet dating sites available. Some are completely free and others are payable sites.

There Is Many Advantages With An Internet Business
Working at home on your internet business is very gratifying. You are now the captain of your ship.