Content Marketing Today

Let Your Customers Do the Walking to Your Website

How You Can Gain from Yellow Pages Likely Disappearance.

In January 2008, I wrote two stories about the Yellow Pages which some readers probably thought to be alarmist.  Now, the Wall Street Journal appears to agree with my drastic prediction.

In the first of those January articles, I suggested that advertisers should be rethinking their Yellow Pages strategy based on the results of an informal research study I had conducted: Is It Time to Abandon Your Yellow Pages Advertising? In the second, I reported the results of a test Idid comparing the Yellow Pages search in print and online with a Google search.  The Yellow Pages lost in both cases: Real World Experiment Explains Impending Demise of Yellow Pages.

The November 17, 2008 Wall Street Journal article kicks off with a headline just as brutal as anything I might have written: Extinction Threatens Yellow-Pages Publishers.

In supporting its headline, the Journal states:

Print and online ad spending on yellow pages will plummet 6.3% next year, more than double the rate of decline expected for broadcast TV, according to forecasts by Wachovia analyst John Janedis. Within the next four years, ad spending will fall 39% in print directories alone — the steepest projected decline across all local-media categories, according to media-research firm Borrell Associates.

If we can assume that the stock market is a reliable future forecaster, the fact that the two largest directory publishers, R.H. Donnelley and Idearc have fallen 99% in the past year according to the Journal does not bode well.

Interestingly, in the Journal article one savvy White Pages publisher acknowledges the importance of Google and of a customer’s website as the cornerstone of successful marketing for small to medium-sized businesses:

In a last-ditch attempt to succeed online, some publishers have struck ad-sale partnerships with Internet companies like Google. White Directory Publishers, which publishes directories in 90 small to medium-size markets, says it is often more effective for small businesses to have a presence on Google than on a directory Web site. But many small- to medium-size businesses don’t have the expertise or time to create effective Web sites or buy and track search ads, so White Directory is offering to do it for them.

You know it’s time to have a compelling website when directory publishers concede as much

Whatever the size of your business, you are unlikely to be able to rely on Yellow Pages advertising–either in print or online–as a reliable source of sales leads.  Instead, you will need to create a strong web presence that tells your prospective customers everything they note need to know about why your products and services will solve their most pressing problems.  That’s the essence of content marketing.  And, if we and the Wall Street Journal are correct, an effective content marketing strategy is more vital than ever before.