The Marketing Moment, Volume 6

We are up to 5 in our common mistakes that advertisers make. This one will upset some folks, I will be gentle. To recap our first 4 mistakes:

1. Advertising without a goal or objective.
2. Having a small "presence" in a number of different mediums.
3. Placing ads instead of a campaign.
4. Treating mediums as a commodity.

The number 5 mistake is listed below:

Trying to build a business with Yellow Pages. The yellow pages is a directory. When people have made their decision, they may go to the yellow pages to get a number - so the yellow pages might be the last thing they saw before coming to your business, and when asked, the customer mentions that they saw you in the yellow pages. But no one has ever built their business with yellow pages.

I am proud of the fact that I have worked in radio for nearly 30 years. I am proud of the work that the stations have done and I continue to be blessed to work with true professionals. When I decided to do this blog, my intention was to talk about all types of advertising and not down play everything but radio. You might read this blog and question that statement.

People are wasting money in Yellow Pages. There is nothing pro-active about yellow pages, it is a directory. Once the decision is made, people will look in the yellow pages and find your number. By the way, they will also find all your competitors numbers. Since you are listed with your competitors, your yellow page rep will tell you that you need to have a bigger ad to get noticed.

Additionally, they will push you to add some color, bold listings, pictures, etc. By the way, do you know that the only way most yellow page reps earn commission is selling you more this year than last year? That puts the rep in the position not to worry about what you need, but what they need.

Taking that same money and investing in a proactive medium, like internet, billboard, newspaper, radio (at least I put it last) you can gain share of mind with your prospects; something that yellow pages will never provide for you.

If you still feel like you must be in the yellow pages, please think about reducing your ad size greatly. Good Luck.