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New England Online is made up of ex-phone book guys that can no longer, in good conscious, sell phone books. We are now full-time Internet Marketers.
We know business owners that spend $12,000 for a double full page in a large phone book, but could spends $2,000 on Internet Marketing and receive just as much business, if not more. As seasoned marketers , of course, we would never say to stop using any form of advertising that works, but below is some interesting commentary on phone book usage.
Financial performance of some of the top YP companies has suffered over the past couple of years. This doesn’t necessarily have a direct correlation, since advertiser revenue doesn’t automatically sync with brand-name recognition. and economic recession could also explain poor performance.
Utah Yellow Pages firm accused of distribution fraud. Ziplocal doesn’t dispute numbers but says contract gave it the right to make cuts? Really? Really?
But ad dollars will follow audience numbers, and some of the top YP companies are themselves predicting ongoing losses of revenue over time from their print side. Supermedia’s recently-published 2009 financial resultsnot only outlined a number of reasons for revenue decline, but also listed “…declining use of print yellow pages directories…” as one ongoing risk.
And Joe Walsh, YellowBook’s CEO, was asked in this recent Fox Business News interview if there would still be a physical YP book in five years, and he answered: “Yes, not in every market, though. I think that some of coastal markets may be migrating away from print in that period of time.”BIA/Kelsey also predicts a decline in spending on traditional media, including print YP, and a continuing migration of ad dollars to digital media.