Results Tracking

Is there still value in yellow page advertising?

It’s time to post a counter-intuitive perspective and give kudos to some smart marketers. First a congratulations to those who have stayed in the yellow pages!

Take a look at the results of a full page ad placed in the 2007 AT&T Yellow Pages.  2007 was the last year that yellow page sales reps were able to eke premium prices for their product.   That year my wife’s practice invested heavily in AT&T Yellow Pages.

AT&T Yellow page results from 2007 to 2010

Notice how the results taper after the 2007 holiday season.  This drop in phone calls is attributable to the Verizon and Yellow Book distribution at the end of the year.  More interestingly note that this particular yellow page ad has continued to generate unique phone calls for the next three years.

The volume of calls during that first year fit within the average acceptable limits.  The calls for the unpaid period of the following years more than double the ROI on this advertising investment.  And to this very day, the book is generating new calls.

This same trend continued with the 2008 AT&T Yellow pages, except that the deal was much sweeter and the rates much lower for the same space.  The 2008 book followed the same trend as the 2007 book, continuing to deliver calls.

2009 brought a substantial negotiation opportunity that reduced cost and added significant internet presence.  As  the pundits have reported, the transition to the Internet actually happened.  Except for those folks that look for a yellow page book instead of a keyboard.

These people found it easier to to make a choice when researching yellow pages.  There weren’t so many ads.  Interesting facts about these folk.  They tend to be older.  Many have good disposable income.  They tend to be loyal.  They have health insurance.  They are good quality clients for many businesses.

Fewer ads to a contrarian means less competition for the incoming eyeballs.  Less competition means a higher chance that you get the phone call.  The lower prices offset the fewer eyeballs.  Net result a higher ROI!  Bonus value for longevity of the book beyond the first year.

As we negotiate the 2010 contracts, it appears that the yellow page companies do not negotiate from a perceived position of strength.  Many ad buyers think the value is gone.  In reality, their rates have dropped so significantly and the competition within the books has decreased by such a large amount that the yellow pages have become quite a bargain in many categories.  Florists for example, have lost most local advertisers, leaving a spectacular tactical marketing void.  Further the need for the phone books to satisfy their wall street investors with revenue numbers has them offering significant web visibility that can be converted to calls, inquiries, sales or leads.

Looking at the Yellowpages.com results you’ll note about 160 phone calls.  This is in addition to a boatload of website hits directly from the banner ad.  Cost per call is about $15.00.  This averages down with whatever conversion we had on the website from their traffic.

AT&T yellowpages.com tracked telephone calls

I can’t say this is true for all of the yellow page internet projects.  Verizon’s (IDEARC) early results were shameful.   Perhaps it was because their model lacked a smart local ad-serving process. Further their sales team insisted on using the time tested routine of presenting generously inflated numbers.  These numbers conflicted significantly with analytics.

A solid web strategy is important and will continue to grow in importance.   Marketers should not fail to be analytical in their approach to spending dollars.  As the acquisition cost on the internet increases, other media will inevitably become more attractive.  Clearly yellow pages have been hit very hard, resulting in a grand opportunity to cheaply gather the significant book of business left behind in the internet rush.

A question for the pundits?  How long will the yellow pages keep publishing?  For sure the last book will be the book that will have the longest shelf life and biggest return.

The Trend to focus more advertising resources on the internet is having an effect on the amount of dollars available for Yellow page advertising. As businesses see more of their customers relying on Google for ‘research’ to find the best chiropractor or best dentist or best price, they are spending more energy attempting to capture those searches. As a result dollars are being driven from traditional media sources into what the old guard calls “new Media”. Research shows as much as a 50% drop in yellow page advertising.

For example, look at the number of pages of advertising for the category Chiropractor in the AT&T yellow page directory for Lancaster and Palmdale.   In the July 2007 directory AT&T sold 6 pages of advertising and 4 specialty items.   In the July 2008 directory they sold 3 pages of advertising and 2 specialty items.  This represents a 50 percent drop in sold space.

The move away from yellow page advertising is premature.  Compare the results from a full page ad in  July 2007 and July 2008:

Results provided by resultstracking.com.

As you will note, the 2008 AT&T directory is generating a 20% increase in results.

Consider this:  Less pages of advertising creates a stronger opportunity for your advertising to be seen.  More importantly, it is a powerful opportunity for you to design an ad that will stand out against a smaller field of competitors. As a result, well designed advertising will generate a much higher return than in previous years.

Yellow pages are still heavily used by the older population. This market is the heaviest user of healthcare services. They are also the best insured (thanks to Medicare). This market also has large numbers of Empty Nesters with large disposable income.

Perhaps most interesting is the negotiation opportunity that exists with the yellow pages. As demand for yellow page advertising wanes, the negotiation opportunity increases!  While some will think that negotiation means fighting for a better price, I’ll suggest that the cost of printing and distribution has gone up.  A better negotiation strategy is to dominate the medium with both large and small ads in the same section (more about the power of this in an upcoming article).

As more advertisers use emotions to guide their advertising choices, they will mistakenly continue to abandon yellow pages. The tactical marketer will use this window of opportunity to capture a larger share of the local leads generated by the yellow pages.

Getting the most for your advertising dollar is a challenge that most businesses face up to at some time or another.

The typical approach is to track the results ( a good reason to use Resultstracking.com). Change the content of the ads, and see if it changes the results. Other simple and logical steps are to change the size of the ads or change the media.

Tracking is not always easy, but technology certainly helps. Over the last few years we have tracked thousands and thousands of calls. We not only tracked the source, we tracked what happened when the call was made. We actually listened to the call.

We have tracked the marketing of Dr. Frye’s Chiropractic Office ( a top rated Southern California Chiropractic Office) and watched how they tested yellow pages. We have tracked the clients of NearMe Networks (Chiropractors like Dr. Jeffrey Garafalo in Bolingbrook and Dr. Michael Gabrielson in Pleasanton who use the internet to reach new patients). We have even tracked flower shops.

So want is the easiest, fastest and cheapest way to increase your ROI?

Believe it or not it is answer the phone. Answer the phone during off hours. Early morning, late afternoon and even weekends. Most people who work for a living work during office hours. Their availability to call is during lunch or after hours.

Simply look at the results of the phone calls to Dr. Michael Dorausch. You will see the number of phone calls on weekends and after hours.

How hard is it to answer the phone. It’s easy. Get a cell phone, give it to your staff. Pay them a few bucks or give them a bonus for every contact.

ResultsTracking.com was created to help small businesses understand the value, or usefulness, of their advertising. One of the most powerful benefits of using ResultsTracking is a the ability to calculate a true Return on Investment. Because ResultstsTracking allows you to monitor calls and assign a value to the call, you can actually determine the true value of a specific media.

The tag section allows you to categorize calls. This way you can identify existing customers, wrong numbers, new customers, etc. You can also assign a rating to the call to value how well the call was handled or how strong of a prospect the caller is. The assign to allow you to track the success of different employees. Finally at some point you can assign the revenue generated by the call.

As might imagine, the power to track this sort of information can really empower your decision making process.

• Identify which media generates more leads
• Identify which media generates better quality customers
• Identify which staff are better suited to handling telephone calls

Most importantly, for the first time ever, you can truly track how much revenue your advertising dollar generate

As we listen to calls across the country, we find that more and more people are using the nearest and easiest tool to find people and businesses. If a computer is closer than a phone book people use the computer. This trend has been visible for quite a while in larger more technologically oriented communities. However the trend is catching in smaller communities. An example we came across today illuminates how the need for expediency is over-riding the comfort of traditional behaviour.

In this case, a chiropractor uses resultstracking.com to track the amount of response he gets from his internet marketing efforts. The raw data of number of calls, length of call, repeat or unique calls is all very interesting and valuable from a local perspective. The qualitative data of the content of the calls is what can help reveal trends.

This particular caller happened to be a small town medical doctor, who had a patient in crisis. He needed assistance from the patient’s chiropractor in helping diagnose the condition. Instead of turning to the phone book, he turned to the internet and looked for the chiropractor on the internet. What makes this interesting is that the medical doctor probably not only knew the chiropractor, but also had the chiropractors number available in a variety of places in his office. For sure it was in the phone book.

How Results Tracking helps a Chiropractic Office in Lancaster California increase the results from their advertising…

Small business faces the challenge of not having the resources of a large marketing department to test and continually track their efforts. Most advertisers can’t tell if one ad works better than another let alone if a particular media is returning a decent return of investment. We’re going to look at how a very highly regarded Chiropractic Clinic in Lancaster, California uses Results Tracking to maximize the results of their advertising and lower their overall advertising costs.

Background: AV Spinal Care chooses to try cable television advertising to promote a special treatment that they offer utilizing a piece of equipment called a DRX9000. They choose to rotate 2 different commercials throughout the schedule. One commercial featured a male personality, the other a female. In order to test the effectiveness of the media they place ResultsTracking telephone numbers on the commercials. The ResultsTracking numbers are directly forwarded to the clinics office. In addition, they chose to further test the campaign by having a separate number for each of the commercials.

The results:

The most obvious result (by viewing the graph on the left) was that the commercials were not providing a great return. However the more interesting result was that one of the commercials generated three times the result of the other commercial.

Conclusions:

• The creative content of the ad you run makes a huge difference in the return on investment.
• By testing your creative, you can select the ads that work better.
• By cutting the weaker ads and spending more money on the stronger ads you can radically increase the profit of a campaign.

While it would be unfair to suggest that Cable TV is not a good media, it would be very fair to suggest that the creative used was not very powerful.

We will be back soon with some fresh content for our new blog.

Have a spectacular day!