Need tips on making the most of an ad: Little. Yellow. Different.

November 23, 2007 9:40 AM

One of my friends is about to spend some big bucks in the Yellow Pages. I'm trying to help him make the most of his investment. Any tips or ideas on how to design an ad for the yellow pages to have the most impact?
posted by edmz to work & money (11 comments total)

unless your friend runs either a carpet cleaning business or another type of business that is web-site friendly, I would veer away from Yellow Page advertising. There are lots of competing books these days and unless the book has a wide reach and the publishers are practicing due diligence that their bags are being taken into the house, most phone books will end up either in the trash or in the recycling. I don't know the nature of his business, but if he's willing to throw that much money at a single ad in the big book, then he should really think about instead putting the money into a small, good direct marketing campaign aimed at the businesses he does the most work for and like companies in the area he serves. Then, create a referral discounting service based on how many customers your customers can get for his business with incentives for quality leads. That will really get the word out about his business.
posted by parmanparman at 9:47 AM on November 23, 2007 [1 favorite]

My experience with yellow page ads is that if you plan on basing your entire business off of them, they had better be the either the first or second largest add in the section. From then on out, revenue declines sharply.
posted by 517 at 9:49 AM on November 23, 2007

parmanparman,

this is ad is not for the US. Is for Mexico where, sadly, Yellow Pages are still the thing and there is a monopoly on them.
posted by edmz at 9:49 AM on November 23, 2007

Honestly, I never notice display ads, but I notice names in slightly larger font and in bold. Maybe your friend could try that, it'd be cheaper and might get the job done better than a display ad.
posted by 45moore45 at 10:01 AM on November 23, 2007

This is second hand, but you want both the full page ad on the right hand page and large bold letters where it actually shows up on the page.

You want the ad to say exactly what the person in that section is looking for, along with a prominent phone number. Look through an actual phone book for ads that catch your eye for visual examples.

Secondly, a friend who is in real estate bought a color ad on the back cover. Business boomed. Depending on the nature of your friend's business, that might be worth a considering.
posted by Pants! at 10:20 AM on November 23, 2007

I always avoid the ads with the obvious and cliche claims ("you've tried the rest, now try the best!", etc.). I also avoid the crap clip art ones because, well, just cause you are a dry cleaner doesn't mean I want to watch you dry clean. It just looks cheap.
I know they're all small businesses and design isn't their strong suit, but I like to think that an ad that looks like someone thought about it means someone cares about their business.
posted by kuujjuarapik at 10:21 AM on November 23, 2007

Think about where an ad could be placed, how many categories it could be in. A pizza joint might be better served with 2 ads, one under 'pizza' and one under 'restaurants'.
posted by pupdog at 11:05 AM on November 23, 2007

I always avoid the ads with the obvious and cliche claims ("you've tried the rest, now try the best!", etc.). I also avoid the crap clip art ones because, well, just cause you are a dry cleaner doesn't mean I want to watch you dry clean. It just looks cheap.

While these observations may be correct, I would caution edmz's friend NOT to make design decisions based upon what he, or a Metafilter commenter, thinks is tasteful or non-tacky. What works in a Yellow Pages ad is extremely counterintuitive to intelligent, thoughtful people; a tasteful ad is likely to bring in MUCH less business than a loud, garish, Crazy Eddie-type ad or typical, tackily-designed carpet warehouse ad. Those loud, obnoxious ads are not that way because they were designed by someone ignorant --- they were designed that way because they work. The tackiness is actually based on state-of-the-art research. For every Metafilter-commenter who is turned off by your tacky ad, there are a hundred morons who would be turned off by a tasteful ad.

(Thinking that a tasteful ad would be more successful than a tacky ad was a mistake that cost me $18,000.)
posted by jayder at 11:09 AM on November 23, 2007 [2 favorites]

if your friend is a professional who is listed in the yellow pages under his own name, rather than a business name, he can call the phone company and tweak the order of the words in his name to advance it earlier in alphabetical order, giving him more prominence relative to the competition. for an extreme example in the american model, for say, lawyers:

zymurgy, aaron (fuhgeddaboudit)

aaron zymurgy (this is a go).

make absolutely sure this tweak doesn't extend to the white pages, otherwise your friend will be basically invisible for a year.
posted by bruce at 11:56 AM on November 23, 2007

Telephone number in the left hand corner, a smiling female face of some sort below, hours and the fact that the prices are fair in the right side, the name should be front and center along with a tag line. Analysis of the competition is smart, see if anything strikes you and use it. Repeat the telephone number along the lower portion of the ad. Make sure that you state that you can call at any time and set up a method to capture after hours calls.

I suggest you offer a discount for people calling from the yellow pages ad- this way you can track your response rate. You want do something to motivate them to use you over the competing ads- coupons help. The yellow pages is a tough nut to crack. People will usually open it when they have an emergency. You want to convince them that this is your specialty and state this fact

Incidentally, what is your friend trying to sell?
posted by bkeene12 at 8:35 PM on November 23, 2007

They still make the Yellow Pages? Weird.
posted by Afroblanco at 12:11 PM on November 24, 2007