We’ve recently been contacted by Yellow Pages, the paper directory published by Yell,  about renewing our advert.  We’ve had the advert since the business started 7 years ago.  However, the way that people and businesses find information has changed a lot since then – it certainly has for us.

As a result, we started to question the benefit of advertising in a directory like Yellow Pages.  So we did a bit of research.  We asked whether anyone actually uses the paper directory.  It appears that quite a few go straight to recycling!  Our copy at GBM Towers goes into a drawer, replacing last years, and will next see the light of day when it is replaced 12 months later.

Ultimately, the assumption is that any business in the Yellow Pages will also be on Yell.  If your first port of call is a website, why would you go to the book when it is going to be easier and quicker to get the info (and links) from Yell?  Of course, the next question may be why restrict yourself to Yell when you can simply search in Google, Bing, Yahoo or whichever search engine you wish?

So why would anyone advertise in a medium that could be viewed as an anachronism?  Well, not everyone uses the internet by default.  There is a large section of society which does not use the internet, namely the elderly, but this is also changing, particularly as some retailers save their best prices for online transactions.

Many businesses use several different forms of marketing, but what may have previously worked may no longer be relevant.  Like any aspect of business, they should be measured and reviewed regularly to see how effective they are.

* although we’ve referred to Yellow Pages and Yell, the same principles apply to Thomson Local, the BT Directory and any other paper based directories.

If you advertise in a paper directory, does it work for you?

This blog first appeared on the ProTelp website in November 2011.