This seems to be a familiar site in condo’s and office lobbies. They are delivered to the building, people walk past them everyday and nobody even bothers to open the outer wrapper, let alone take a book. Yet smart business owners are still buying ads and the industry is still making money. What don’t these business owners get? Paper products are dying and fast. And even the consumers are saying how they feel:
CoreData surveyed more than 1000 Australians in May 2009, with 58 per cent of respondents saying they would stop having the Yellow Pages delivered if they had the choice.

That’s a large percentage of people and one business owners should not ignore.
I am just not sure why these businesses just don’t get it? Are unsure of where to advertise? Newspapers are closing down around us, so their not a good option. Magazines seem to be getting thinner from lack of advertising.
What’s left? It’s the world of Internet advertising and SEO, but that is a big beast that has lots of unknowns. What is the best way to build my website? How do I market this website? How do I get the most out of Adwords? Reading in forums people are so confused about this first step, they are holding back and praying that the Yellow directory will save them.
Which is not a good business strategy!

Here is some interesting ideas for the use of Yellow directory Books

The case for the growing importance of local search to small business was nicely made by Brian Wool at The ClickZ Network (www.clickz.com). Characterizing local search as the get-no-respect, “Rodney Dangerfield of Online Marketing,” Mr. Wool notes that Internet pundits have long been calling for the demise of traditional media like local newspapers and the Yellow Pages™ who draw much of their ad revenue from local advertising.

“There’s certainly been no cliff,” he writes, referring to the presumed fate and destination of traditional print that seems headed for a fall as consumers adopt online search to find local products and services, “just steady growth online and constant decline in many traditional advertising media.” The most recent numbers from JupiterResearch, a leading technology research consulting firm, forecast that online advertising revenues will grow 20% in 2008, while traditional media advertising will falter along at 4%.

These trends show that advertisers are recognizing the growing importance of local search to consumers who are more and more using the Internet, and mobile search from Internet-capable mobile phones, to ferret out local products online.

Contrasting the quality of free local search results that consumers are getting on search engines like Yahoo! and Yellowpages.com with pay-per-call search results from traditional directory service assistance calls - and, particularly, the quality of search results he found using Google Maps on his iPhone - Mr. Wool makes a convincing case that these trends will only continue and deepen. His analysis makes it clear that local small businesses will have to come to grips with the necessity of establishing an online marketing profile and a searchable web page that their potential local customers can find online - and, perhaps more importantly, find from their iPhone.

webpronews reports that MSN has combined with Atlas AdManager to create a video ad serving platform that will enable customer websites to serve up local advertising with local content.

Online videos that are relevant to the geographic area will help build viewer loyalty.