Some people dont understand the concept of YP. Local, Local, and Local!
It will never die..... just re-invent itself.
Take a look at the company I work for: Superpages/Verizon Yellow Pages
Last week we signed an agreement with Yahoo, which is very similiar to the Google/AOL agreement. Print yellow pages will become more of a resource and less of a starting point for purchase decisions. Yet IYP has grown rapidly. Same concept as the newspaper industry. As the print yellow page business ads new content and ways of drawing in consumer usage it will sustain its business for the next 10 years. After that due to changes in web and pc technology who knows what will happen. Yet online directories take the same old YP concept and add more information to assist buyers in researching a service and local companies to do business with.
Competition, price gimmicks and games, and non-reputable sales reps and publishers is the one thing that can make this advertising segment lose its customer base. Lack of value is not the whale killer here.
Trust me. I should know.
www.yellowpageguru.com
Mike
edit: oh yeah straight from my site:
The biggest sin in local advertising (especially Yellow Pages or local online advertising) is using your company's name as the headline for your ad.
Well . . . that's not exactly the biggest sin.
The biggest sin is not paying your advertising bill.
The second biggest sin is using your company name as the headline for your ad.
See, there's only one acceptable goal for the headline of your ad.
That is to get the reader to read the second line of your ad.
So when you're designing an ad, ask yourself this . . .
Will this headline compel, really compel someone to read the second line of my ad?
Don't look in the Yellow Pages for great examples, because they are usually filled with "me, me, me" ads.
Make your ad a "you, you, you" ad, and you'll smoke your competition.
