Let Your Fingers Do The Walking

...and clicking.

First, a couple disclaimers here: Yes, we know the Yellow Pages have never really gone away. Just like you, we receive ours every year — they clutter the porch then plop into the recycling bin, often without ever being opened.

Second: No, we don’t want to wind back the clock. We love today’s technology, and we’re awed by the fact that in lieu of letting our fingers do the walking, we can type and click and within seconds find the businesses we’re looking for, get a synopsis of consumer reviews, and map out detailed driving directions.

But — the Yellow Pages! From a marketing perspective there are things about the Yellow Pages unmatched by anything online.

For instance, say you’re a plumber. Ask yourself, what is it you offer your customers? You might answer: fast service, free estimates, and satisfaction guaranteed. Great.

Now flip open the Yellow Pages, and see what every other plumber in the city offers. It’s a quick reality check, and a prod to get busy differentiating yourself from the competition.

Nowhere else can you get such targeted business intelligence about your local competition, their strengths and weaknesses, and what they’re saying to lure away your customers. It helps you hone your message and define your Unique Selling Proposition — that pithy description of why you and you alone should be their provider of choice.

So as long as businesses are still advertising in the Yellow Pages (and they are), so should you. And you should be using it as a resource, too.

In fact, go get it right now. It’s probably still there, waiting on your porch.

The C4:

1. The Yellow Pages — not yellowpages.com but the old fashioned annual phone directory. It’s become something between an anachronism and a punchline by now. But it still exists, businesses still advertise in it, and consumers (much fewer but still notable numbers) still consult it.
2. For local businesses, it’s an intelligence tool. Within a few conveniently alphabetical pages you can check out all your competition, and see what they’re saying they offer.
3. And that should influence what you say. To win over customers you differentiate yourself. Let your Yellow Pages perusing help you figure out what you offer that they don’t. Then let that become your Unique Selling Proposition.
4. Market accordingly. Build a marketing communications strategy around your uniqueness. Emphasize it in all your consumer-oriented messaging. And yes, that includes your ad in the Yellow Pages.