Do you advertise in old world directories?

[Czar]

Most of us have a love affair with leading web directories, but offline equivalents are still performing well in relation to a number of business types (including trades, financial advice, real estate, sporting clubs, health and beauty, restaurants, etc).

YellowPages directories and their equivalents are still delivered to registered residential and business addresses in a number of countries on a yearly basis. These directories may be on the wane somewhat since the advent of the internet and locally-oriented search services, but they sure don't seem to be lacking too dramatically in regards to advertiser interest.

Do any of you currently maintain a display advertisement in your local paper-based directory?

If so, for what business type? Also, has this performed well for you? If not, why not?

To start things off, iOnline does advertise in the YellowPages, but we've taken a conservative middle ground and purchased a very small display ad. While the paper-based directories certainly suit location-dependent business types to a tee, I fail to see the medium as any more effective than paid search engine placement as far as our business is concerned. I could be (and hopefully am) pleasantly mistaken once this year's directory is released, but I'm not confident that this will be the case.

Your turn...

[hostNpost]

Print advertising is great, but it is next to impossible to get the same reach at any comparable price

[MoverDI]

Web directory is still great, but it must be the NICHE or specific web directory only. There are a lot of niche directories which can drive traffic to you.

For instance, health directory can be divided into many niche directories such as beauty directory, fitness directory, yoga directory, conditions and diseases directory, alternative medicine directory, and much more.

The niche directories will help you get those niche customers from your target markets.

[Alex|Canep Media]

For the type of audience that I am targeting with advertising, a successful ROI is impossible with YellowPages advertising. With that said, every time I order a pizza, or lookup a restaurant to eat at, I look in a Yellow Pages.

The old style directories may have lost some muscle due to the internet, but they are far from being weak. I am sure that they will not be considered a dieing industry for many years to come.

[notforsale]

It all depends on what sort of business you run. Local, is the key word. Physical is another! If you have a shop or any local business (Plumber, Hairdresser, etc...) you'd be mad if you didn't have a local directory listing.

There are hundreds of online directories for every sort of business, choose with care, which one you go for.

If I had a Bed and Breakfast business, I think I'd just go for online! It really is "horses for courses"

[Czar]

Very true.

While my original post was made in 2005, our strategy since has been to increase YellowPages exposure for our web design/development business and to eliminate it altogether for our video production business.

We found that while consumers still use the Yellow directories, they're used far less frequently for business-to-business transactions these days. That may not be the case in every market, but we found that our video production ad was the least effective of all offline advertising that we did last year; despite looking and feeling similar to ads that were successful elsewhere.

For the web design market, we still target startup customers and the micro business market to some degree and have found that people in that group do tend to call us after seeing our Yellow ad. It still doesn't attract the bigger businesses.

[wulaishiwo]

I've not advertise a long time

[atop420]

I think that YellowPages directories are cost more.