pure insanITy

The fate of Yellow Pages (the book)

My Yellow Pages account manager is desperately trying to convince me to keep my advertising in the book, but for an IT company operating in 2010, is spending money on a paper based medium the best “investment”.

Is the life of “the big yellow book” over?

Think about the way you look for businesses these days. Me, I google. If I can’t find what I’m looking for that way the maybe I’ll turn to Yellow Pages Online.

The only reason I pick up the book these days is to look at my advertising and compare it with my competitors.

I’m not saying the entire world has put the book down, but we live in a digital age, where we are never really more than a few inches away from a computer - I say this whilst posting on my iPhone.

And let’s think further, I run an IT company. We did a survey of our premium clients and asked them where they went, or where they would go, to find another IT firm.

No-one said the book.

Now I’m not sure whether my competitors have picked up on this either yet, but we’re a small firm with a very tight marketing budget.

This year the ~$10,000 we spend on the book, will be going to other marketing ventures. Ones that people do use.

Is it time you reconsidered your Yellow Pages “investment” ?