Wasn't the Internet supposed to kill all these guys? I've long thought so, but so far, that just ain’t happening – as of the spring of 2011 the Yellow Pages™ and Yellow Book™ are still delivering calls to my heating & air conditioning business!
I know this because we measure it. We ask each new customer “Where did you go for our number today?” and our system emails a weekly report of how many we added:
10 new customers added last week (2 commercial, 8 residential): ===================== Commercial customers: ===================== ABC Company (18371) Created: 03/15/11 12:32 PM Source: phone book XYZ Company (18361) Created: 03/14/11 01:48 PM Source: (one of our customers) ====================== Residential customers: ====================== Last, First (18421) Created: 03/18/11 11:58 AM Source: (one of our employees) Last, First (18411) Created: 03/18/11 10:19 AM Source: Yellow pages Last, First (18401) Created: 03/16/11 04:44 PM Source: Yellow Pages Last, First (18391) Created: 03/16/11 10:38 AM Source: Yellow Pages Last, First (18381) Created: 03/15/11 03:22 PM Source: phone book Last, First (18351) Created: 03/14/11 01:24 PM Source: Angies List Last, First (18341) Created: 03/14/11 12:44 PM Source: Yellow Pages Last, First (18331) Created: 03/14/11 11:01 AM Source: yellow pages
For those of you who are wondering, 70% isn't typical. The 4 weeks before it was 2 out of 16, 7 out of 17, 1 out of 10, and 4 out of 12. But overall these are more than I thought they’d be.
We can’t measure this perfectly; sometimes one of these new customers calls us because of a combination of things – our trucks, billboards, referrals, direct mail, etc. Even if they remember us and only use the phone book to look us up, they might not keep looking if we weren’t there. If they say they saw us there, and we can track enough calls to our dedicated numbers, we know we're getting a return for our ad dollars.
Even though I consider myself a pretty high-tech guy, these and other measurements have caused me to not give up on “old school” advertising until I’ve got the data to justify it.
I’m often surprised as I consult with people and small businesses at how many still use some of these older, yet well established methods of finding companies. The best news about tracking your different avenues of marketing and sales is learning what works and what doesn’t. I’ve followed a system taught to me called “the stoplight analysis” that encourages all business owners to regularly review their methods of sales/marketing to ensure the money is well spent. If not, put a red-light on it and stop using it. If it’s questionable, put a yellow light on it and watch it carefully, etc. At least you know the Yellow pages is working!