Many of you don’t do Yellow Page advertising anymore, but for those of you that do, here’s what I suggest.

When someone is looking in the yellow pages, they are actually ready to buy, so your ad has got to jump out at them, and then have them contact you instead of all of the other so-so ads that are listed.

I often hear many business owners grumble about the high cost of Yellow Pages advertising, but those who insist it costs them anything are simply foolish.

For 70% to 80% of all business, you have to work at Not making a profit from Yellow Pages advertising. In most of the businesses I created, Yellow Page advertising wasn’t useful. But for the others it was a Gold Mine. For most businesses, Yellow Pages Advertising will work.

The reasons many Yellow Pages ads do not pay off for their advertisers are very simple and common. All you have to do is look and you will know what I mean. They can be summed up as not having a direct response ad at all.

-They don’t have a headline to grab the reader
-There aren’t any reasons to choose you verses the other advertisers.
-No offer
-They look just like all the rest of them.

Here’s just one example

FREE Special Report Reveals What the Real Estate Industry Never Tells you About.
“How you can get top dollars When Selling Your Home in Today’s Slow Market!”

Call 1-800, 000-0000 Extension 11 for Free Special Report and Recorded Message.

It will jump out at the person looking for your specific product. If you do advertise in the Yellow Pages, change it to the above and let us know the results you get.

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Probably 99.9 times out of 100 prospects, will not spend the time to read your unsolicited ad or direct mail piece.

The reason is that you are “interrupting their lives.” The simple act of having an ad or sales letter before a prospect will bring them to the proverbial “fork in the Road” and forces them to make a decision to either read on or not read your message.

Every time their eye moves from one word to the next, from one sentence to the next sentence, from one paragraph to the next, they reach yet another fork in the road. Now they have to decide whether they are going to keep reading the ad or not.

What makes your prospect make the wrong decision and drop your ad into the nearest trash bin?

Unsuitability: Your prospect already has what you are offering and quickly decides your product is of no interest to them.

Boredom: Most of the time ads are very boring so they stop reading it.

Disbelief: Your claims are too exaggerated or even dishonest and they figure that they can’t trust anything you say. So always tell the truth.

Exhaustion: Your ad is so difficult to read and impossible to follow, that they simply give up on reading any more.

Interruption: This is probably the number one reason a prospect stops reading your offer. Something just happened to take their attention away from reading. They now will deal with the immediate crisis instead of continuing to read your offer.

I’m sure you can come up with more items but this should give you a start. Let us know why you stop reading an ad or sales piece.

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It never fails to astound me that when I’m looking through a magazine or newspaper and reading the ads, that not only do they all look alike and are boring, but almost none of them ask for a response.

Go grab a magazine right now and look through the display ads.  You’ll see ads saying things like: “Open an account”; “Apply now”; “Get started”.  But there is no direct-response mechanism.

Most of the ads are just institutional ones that just tout the company and end with the telephone number, the website address, or the name of the company.  They are not direct-response ads that encourage the reader to contact the company to get something the reader wants and by which the company can create a lead or customer.

The ads merely talk about how great the company is. The ad designer then hopes that the ad copy and images are so great that people hop on the phone, or whatever, and contact the company.

If your prospect sets your ad or sales letter aside to “deal with it later”, you have probably lost them as a customer.  What I suggest is that you should do everything you can think of to induce and create an immediate response from them.

First, make sure that you offer a free report, a free sample, a free service or whatever with each ad you create.

Then along with that, include deadlines of some sort to make the reader think twice about not acting NOW.  Here are some examples:

1. Penalty pricing.  Let them know that the prices will go up on a certain date.

2. Have your offer expire by a certain date.

3. Have a “Mystery Bonus” if they respond within the next 24 hours.

4. Let them know there is a limited supply and that you may run out.  Even if you do not have a limited supply, you can create an illusion that there is.  You can say, “We will return your check uncashed if we run out of the item.”  This suggests that there is a limited supply without you even saying there is.

I’m sure you get the idea.  The first thing I’d like you to do is to get out your ads and promotions. Review them with the thought of what you can add that will motivate the prospect to immediately respond. 

Let me know what you come up with. 

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A couple months ago, I needed to replace a window that broke during a windstorm.  I saw an ad in the local newspaper.  I noticed it offered a free report, so I decided to contact them instead of going into the yellow pages.

I got the report and frankly it was well written and informational.  I was looking forward to doing business with them.  I waited two weeks and left a message.  Nothing! No follow up.  Almost four weeks went by and still nothing.

Unbelievable!  How is this possible?

Someone sent me a report, so the company had my contact information.  Yet no one followed up.  Even when a prospective customer called 2 weeks later, no one responded.

I can’t understand why a company would invest whatever amount of money they spent for that ad, only to let prospects fall through the cracks. 

Following-up is one of the most important things I stress to any business I consult with.  When you promise something you have to follow up to make sure it was done.

When someone raises their hand and identifies themselves as having an interest in doing business with your company, it is just plain dumb to make only one attempt at selling to that person.

Since very few businesses do a decent job with follow-up, your competitive edge is huge when you do it.

Examine your follow up process and make sure leads and prospects are not falling through the cracks.

Let me know what you think.

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