Seven
Powerful Tips to Dominate your Yellow
Page Advertising Competition.
Yellow Page Advertising > Design
Tips >
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| Yellow Page Ad Design Tip #3 |
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Protect
your Yellow Page investment
with
professional looking, clutter-free design.
As you craft your Yellow Page design,
you are in a very real way, creating your
income for the year to come. Many businesses
rely heavily on the success of their Yellow
Page advertising campaigns.
With this in mind, it is imperative you
focus on an advertising strategy
that contains both
a sound message, and clean, professional
looking design.
Kerry Randall sums it up well in his comprehensive
book—Effective Yellow Pages
Advertising: The Complete Guide to Creating
Winning
Ads.
Randall says —
Have you noticed that some newsletters
are challenging to read, even though
you are interested in the material?
Have you ever been shopping for
wine and just by looking at the labels,
got a sense that one wine was better
than another? Have you noticed
that
at some restaurants you read the
entire menu, even though you have already
decided what to order?
This is the power of design.
Would you like your ad to grab, and
then hold, the reader's attention? Do
you want
your ad to invite readers to continue
reading? To communicate that your company
is better
able to meet readers' needs than other
advertisers? Do you want your ad to motivate
potential customers to call you?
Then select your designer carefully.
Good designers excel at doing these
things. Talented designers communicate
messages
that go beyond text—way beyond text.
A masterful designer will create a spirit,
a feeling, within the design that communicates
far, far more than words. Gifted designers
communicate in ways that ensure individual
readers actually get the messages they
want. Multiple readers get personalized
messages, with each reader seeing what
he or she wants to see!
While this is
a glowing endorsement for the design
industry in general, be aware not
all designers are created equally. There are
designers,
and then there are professional Yellow
Page designers. Designers in general know
pretty, but they don't necessarily know
Yellow Page ads.
While it's important your ad look professional,
you should always view your Yellow Page
advertising from a performance perspective.
Your goal is not to collect design
awards while your telephone
collects dust.
Powerful design is an important part of
grabbing and holding people's attention.
It is also valuable in presenting your
company as a stable, professional, business-minded
organization, and that always ads value
in the minds of potential customers.
Nobody wants to do business with some fly-by-night
company. Customers ultimately want to find
a business they are happy with so they
can continue to use them. That's good for
you, and good for them.
Once you have a clean, professional looking
design you're happy with, it's also a whole
lot easier to justify your exorbitant Yellow
Page advertising budget. Especially
when your phone is ringing
off the hook with happy, qualified, value
oriented customers.
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Believe it or not, some
Yellow Page designers feel
you need lots of "space"
in your
Yellow
Page ad so potential
customers can jot notes
in the margins.
Wow! That's some pretty expensive
note paper.
This is a great example
of a Yellow Page designer
that
doesn't have
a clue.
If your designer's ultimate
goal is to accommodate Yellow
Page shoppers with plenty
of empty space to scribble
notes, you should probably
look
for a new designer.
In reality, people turn
to the Yellow Pages for answers.
Give them what they want.
If a potential customer
needs your business hours,
put them in the ad. Don't
make someone call, just to
find out if you're open.
For
every person that takes
the
time to call, just so they
can jot your business hours
in the margin of your ad,
dozens of others will just
call
one of your
competitors.
Think about it. If 5 people
just called to find
out if you were open, 50-100
people just called
one of your competitors simply
because question #1—"Are
you open?"—was already answered.
Then there are the comparison
shoppers. Perhaps these "space" preaching
Yellow Page designers feel
compelled to accommodate
the price shopper.
You know
the one.
The guy that is
going to dial every ad in
the Yellow
Pages until he finds the
deal that's right for him.
The problem with this "space" strategy
is it fails to confront the
reason these people are calling
around to begin with. They
aren't calling because it's
fun. Or to annoy you, though
it might seem that way at
times.
They are calling because
they can't tell the difference
between you, and any of your
competitors.
Again—people instinctively
look for value. If they can't
distinguish a difference
between two products they
immediately turn to price.
Hence the calls. Hence the "notes".
How do you halt this vicious
cycle? Not by feeding your
potential customers expensive
note paper. You solve the
problem by giving them what
they are looking for in the
first place—a good value.
Once you show them your
company's unique value advantage
Yellow Page callers are
far less concerned about
price and the price shoppers
grow few and far between. |
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