The High Return of Online Marketing Compared to Yellow Page Advertising

While telephone directory printers still deliver their books door-to-door every year, spending money from your marketing budget to place an ad may not be as effective as it once was. Today, online marketing has taken over as the most cost-effective channel to promote businesses of all sizes: over 80% of people now use keyword and even Online Video search as a primary way to identify vendors of all types. It's true the Yellow Pages will still be around for a while longer, and certainly there are still people who use them, but their days are numbered as more customers search online. Here are some benefits to consider when using an online approach to marketing.





Focus on Your Local Market

Let's assume you're a local dentist. When you look up your regional Yellow Pages, you'll find hundreds of dentists within your city and the surrounding region. So unless you want to invest thousands for a 1/2 page or even more for a full page Ad, your listing will be lost amongst all the others.

Marketing online is a very different prospect in comparison. As you do your keyword research and build a targeted website, the odds of your business website being found during a local Internet search become much higher. Not only can you be found at the top of the organic search results, you'll also have the option to get traffic from paid Ads where you only pay if someone actually clicks on the Ad. You'll also be able to feature your business in other local search sites, like the online directories or Google Places (the map listing inside of Google you've likely seen). Online Video Marketing is rapidly becoming an affordable way to promote your company online.

Return on Investment

Let's be honest, if you switch your marketing investment to creating a more effective online presence, you'll save tens of thousands of dollars every year. Some people pay upwards of $1,500 per year for a small Yellow Pages ad while others are paying $5,000 or more for half-page or full-page advertisements. Of course, without the larger Ad, you run the risk of getting lost amongst all the other listings.

It's certainly true that an effective online presence does require a higher upfront investment as you need to build a website, write marketing copy, set up Social Media profiles and generate e-mail opt-ins. However, once you've made that one-time commitment your ongoing costs will become much less. You will no longer have to pay high yearly advertising fees and you can zero into different areas of specialization without a large investment. With online marketing you can also very accurately track your ROI and use very effective split testing so that you invest only in the successful campaigns.

Retain Your Existing Customers

Yellow Pages advertisements are just that - advertisements. Online Marketing by contrast allows you to interact with your customers in a much more dynamic way, using e-mail campaigns or social media for example. They can opt-in to your email list, comment on your Blog, or email you for more information. In comparison, your Yellow Page Advertisement will not encourage much in the way of ongoing social engagement.

It's all about ROI - determining which marketing methods will bring you the best results without causing you to spend a ton of cash. You'll be amazed at how much more you can accomplish online.

Effective YouTube Marketing

Why is YouTube now one of the most cost-effective strategies for promoting your company? Since more than 80% of consumers are using online search to find businesses, it's essential that you show on the first page of the Search Engine Results. The problem is that it's becoming more and more challenging to get your business positioned at the top of the results since online competition is becoming much more intense.



Google has only lately started to serve YouTube Videos onto the standard search results, it's actually possible to get a cost effective Page 1 ranking quicker than getting a regular website listing to the top of the results. Don't think that the idea of marketing YouTube Videos is too complicated or expensive. figure is continuing to increase! YouTube is now the 2nd largest Search Engine (after Google, of course).

Youtube is an exceptionally effective way to promote your business no matter how large your available budget. This is even more true, since Google has begun to display a small thumbnail image when displaying it's search results. These images on the results page make it even more likely that your prospective customer will click on the YouTube links than the regular webpage results.

Because of this, there is now a potential gap in the market that allows you to get your company video on the first page of the Google results. Because of this, it's much more likely that you will be able to get your video ranked much more quickly than it would take your website to get to the number one page. To show you how popular and successful YouTube for Business has become, it has been shown that 94 of the Top 100 Advertising Agencies have run campaigns on YouTube.

To demonstrate how effective YouTube for Business has become, consider this - Dove's campaign for "Dove Evolution" got more hits from their YouTube Marketing than from running their Super Bowl Ad. Why was this campaign so effective? Many of these hits were produced by the viral nature of these videos, this coupled with the fact that there were many 'homage' videos made in parody. Today, more content is uploaded onto YouTube every 60 days than in the last 60 YEARS on all the major US TV Networks - combined!

Google now offers a greater range for the kind of results you can receive - one of the major options is of course, 'video only' results. As broadband speeds continue to increase, YouTube and Video in general will continue to grow in popularity - and market share! Now is the time to act if you'd like to take advantage of this gap in the market before it becomes too competitive.