Advertising in the Phonebook?
Today, advertising in the telephone directory seems anachronistic and quaint. But when I began to practice law many decades ago, it was considered essential.
Because my last name begins with a “B”, I was advantaged over all the lawyers whose names started with “C” or later. Nevertheless, I never found the Yellow Pages to be of value.
Why not? Because even back then, there were hundreds of other lawyers in town, and unless your name was Aaron Aabel or Xavier Zyzygowski, your three lines of tiny print were just so much ink spatter amongst a thousand others. Why would you pay for that?
The solution, according to the telephone book people, was to give them more money. In exchange they would give you a multi-column block of space, larger font, and add some colour. This would cost you more than you could earn from a day in court.
Aside from the garish carnival-look of red and green on yellow newsprint, most such efforts only shrank your competition from several hundred to perhaps seventy-five, just slightly increasing your chance of getting hit by the dart. It also risked turning off some consumers by dint of some truly ugly “artwork”.
My point is simple: if you present yourself as but one choice amongst hundreds, or even dozens, you’re wasting your time and your money. Your odds are about the same as “Pin the Tail on the Donkey”. If your business promotion doesn’t position you as the “one and only”, it’s useless and a waste of your money.
Things haven’t changed much. Today, the equivalent of the Yellow Pages people would be the dime-a-dozen web designers who are happy to take your money to produce yet one more website which looks more or less like everyone else’s. Same deal, same result.
So, what sets your business promotion apart from all the others?