The Yellow Pages aren't dead yet

I'd just finished designing a half dozen Yellow Pages ads for a client when a timely blog post caught my eye. It was Geoff Wilson at PseudoFish heralding the coming death of the Yellow Pages. While Google Local and other web sites may be taking business away from the offline directories, there are still plenty of reasons for small businesses to continue advertising in their local directories:

Offline Customers

There are, of course, still a great many people who use the internet only occasionally or not at all.  Robert Scoble thinks this will only be an issue for another 20 years, and he may be right, but I know an awful lot of people in their 20's and 30's who rarely even check their email, much less use the internet to find local businesses. Many of these folks will eventually come online, but I suspect it will take more than 20 years for the number of infrequent internet users to shrink so small that they can be disregarded completely.

Offline Businesses

Those of us already online may still find ourselves turning to the Yellow Pages to find local businesses.  It may seem strange to big city dwellers, but in small town America there are still an enormous number of small businesses that have no internet presence at all, while others are just catching on to the need for at least a basic web site and email address.  Here in Sutter Creek (population ~3000), I still need to reach for the yellow pages if I want to find a local plumber or electrician.

Tourists

Some people may shudder at the thought of a week without internet access, but a lot of folks like to stay unplugged while they're on vacation.  And while many hotels now offer internet access, it's not nearly as ubiquitous as that other book that you'll find in nearly every hotel room (not the one that the Gideons put there).  Most of my own Yellow Pages usage comes when I'm away from home, looking to get some food delivered or to call a cab.  Businesses that cater to out-of-towners may never abandon the Yellow Pages, at least as long as every hotel room is stocked with a copy.

Motivated Leads

People who find your business in the yellow pages are actively looking for someone to do business with, and they are ready to make a call. Those who find you via the web may be doing a bit more research on their own before they get in touch.  These are potential customers as well, so you need a web site that satisfies the "researchers," but you can't neglect the people who just want to pick up the phone and talk to you.

Price

Even as more and more consumers turn to the internet to find local businesses, the printed business directories are still one of the cheapest ways to reach local customers. Just try taking your annual budget for Yellow Page ads and put that money instead into an AdWords campaign. You might be disappointed.

Online is still the future...

Yellow page advertising is not going anywhere; it's just too cheap, easy, and accessible for small businesses to ignore. The internet will certainly continue to command a larger share of the market, and businesses will have to adapt to the realities of the online world in order to survive, but that doesn't mean abandoning proven forms of offline advertising.

The yellow pages will not die just because some consumers claim they don't use it. It's going to stick around until businesses stop seeing a return on their ad dollars.