If I… (Still) Had a Yellow Pages Ad
If I… still had a Yellow Pages ad running, I’d, well, stop immediately. Like, now. Unless you are a tow truck service or a locksmith, stop reading this post and cancel any kind of ad running.
Now.
Whew, now that I think I’ve stopped sweating from the sheer thought of all that wasted money, I can tell you, if you have a Yellow Pages ad, you need to make a change now. Small businesses can fall victim to the lowest common denominator of advertising, but is it effective? Not really anymore. What used to be the single most effective way to showcase your business (and its legitimacy), is now the least efficient. Small business marketing is no longer confined to, limited by or even led by Yellow Pages advertising. When two giant reams Yellow Pages books arrived on my doorstep last week, I couldn’t quite believe it — “People still do this?,” I thought.
Small businesses need marketing budgets, spending that money wisely is vital to survival now more than ever. This isn’t a plea to stop advertising, it’s a plea to stop advertising in Yellow Pages books. Oh, don’t pocket that money so fast; I’ve already got it spent for you.
1. Cancel your Yellow Pages display ad. If you’re in New York or any major city, it’s likely anywhere from $2500- $100,000. I’m guessing it’s more in the $3500 range. If you’re in a smaller city, your display ad is probably running you between $500-$5000. Make sure when you cancel the ad that you ensure that your free listing is still there (you can even do that online at the Ad Solutions site from ATT). This will list your business in the YP directory online and in the book.
2. Run a Google search on your business. What comes up? You’re a small business owner not an SEO or web expert. You are not a marketer and you’ve got zero time to worry about this junk. I know, I know. But watch what happens when I Google my friend’s B&B, The Madison Street Inn, then see what happens when I run a search on Bed & Breakfast in Santa Clara. This should give you a few pieces of information. Where is your small business listed? Who is listing it? Is the information correct? What needs to move to the top of search results? With a little poking around, you can make leaps in your presence online (and in mobile search, of course), by just knowing what your customers are seeing.
3. Get a Yelp account for your business. This is important stuff, I’m telling you. Yelp can do many things for free for your business and some paid things that are great too. The very basics: Get a business account, this part is free and easy to do. Populate your profile well. This means make sure you’ve done your hours of business, photos, contact information, etc. Now, write a special offer or an announcement. I click on the little orange flag all the time when I’m searching for something on Yelp. It means that the small business cares and is actively engaged with me. I like little things like “20 Years in Business and Going Strong!” but I’ll also pick something that says “Mention this Ad and…” These things are free of charge. This is a must-do. Yelp also offers sponsored listings. I am not a fan because I don’t like the way the Yelp sales team bullies clients, but that aside, it’s a smart option for your Yellow Pages dollars.
4. Get a Merchant Circle account. MC is like a CVB and business association all wrapped into one. MC can be big and scary feeling, but try to find pieces of it that work for your business. What can it do for you? It can act as your small business website, if you don’t have one, it’s got a good, solid couponing tool and it’s a good network for reaching out with other small business owners. But, what I like from Merchant Circle is their low cost tools. For the cost of your out-dated Yellow Pages display ad, you can have MC do a lot of the small business marketing for you. They are the master of search results (see tip #1) and even do your Google ads for you.
It is such a shame to take those big yellow bricks and throw them in the trash unopened. It makes me feel for small businesses who are not marketing experts and who have a history of using their limited marketing funds on Yellow Pages ads that cannot yield the targeting, quality and results that can be obtained through using these basic tools. If I… was a Yellow Pages customer I’d know that now is the time to graduate to better marketing opportunities.
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The Scary Thin Line Between Blogging and Journalism
As a very young writer, I had the great honor of working for one of the finest editors in the publishing business. Twice, actually. My first real job outside of selling pantyhouse at Nordstrom was as an intern for Los Angeles Magazine a zillion years ago. The editor, Blue Lew, taught me more than he’ll ever know — but the number one lesson about journalism that I learned was that the line journalism and advertorial shall never, ever, be crossed. True journalists hold the honorable role of being paid to write without the bias of influence from advertisers nor perk-a-lators.
This precious lesson helped me write some terrific advertorial inserts which made me more money than journalism ever did. And that’s okay, because one is based on touting the products of the company that is paying you, the other is reporting on a product, event or thing. See? Not hard to decipher at all when the line is drawn.
There was a table at Los Angeles magazine that was endlessly piled with goodies. The old wood 6-ft banquet table had everything from cosmetics to fancy dog treats, hoards of the latest goods to hit the market. Sometimes it was junk; other time it was backstage passes to the opening of House of Blues. The goodies were free for the taking — just pick up whatever you want. Nobody was expected to write about them, talk about them or hell, even use them for more than white elephant gifts. But what the table wasn’t was a deal between the writers and the PR folks who send them the goods. See, journalists don’t take the crap you send them — at least unless then need to in order to write a story. But bloggers? Many bloggers do. And that’s where the scary line between journalism and blogging comes to play for me.
And it’s not just the bloggers’ issue, it’s the PR execs too. Send you a sample, you give me a write-up. I send you to a show, you give me a raving blog post. You send me a book, I write a review. You give me free downloads for my kids and I tweet it out to my followers. It’s a growing relationship between bloggers and journalists that needs to be addressed. In listening to people speak this week at BlogHer 10, I started to become more clear on the problem at-hand: Many bloggers are advertorialists, not journalists. Although not good or bad, it’s got to be addressed. And beyond that, it’s got to be determined that paid blogging — no matter how you cut it — isn’t journalism. And that’s okay. But it’s got to require transparency.
A seasoned PR exec with a stellar reputation was approached by a blogger who wanted to know why she hadn’t contacted her lately. She asked why she wasn’t commenting on her blog, why she wasn’t returning emails at the drop of a hat. Caught off-guard, she tried to make it clear how valuable the blogger was to her and important to her business. And that’s true. But what the blogger was missing in all of this is that her direct access to this PR exec wasn’t a friendship — it’s a business relationship. Do you think the PR chick is calling up Brad Stone every day for a chit-chat? She calls him, then it means she’s got news or information to share that might be useful for his writing. He takes her call knowing that she’s got business. How are bloggers missing this important piece of business relations? Dear blogger friends, PR executives do not want to be your friend, they are working for their client. It’s not personal. It’s not about you. And no, they’re not reading your every Tweet. PR execs know how to engage a journalist, but why not a blogger?
A few weeks ago I received a direct message on Twitter from a company that had offered me free downloads of their new iPhone app. I never got around to it. Yesterday I get a DM saying, “Taking your word for an older promise to try our (parenting) app on your iPhone.” Excuse me? I gave you my word? My word of what? And what promise would that be? How do I explain that offering writers a product to try is very different than committing to write about it. I think bloggers are mistraining our clients to expect that if we receive products to try that it means they will receive a post in return. The lessons of that old table are so simple and yet so hard to teach.
Advertorial is not a bad thing — it’s a great thing! The lines are very clear: you pay me with product or money and I, in return write a glowing blog post for you hitting all the points of interest that you’d like me to focus on. You pitch me or I pitch you. Great. You offer me a Cannon PIXMA Photojet printer which is worth about $375. How much are my blog posts worth? Well, if I write for BlogHer, they’re worth $50, so that’s either a blog post and social media outreach for $375 worth of your services or you are being over paid. Maybe that doesn’t work for longterm relationships with PR folks. Okay, how about if you loan me the printer and I get to have a photo printing party with some friends. You get to use the printer, print out as many photos as you want with all the supplies paid for. That’s worth about $50-$100. More in range of what we’re talking about here. Now you’ve got a deal. And, you’ve got a story to tell, rather than a simple review. That’s a good advertorial deal for both sides. And, could get you both more traffic and more clients.
I used to be on every PR list known to man. Seriously. Anything that had anything to do with entertainment was in my inbox. Not so much anymore. And that’s fine, I’m not an entertainment writers. It’s not my business. And, shame on the PR person who pitches me because they must be unaware that I no longer do that kind of writing. Recently I got on a PR list for live events for children. Now, that’s interesting to me. Why? Because I blog about my kids and kids lives, because I am always up for an adventure and I rather like cultural stuff. You want to send me tickets? That’s great! I like that, but what’s in it for you, you PR maven, you. Not much unless you have made a deal with me to do so. As your guest and having been “invited” to attend your event, I feel no obligation to write about your show. But the line is funky here too, especially for mom bloggers who could really use activities for their kids and ones that are free? Whoah, that’s hard to turn down. But before you say yes with three exclamation points, I’d suggest making the relationship official and transparent. Think: is this advertorial or is this journalism? And then, proceed accordingly. Neither is wrong, of course. It’s just business.
Transparency is the key here. Decide what it is you are doing and be transparent about it. The way I see it, you have three options (a) be a journalist and use your blog to report things/people/events/thoughts without influence or bias; (b) be an advertorialist and use your blog as paid writing, using your blog as a mechanism to advertise things/people/events. Neither is wrong or less influential. The only wrong turn you can make is to blur the lines. And in doing so, lose trust of your audience. Set expectations, understand your strengths and limitations and understand that being a writer — both advertorial and journalistic — are held to the highest level of integrity.
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Side Gigs
