As a law firm, you have probably been solicited by the local Yellow Pages to list in the print version of their telephone book or on their website. If so, you have probably wrestled with whether or not listing in the online or offline versions of the Yellow Pages is what you need to do to promote the legal services that you offer.
Know that if you have wondered, you are not alone.
A lot of discussion has taken place online and within businesses as to what the true value of Yellow Page advertising is. In fact, you can do a simple Google search and find online conversations that have taken place. This can help shed even more light on the debate that has been plaguing the advertising world for a while.
Yes, the Yellow Pages may benefit some types of businesses more than others, but has not always been a premier way to advertise legal services. In fact, there are many other and more effective ways to market a law firm website. These ways are more powerful than a simple ad filled with guarantees that are not backed up with supporting information.
The Cost
One area you are looking at when it comes to advertising in the Yellow Pages is the cost. Every business wants to save money in order to preserve their bottom line. When it comes to cost, the Yellow Pages are right out expensive. In the end, you may be paying a lot of money for something that people overlook. An ad is not like public relations where you can be quoted in the press. You also have a limited amount of space in an ad to talk about what is being offered. This can cause the ad to look like everyone else’s.
For the cost of a Yellow Pages ad or listing, you can reach a much larger audience through other business development tools such as press releases, a website, a blog, and other tools that utilize methods that optimize them for search engines. Rather than getting lost in a sea of lawyers in a book or in a list on the online version of the Yellow Pages, you can stand out in search engine results. Your website can become more noticeable. In fact, think about how you find goods and services on the Internet and apply that to how you market your own business.
Who Is Using The Phonebook Anyway?
In recent years, many telephone companies are making it optional for customers to receive printed directories. The reason is because the Internet has become the source for contact information and most people just place their phonebooks in a drawer somewhere and forget about them.
The Internet is faster than leafing through the pages of the telephone directory and the information tends to be more up-to-date and more in-depth. A person can also acquire more information about a law firm by seeing their website versus making guesses based upon a small ad. The only people really using telephone books are those that don’t have computers or they are simply not yet comfortable enough to use the Internet to find what they are looking for. This population is very small.
Just think of the last time you looked up information in a phonebook. It may have been a while. Then again, it may not have been that long ago. Take a look at your own habits, but also keep in mind that the majority turns to the Internet first for contact details and in-depth information that tells them why they need to utilize the services of a specific business. Everything you do to market your business online works hand-in-hand to give you the exposure you deserve. The Yellow Pages, however, tend to standalone and are hardly utilized when compared to finding information on Google, Bing, or other search engines.
