Did you know that there are some businesses that should not advertise in the yellow pages, or if they do, they should do so on a very limited basis? It is true and surely if you are in a small or medium business, then you know the value that advertising in the yellow pages can have. At our company, I prohibit my franchisees from advertising in the yellow pages.
Why would a franchise company do that? After all, franchise companies get a percentage of their franchisees’ sales, and therefore the more money they make, the more the franchisor makes, right? Yes, this is true, however we had another reason. Our reasoning stemmed from the fact that they had to stay on custom pooled routes to stay efficient, as our franchisees were in the mobile car and truck wash business. (Carwashguys.com).
When our franchisees advertised in the phone book, well, those calls used to come from everywhere, because of the circulation of the phone books. And our franchisees would try to get more customers from across the city to call. This would cause them to go off track, go off scheduled routes and burn more fuel, labor costs during the trip and therefore make less money in the end.
Of course, for our fleet truck wash services, we always had one to three line listings in red or bold in the yellow pages. You see, unless you have a very good reason not to, then since I know other subsectors and businesses in the industry, it makes sense. In fact, sometimes because of the cost, I think it’s great to trap lawyers for full-page ads and have them pay through the nose (Viking descent?), although Caesar could have had a better idea for lawyers.
Let the lawyers pay for the bigger ads and find someone who can write you a really good ad for your business so it works all year long. Maybe you could consider all this in 2006.