According to a recent study by Borrell, there is a massive small business shift from print to Internet advertising. This is having a devastating affect on both offline yellow pages and newspaper advertisements.
There are two reasons why small local businesses are shifting their advertising dollars online.
- It is more convenient to search online for business resources. The reality is a business web site blows away a static yellow page ad. It is like comparing a Ferrari to an Edsel. A web site is much more dynamic. It is able to offer an endless amount of information and display of graphics and video. Most important, it is interactive.
- The cost to advertise online is considerable less than offline. For example, in another Borrell study the averge cost per 1,000 advertising impressions online was $3.65, it was $9.35 per CPM for the yellow pages.
Consequently, the future is not looking bright for print yellow page directories Over the next 5 years it is projected that the yellow pages will lose $5 billion in annual revenue. However, they will probably survive for a couple of reasons. First, their model can be transferred to the Internet. Of course, it will much more dynamic with the ability to link to business web sites. Second, it is estimate there are 13,000 print yellow page salespeople. These individuals are connected with local business, and have established a degree of trust.
They are in a position to sell a package of both off and online advertisements. In fact, they are in a much better position to reach these local businesses in comparison to the giant search engines like Google and Yahoo.
The battle is currently raging between the search engines and the Internet Yellow Pages for local business advertising. So far, the search engines are winning, but don’t count out the Yellow Pages. If the can transition their business they are in a position to be a major resource online.
