Yellow Page Advertising: How To Test The Effectiveness Of Your Campaign

It seems like every business has at least a small ad in the local yellow page directory

. With the cost of this form of advertising going up every year, it pays to test your return on investment. The question is, how?

Do you track the effectiveness of your advertising campaigns? You probably track the ROI of new equipment purchases, new computerized billing systems, or new employee classifications, but if you're tracking the cost effectiveness of your advertising dollar you're in the minority.

The unfortunate fact is, we often perceive tracking advertising to be more difficult or time consuming than it has to be. You don't have to beg customers to fill out surveys or ask them what their zip code is before you allow them to pay you. Those are invasive and annoying techniques that will not provide you with honest answers.

Instead, try employing a few simple strategies to learn if your print advertising is doing its job.

* Use coupon codes. Who doesn't love to save 10% on their first order? Offer readers of your ads coupon codes and when they use the code you'll know exactly what ad they saw.

* Use unique phone numbers. For a small investment of a second (or third) phone line, you can know which ad brings customers and from where those customers originate. Careful perusal of your phone bills will even tell you if certain ads are more effective in different geographic locations.

* Use different web addresses. Consider buying the .net, .us, or .biz versions of your domain. You can easily redirect visitors to your main site while tracking the exact number of customers who visit you via these gateway sites. Assign each domain to a different ad, and you'll know which one brings in the most traffic.

Know What You're Testing For

Knowing which ad sent a visitor to your site or encouraged her to pick up the phone is important. It's equally important to know why a particular ad had the desired effect, though. You can learn that by changing out specific ad components and carefully monitoring the results.

The two most important elements of any print ad, whether it's a yellow pages ad or a newspaper ad, are the headline and the call to action. Start by designing your ideal ad, then brainstorming several versions of the headline and call to action.

Work up three or more versions of your ad by changing either the headline or the call to action, but never both. Changing more than one element at a time will make it impossible to know what version works best.

Testing Yellow Page Advertising is a Long Process

Of course, since you're tied into a yellow page ad for a year, it can be tough to split test in this venue. What you can do is test various ads of similar size and content in other print forms throughout the year. Then when the time comes to sign that yellow page contract you will have a better idea which ads are most effective.

by: James Belt

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