Recognising that directory advertising is different - these proven principals will increase your return on investment

Designing advertisements for Business directories and publications, like the Yellow Pages, require their own set of rules and guidelines to ensure that you are getting the best return on investment. Unlike other publications, directories are designed to be used by people in the market to buy and a single advert lasts the whole year.

Some of the proven rules we follow are:

Bigger adverts get a better response as people perceive that this reflects the success of your business (although a good small advert will out perform a poor big advert).
Colour & graphics play are less significant in generating a response, people using this medium want information, so content is key.
Your headline must telegraph your proposition to the reader as they will scan on average 5 adverts before taking any action - we need them to notice your advert.
It is of paramount importance that you can 'clearly' differentiate your offer from that of the other competition 'on the page' - this will increase the prospect of the reader calling your business (free offers, such as 'how to guides' is one way of achieving this).

Measuring the performance of your advert

By phone: Non-geographic telephone numbers (for example those with a 0870 prefix) which forward on all calls made to your number and in doing so register every enquiry made by telephone, including the time of day and any 'dropped' or 'unanswered calls'. Quiet Storm are able to offer you this service, providing an accurate measure of all telephone enquires generated by your directory advert.

Through your website: Driving readers to your web page will create expectations and your web page must deliver the information they seek. The web address should be unique to the advert enabling all visits to be recorded. When at the web page there should be an offer. Your offer will require they 'complete this web form to receive...' providing you with valuable customer profile information. Quiet Storm can create online landing pages so that you may have an accurate measure of all web traffic and enquires generated by your advert.

Physical evidence: Vouchers or 'present this advert for...' help monitor 'through the door' traffic. This very much depends upon the services or products you offer but is one of the ways you can measure the physical response to your advert.

Prospect list

Anonymous readers have no value - so you need to develop strategies that make readers willingly supply you with information. Every advert can build a prospect list.

Research & testing

Through our extensive research and understanding of what works (and more importantly what doesn't) it is possible to minimise the 'experimentational' element of your directory advert - which is important as it is often a year before the chance will arise to make any changes.

To arrange a no obligation FREE consultation please complete our enquiry form - stating which days and times would be most convenient for us to call you for a brief and informal chat about your requirements.